Flexibility
and the Warrior - II
Since 05-26-08
Cold War Scout
This piece
is intended as a follow-up to
Flexibility and the Warrior
- I, which was an effort to impress upon those in
the Warrior Talk milieu the importance of flexibility as a
component of their conditioning and warrior skills set.
For 20 of my
25 years in law enforcement I was required to take a
physical fitness test every 6 months (more or less). I
could always ace the pushups, sit-ups, and generally did
reasonably well on the 1 ½ mile run and the body composition
(calipers) test. But the flexibility test was always
something I never got better than a ‘fair’ rating on. Like
most manly men, or at least I imagined myself to be, I
scoffed at the importance of flexibility as part of the
fitness equation. After all I lifted weights and I ran. I
didn’t need no stinkin’ flexibility. That was for girls and
less than manly men.
And over the
years I watched as my ability to perform this conceptually
simple flexibility test (more to come on this) continued to
decline. The only reason I never made it to the poor/”you
suck” category was because as I aged the standards of
performance dropped in my favor so that I was always
treading water in the fair category.
I started
realizing, as I observed in myself and my associates, how as
we got older we would find ourselves afflicted by
debilitating pains and injuries that seemed to spring out of
nowhere and were more performance undermining than one would
have imagined. I hurt my back lifting. One time I was in
the shower and when I reached around to my back pulled a
muscle so bad that I could not lift my hand to my head for 3
days to even comb my hair. In 2002 I blew out my calf
(“tennis leg”) simply springing off one foot in an uphill
direction while walking the dog. It was during the physical
therapy for this injury that the physical therapist finally
turned the light on for me as it regards the topic of
flexibility. He told me that I was doing great work in the
areas of weight lifting and jogging, but that I had
completely omitted flexibility as a component of my training
and as I got older in years and my muscles and connective
tissue got less pliant, I was starting to pay the price for
that neglect. It was from that moment on I endeavored to
start enhancing my flexibility to at least a level where I
would not lose any more of it. And while I won’t make any
claims to having become remotely close to SonnyP or Ashley
Weakley, I have managed to maintain and it has been a huge
factor in helping me perform reasonably well in combatives
training, as well as simple activities of daily living.
There are
probably as many different flexibility tests as there are
variations of Pop Tarts. But if you want to get a good idea
of where you stand right now, at home as far as your
flexibility goes, there are 3 basic tests you can administer
to yourself that will hopefully: 1) reinforce the reality
that your flexibility is at a respectable level (whether you
are making that happen because of youth or training); 2)
make it painfully aware to you that your flexibility is
severely lacking and that; 3) you need to do something about
it.
The 3 tests
I have in mind to present measure the aspects of: trunk
extension (in other words your lower back for all practical
purposes), shoulder flexibility, and hamstring flexibility.
They can each be done at home with minimal equipment and
probably no more help than that of a spouse or kid to make a
slight measurement.
Shoulder
flexibility
This is not
a rocket science test and we have all probably done this
before, playing around if nothing else. But it measures the
all important area of flexibility in your shoulder girdle
area. The shoulder is the most flexible joint in the human
body and it takes a variety of separate components to make
that all happen (to wit the shoulder ball and socket joint
and the scapulae).
From a
standing position:
- raise one
arm up in the air
- now bend
this arm downwards at the elbow behind your back in such a
way that the hand comes to rest palm down between your
shoulder blades.
- now take
your other hand, reach around behind your back palm out, and
try to touch the first hand.
It’s that
simple. And so are the results:
Good: your
fingers can touch
Fair: your
fingertips are less than 2 inches apart
Poor: your
fingertips are more than 2 inches apart.
* NEXT: THE FLEXIBILITY TESTS FOR TRUNK EXTENSION AND
HAMSTRINGS*
__________________
Gabe Suarez
Suarez International USA, Inc.
One Source Tactical
info@suarezinternational.com
Office
928-776-4492
Spaniard by
Heritage
Cuban by Birth
Christian by
Grace
American by
Choice