Hello, just a quick question.
I am fairly fit but not flexible I cannot achieve MahaMudra at all, I cannot touch my toes or perform the plow or reach arms in cow face pose.
Does anyone have any advice on how to increase flexibility? Foods? Anything else? Etc?
Or are we to just keep practicing?
Love and light.
xx
Check out PNF stretching, or aka isometric stretching. Pavel Psatsouline or Thomas Kurz are good, the former being expensive though. Google searching will probably get you the information you need.
Basically sit in your stretch i.e. seated, one-legged hamstring stretch. Stretch as comfortably as possible then gradually tense the leg for about 10-30 seconds. Release and relax and at the same time strech forward while breathing out (Although you are breathing normally throughout the exercise!). Repeat until you get bored. Do this about 2-3 times a week. You can do normal stretches on your off days if you like, but its not necessary. If you do you might need to spend 10 mins, or more in the stretch. You are waiting for the muscle to relax from the tension. The thing to look out for in this stretch is to keep your back straight not the hunch forward, as many people do. You want to be stretching your hamstring not your lower back! Therefore look forward at the foot you are stretching, and try to touch your nose to your toes.
I have found it far more effective than static stretching. Nearly in both splits after 2 months.
Its your nervous system that stops your range of motion - not tight muscles, as previously thought. For example a patient knocked out on an operating table has full range of motion whereas conscious they do not. Another factor is that if your muscles are weak then your nervous system kicks in and inhibits the muscles from extending to their full range of motion. So by doing the pnf stretches you are strengthening the muscles. Very clever!
Coffee does not help, so avoid before training, and keep well hydrated. Also according to Kurz cycling tightens your hips up, so it is counter productive if you are wanting to achieve the side split.
Good Luck! You’ll be like Jean Claude Van Damme in no time.
I recommend:
“Yogabody Handbook” by Lucas Rockwood it’s $34.
http://www.yogabodynaturals.com/store
A series of gravity assisted poses. You do a different set each day of the work week. Very good stuff, and not too hard.
Also look locally and see if you have teachers for aerial dance or circus. Sometimes they have a contortion trainer. I found one where I live and he has very good stretches that aren’t hard to do. They are the pre-cursor for contortion, but would be excellent for yoga because they are based on knowledge of how the body moves naturally, and specific points to enhance range of motion.
Just keep practicing 
Love!
Toxic and change of diet (raw living food, a lot of green and fruits) helps a lot.
I agree with what yogabodynatural
Woosa, that is interesting information.
Can you provide any links to studies or other sources so that i could read further?
cut the meat…and keep on practising…
but remember the following:yoga practice is much more than sucess in the physical asanas…
you are NOT the body…even if your asana is a “failure” cultivate inner awarness…
good luck
maheswari
Hi tonight
I would say they best I have read is Pavel Tsatsouline’s ‘Relax into Stretch’. Although it is expensive.
Tom Kurz’s ‘Stretching Scientifically’ is more like a textbook for sport students. But it has a few variations.
Try these:
http://www.flashmavi.com/stretching_pnf_stretching_proprioceptive_neuromuscular_facilitation.shtml - This one has pictures!
and this one
http://people.bath.ac.uk/masrjb/Stretch/stretching_4.html#SEC36
Hope this helps!
Although I still do the PNFs. It is is not a nice as doing a flow of Asanas. As it is quite painful at times, but strangely I enjoy it. I must be a bit of a masochist. 
Just keep practicing, the nervous system eventually lets go of old tension and you’ll be able to go deeper within a pose. Expensive books are not necessarily the answer, just practice by generating heat with vinyasa and proper breathing. Then take it 1 day at a time with respect to your body and never ignore the physical alignment.
At first, I could not do headstand or shoulderstand for more than 5 mins. but now I can go above 30 and all my previous poses have deepened a bit as well and they’re more relaxing!
Vibration helps a lot. Go into a pose where the muscle is very tight, and apply vibration and heat. There are vibrators the size of your hand that strap on to your hand, “Oster Stim-u-lax”, and there are others that are on a handle and have heat too. Or your health club might have a big plate vibrator; you can’t move that kind. This is new technology for exercise also, but works well for releasing muscles. It causes them to tense and relax at a higher frequency than you can do on your own.
thanks woosa i will check out the links.
however, what i had meant is that do you have more information concerning your claim about flexibility being entirely a product of the nervous system?
It is well known. You can prove it yourself: stand next to a table and put one leg on the table. This proves you have the ability to do full splits already, because there are no muscles or tendons that cross from one side to the other.
The body is trying to protect itself. Some say your body won’t let you do full splits because the adductors aren’t strong enough to pull the legs back in quickly. Others say it is psychological or groin protection, but it can be learned over time. Same thing with other stretches. If you RELAX into them creating pressure, but not pain, you will do them eventually.
But extend and lengthen your body at the same time. For instance, if your shoulders are shrugged, it restricts a nerve that runs over your elbow and you can’t pull your arms behind you very far. But with shoulders down and arms extended, you can.
Yin yoga by Paul Griley and insight yoga/yin yang yoga with Sarah Powers are great for this. THe point being that teh stretches are always five minutes or longer and you only relax into the elongation you do not feel much or any discomfort while stretching. THis is supposed to give quicker results than regular yoga stretches and be healthier as well. I love the book by powers. Grileys is nice too.
if it’s well known then i need to alert the medical, phsiotherapy and sports medicine fields because they don’t know it!
Well it’s not entirely the nervous system. It also involves joint structure and surrounding tissue, and most
importantly muscle length. But your brain and nervous system hold you back from many positions that your body is capable of easily doing like splits.
Hi
From reading from those two books they do believe that it is to do with the nervous system. It’s all about the Golgi Tendon!
Also someone can train to kick so high that they are doing the splits, but if that same person sits and tries to do the splits they can not. The former is dynamic flexibility, the latter static flexibility.
So for instance a Yogi who is super flexible might not be very good at a spinning roundhouse kick to someones head. But I supposed it is just as well with Ahimsa!
I am guessing the nervous system is the gulity party in all this. But I don’t know anything about sports physiology, or whatever all that stuff goes by. And I don’t much care either!
I’m not bothered if its to do with my nervous system, or Daffy Duck’s beak to be honest. As long as it works!
Woosa-
this is probably your forum and not mine.
but is it absolutely necessary to make a statement about a roundhouse kick to someones head?
gee, if I thought you were referring to me- it would make me feel pretty sad/upset…
I was only joking!
The hypothetical yogi in the post is too short to kick someone in the head anyhow. He would have to kick 'em in the ghoulies. 
good–joking can be helpful. sometimes I read into things so seriously and it was like I was visually seeing you roundhouse my head…
or wanting too…
I am not trying to control what you write or want to express…
making assumptions on what someone is trying to express can lead into problems…for me…
working on my own flexibility—but in a different way.
Hi,
I’ve had good results with increasing flexibility as a byproduct of in-depth experiential psychotherapy. Huge amounts of accumulated stress were rather dramatically released from my muscles and joints in a series of Holotropic breathwork sessions, leading to a considerable increase of overall flexibility. This was the beginning of my love affair with asana practice.