When you make it day 50 of the flexibility challenge, a celebration is much needed! Pat yourself on the back for committing to your routine and learning more and more about your body each session.
By day 50 you should be comfortable with your warmup and dynamic stretching routine. You will have found that if you skimp on either, your poses suffer. I do it too, sometimes I just don’t have enough time to do all the dynamic stretches, I rush into my static stretches and poses and I realize I’m worse than before, but that’s only because I’m rushing. Patience is a virtue.
Hopefully by learning your weaknesses you have corrected your form and are practicing properly for your body type. If you haven’t yet start asking people in the community how you can correct you posture so from here on out you are practicing with good form.
My biggest lesson this week was to create space in my hip flexors. To do this I need to tuck my pelvis under and lift my lower back high, instead of hinging at the lower back which is common. I also learned I need to strengthen my hamstrings, as they have now become too flexible. Balance, balance, balance.
Halfway through the challenge and I have noticed some major changes in my quads and shoulders. To the untrained eye it may not look like much, but I know how hard I have worked to balance out strength and flexibility.
Progress
Day 50
Okay so I can touch my foot to my head with gravity, leverage, or outside force, but it is by no means effortless. The goal of this week was to work on bringing my foot to my head with just my muscles. I still have much loosening in the hips and quads, as well as strengthening in the hamstring to make this happen. Just knowing what I need to do is half the battle. Now it’s a matter of being dedicated to making it happen.
My middle split takes about 4 sets of 30 seconds to get to where I was in the picture below. One day I really hope to have a full middle split cold, I have dreamed of this, but the only way to get there is to continuing sitting in this dreadful pose.
Day 51
Another day dedicated to unassisted stretching to see where my muscles were. I focused on balancing my muscles as I bent backwards in a lunge to touch my foot to my head. My hamstring was still not strong enough. My upper back also needs help engaging.
I will continue to be amazed at how much strength is needed for contortion flexibility!
Day 52
I took a break from stretching, made sure to eat plenty of greens and drank a bunch of water for a fast recovery.
Day 53
Day 53 was a long day at the studio teaching and practicing. I had some help from a fellow instructor on opening my hips while in a lunge and split. I have a lot of lengthening and strengthening to do in my lower back as well. I have com to the realization that basically I just need to work on every single body part consistently and forever lol.
Even after my big discovery of a never ending bodily tug of war, I still managed to make gains. The most notable was in my forearm bridge, hurray I can now touch my feet flat on the ground for a second! Now to just breath relax and hold it for 30 seconds!
I fueled myself for 5 hours with 1 quart of warrior greens with water, 1 qt flexibility tea, 1 qt water, and cup of walnuts, cashews and raisins.
I also had some strawberries I dried in the dehydrator for snacks all week.
Day 54 & 55
Rest, well sorta. I enjoyed myself over the memorial day weekend with nature hikes, friends, food, and community events.
Day 56
Another long day at the studio teaching and practicing. I worked on a few new pole tricks that were really fun and stretched splits. I was actually pretty tired after pole dancing so my stretch session for the day was not up to par.
All in all it was a good week, I looked back on my halfway pics from last year and keep inspiring myself to continue. My progress is definitely noticeable but I would have no idea if I didn’t have my progress pictures.
Cheers to the second half of the challenge!
