“The Worlds Greatest Stretch”

Pretty sure I first heard that term applied to this exercise in this book.

Circa 2005 (and the book was 2-3 years old then).

Fun Fact: Core Performance was the 2nd real “training” book I ever bought. The first was Functional Training for Sports.

Core Performance is a book that, unfortunately, I didn’t recommend for a long time.

It has a really heavy focus on movement, mobility, and “integration”.

At the time I read it I was 22-23ish and bulletproof.

So I was like,

“WTF is all this “movement” about, you gotta smash some weight”.

Well, what I didn’t have was experience, perspective and humility.

1) I should have known, at 23 you don’t know jack sh@t about nothing.

2) Mark Verstegen was training pro athletes the first rule of training pro athletes is

DONT GET THEM HURT.

3) Professional Athletes already produce MASSIVE force through their sport practice, they typically don’t need a program that is primarily focused on high loads.

The program needs to focus on building the structures so they don’t break from the sport, especially at the truly elite levels.

Yes, I’ve used this image before. It bears repeating. 

Point is:

An iteration of this stretch/ move/ contortion was in that book, Core Performance, and it was referred to as

“The Worlds Greatest Stretch”

That said, as you can see there are a lot of moving parts and chances to not do things so hot…

So, while this might be the “Worlds Greatest Stretch” , we’re going to cut some parts out and go with something a little more accessible..

Groiners With Rotation:

Checklist:

• Start in a pushup plank position, shoulders and hips neutral.
• “Open” the hip (knee out) as you reach the foot up.
• Only reach the foot as far towards the hand as you can achieve a FLAT FOOT <—-NOT COLLAPSED. Flat on the floor
• 
• Maintain a neutral pelvis as you drop into the lunge
• Press the outside hand (through the shoulder) into the floor
• Keeping the arm “long” rotate the “closed” arm up keeping the shoulder in the joint and moving through the thoracic spine.

Reach/ Rotate With The Arm on the “Closed” Side

Doing the open side almost ensures you’re totally moving through the lumbar spine…

And that is EXACTLEY THE OPPOSITE EFFECT from what we’re looking for.

Bro Tips:

• Make sure you can do the prerequisites first
  • Quadruped Thoracic Rotations: Moving through the thoracic and not lumbar spine.

• Pushup Plank: Neutral shoulders and hips

• Groiners: Open, external rotation of the femur, the hip

• Your feet DO NOT need to make it up to the hands. Just as far as you can get the foot flat and the knee “open”
• Chest up, if you’re rounded through the thoracic, you’re not rotating though it.

PS: I do a really bad thing in some of these…..

As you rotate, FOLLOW THE HAND OF THE TOP ARM WTH YOUR EYE/ HEAD.

Seriously, if you watch your hand you’ll tend not to OVER-ROTATE and either drive the down humerus forward in the joint or over reach with the top arm which drives the humerus forward too.