Flexibility is the ability to access a range of motion. Mobility is the ability to access a range of motion with stability throughout that whole range of motion including, most importantly, the end.

Creating more range of motion for the sake of creating more range of motion is not something we should typically strive for. Because more range of motion without the ability to stabilize it, leaves us more vulnerable to injury or joint issues.

We need to be able to stabilize our range of motion, in other words creating mobility with end range stability.

One is that we are more likely to sustain an injury, either through an incident or an overuse injury when we dont have healthy ranges of motion.

The second is that we do not get all the benefits of our training or our workouts when we cannot complete full ranges of motion. Whether that is training is for fat loss, performance, moving better and anything in between.

And the last is the ability to keep a joint healthy. As of now, the only scientifically proven way we know how to keep a joint healthy is to consistently move it through a pain-free range of motion.

More mobility is not better, per se. Ranges of motion are going to be individual to each person but there is definitely a middle ground between less than optimal and more than optimal.

People tend to acknowledge that less than optimal mobility is an issue and it is. 

But more than optimal is often ignored. The problem arises here when there is too many range of motion and flexibility but not enough stability. Movement wise we categorize this as hypermobility aka too much mobility. In this case, there is a lot of stability, which is problematic.

Similarly problematic comparing to lacking mobility, just on the other end of the spectrum. Both of them need addressed for optimal function and injury prevention. More isn't better, better is better.

The following is an interesting example. The first (Chase) is an example of less than average mobility on this exercise. The second (London Danny) is average or a little above average, but needs stability to prevent the cramping, which tends to happen. (He was a little dramatic ;) ) and the third (Tiki) is an example of hypermobile range of motion in which we would work on controlling range of motion / flexibility / mobility with end range stability.

When people take Kinstretch for the first time, we hear quite often, "I thought stretching was supposed to be easy." In which we reply, whoever told you that was mistaken. As with anything, if it is going to be effective enough to make a positive change, it is going to require some effort and not necessarily be easy.

This is absolutely not to say it should hurt or that is has to be crazy hard, because it absolutely should not be either of those things. But there should be effort involved. This myth started from the yoga world and the benefits of meditation, which sometimes get confused with the benefits of yoga.

Meditation is amazing. There is a lot of research on its benefits and it should be in everyone's daily activities. But what meditation isn't, is exercise. When we exercise we have to put in individualized effort and when we meditate we need to learn to relax, and those are different.

This is a tricky one because we are not "anti-yoga" by any means. It falls into the same as most fitness practices / movement practices in that there are good yoga teachers and there are ones who arent so good. And there are people it is good for and people it is not so good for.

The confusion comes from that fact that most people see yoga as a mobility practice when it is actually a fitness or movement practice (exercise practice). It is how people workout or train movement or exercise, not how they increase mobility.

Kinstretch is a mobility practice that improves people's fitness or movement practices like we talked about above. This is why we have a lot of clients who take Kinstretch in order to get better at doing yoga (or crossfit or any other exercise / fitness / movement practice). It improves how we exercise and gives us the ability to do that exercise better. That is where yoga does not.

This is probably the most popular question we get about Kinstretch and the answer is absolutely not. But it makes sense because you do have to have a requisite above average amount of flexibility for a lot of yoga practices.

Since the goal on Kinstretch is improvement and progress on your particular joints and movement and not specific poses and positions, all levels of flexibility are appropriate and specific to the individual.

No flexibility, below average flexibility, average flexibility, above average flexibility, far too much flexibility - it tackles them all appropriately and individually.

Warm Up was not filmed...

30-40 minute sessions sped up to 1-2 minutes