To do the best you can at anything you have to have some measure of relaxation within that. To punch as quickly as you can, there needs to be relaxation in much of the movement. But it has to be measured and precise in which muscles are relaxed and which are not. The fist itself, for instance, needs to be very tight before it hits the target. Pretty obvious, right? Otherwise you’ll break your hand. All the muscles must be relaxed before the explosion of movement that pushes the fist towards the target. But the explosion itself is not relaxed. By definition it’s a very forceful explosion of movement. Most of the arm cannot be tight within the movement going out to the target. It has to be relaxed. So you see there is a certain timing to tightening up the muscles and certain muscles are tight at certain times.
Relaxation becomes even more important in stretching. Stretching is very important. Do not sacrifice your stretching. Sports physiologists that I have been most impressed with describe it as relaxing into the stretch. There is a very good book by that name. On your way into the deepest stretch you have to strive to relax the muscles. Yes it is uncomfortable and yes they will want to fight back. But to get the most out of the stretch you have to relax. In getting out of the stretch, you do not use the stretched muscles to force yourself out of the stretched position. You have to release those stressed muscles out of their stretched position first with some other part of the body and then you can use them to get yourself back into a normal position. Otherwise you risk tearing a muscle. You can build strength and power in the stretch position but I’ll leave that topic for another discussion.
The other day a student was working on a balancing exercise. The student remarked how easy it became to balance when the student relaxed. This is partly because the body can then move in subtle ways quickly to be able to compensate for any imbalance.
So there you have it. If you want to improve your movement, your balance, and your stretch – relax.
And now, by the same man (Pavel Tsatsouline) who brought us Relax into Stretching, we also have: Forced Relaxation!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQshodjcrFw
Books: http://www.dragondoor.com/dv007/
Yes. This is one of the techniques I was alluding to when I said you can build power and strength in the stretch, although this technique is really more about making the stretch deeper.
Pavel has two main categories of more advanced teachings about the stretch. One is the forced relaxation, which involves tightening your muscles for a minute while in the stretch and then relaxing them, and in the moment afterwords letting your stretch go a little deeper. I’ll show it in class. The other is using strength exercises such as bodyweight and plyometrics while you’re in the stretch to strengthen your muscles in those positions. I’ve used all of these techniques. They work very well. But they should be attempted in order. First, get good at relaxing into the stretch. then attempt forced relaxation and after getting good at that you can work on strength in the stretched positions.