Q: “I hear about a stretch called “the World’s Best Stretch.” What is it, and what makes it so great?
A: I’ve seen two versions of “the world’s best stretch,” and both are like a turduckin (a layered meat dish where you have a chicken inside of a duck that is inside of a turkey). The claim is that this one stretch will give you the benefits of multiple other stretches combined. That is true in the same way a turduckin will give you the flavors of a chicken, duck and turkey. “The world’s greatest stretch” will give you the benefits of 3 stretchers because it is 3 stretches.
The claim of 1 stretch giving you the benefits of multiple stretches implies that it is more time efficient, but reality says that the time you take to do 3 stretches is the time it takes to do 3 stretches even if you call them 1 name. There’s a chance the 3 stretches can take longer when given 1 name because we’ve found adults have a surprising ability to forget what they’re doing when it has too many steps.
Next Level: The Universe’s Best Stretch
Some people call this the Universe’s Best Stretch instead of the World’s Best Stretch, but I prefer the less cumbersome cossak-elephant-worm-pigeon-calf-dog-sprinkler-stretch. This gets all of your joints in 1 move.
You simply start with a Cossak squat to get your hips moving laterally, then start an inchworm. Pause on the inchworm in up dog so you can do your elephant wiggles then calf raises. Now walk that inchworm out all the way, and drop into an up dog. Keeping the menagerie going we do a left sides pigeon (or swan if you prefer alternative to a flying rat), then a right side pigeon.
Pop up from the pigeon into a plank and get into a spider woman with right foot forward, and then you turn into a sprinkler with your right hand on your right ear. Now spider and sprinkle (2 S’s of success) on the left. Lastly walk back up to standing. This is 1 rep. Just 9 to go and you’re done warming up… unless you forget something.
In all seriousness, all of the above would be great ideas, but, in general, they’re a lot easier to do well (or remember, or count) when they are separated. It’s also much easier to devise a workaround for something that doesn’t agree with your body when the moves are separated. For example, for many women with knee pain the pigeon is a good in theory (working on hip rotator mobility), but in practice the pigeon just hurts their knees more. We’ve found that the “dead pigeon” (a boring name is the figure 4) works about 90% of the time when the living pigeon doesn’t work.
Additionally, anyone with wrist or hand pain wouldn’t really enjoy spending that much time walking around on their hands and wrists as is necessary for the combination above. Breaking the individual moves out allows us to both introduce an appropriate amount of stimulus for the hands and wrists, and to hit our intended target (hips, calfs, etc) without overloading the hands and wrists. (Here are some alternatives if you have wrist issues, trouble getting up and down off the floor, and nearly anything else.)
Nitpicking on Stretching
One thing The World’s Greatest Stretch has going for it, is that it is dynamic, or moving, instead of static (like holding a stretch). I am not saying that holding stretches is “bad,” it’s not, and we use static stretching daily. What I am saying is that static stretching is only a part of flexibility training, and that dynamic movement and strength training are often overlooked. What I am also saying is that not moving makes us stiff, so even walking for a few minutes is a great way to loosen up your lower body (and much more).
Beyond walking, pretty much all strength training exercises should improve (or maintain) your flexibility if you use a challenging range of motion… in other words, there should be something that feels a bit like a stretch at some point. For example, within reason, squatting lower lengthens (and strengthens) most of the muscles around your hips and knees. Yes, that extra range of motion makes most exercises much harder, but that’s not a bad thing at all.
Bottom Line on the World’s Best Stretch
The rebranded and truncated sun salutation (aka the worlds greatest stretch) is motion, and motion is lotion… in other words, it’s a good thing to get your joints moving very often.
