Hyperbolic Stretching
Hyperbolic stretching is a new type of stretching from Alex Larsson. It’s been getting a lot of coverage lately on various websites, but it’s also been met with skeptics. Let’s review the facts and help you understand both sides better.
What Exactly Is Hyperbolic Stretching?
According to the official website, hyperbolic stretching is a new type of stretching that focuses on the tendons and ligaments to improve flexibility.
The basis behind Hyperbolic stretching “is based upon the discovery that, contrary to what was previously thought, tendons and ligaments are not rigid tissues but actually very elastic.”
Main Points of Hyperbolic Stretching Technique
- 4 pieces of training a week
- Duration – 1-month minimum
- The time you need – around 8 minutes a day
- Available for any age
- There are two separate programs for men and women. According to the program, and some old research, it is believed that there are differences between stretching and its effectiveness for women and men. Therefore, the programs have been chosen with these features in mind.
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- The program includes 21 exercise videos.
How Much Does It Cost?
You’ll get lifetime access to video workouts for only $27. No additional fees or commissions.
Hyperbolic Stretching Review
The program consists of six different content blocks.
- Complete side splits video series. This part of the course explains how to stretch for the most difficult splits. The videos will help you relax and open your hips to maximize your performance.
- Complete front splits video series. This is where you work on stretching the hamstrings and hip flexors.
- Dynamic flexibility and stretching. Dynamic stretching is useful for athletes and dancers because it helps increase the range of motion and speed of movement of the legs.
- Complete upper body stretching. The flexibility of the shoulders, chest, arm muscles, and upper back is just as important as the flexibility of the lower body. This video segment will tell you how to do it more effectively.
- Pike mastery & front bending. The important part of quality stretching is to work on the lower back and the back of the thighs. The girdle, glutes, and hamstrings require a special approach. But as a result of stretching them, you will be able to fully bend over your legs and reach positions that you could not achieve before.
- Easy bridge & back bending. This video unit will help strengthen your shoulder and abdominal muscles so you can easily do the bridge.
How Does Hyperbolic Stretching Work?
According to hyperbolic’s official website, the method of stretching is designed to improve flexibility by slowly-but-surely elongating muscle/tendon tissues, increasing their elasticity before trying to lengthen them. This prevents injuries and helps muscles get back into shape faster.
It does this through a three-step process:
- Slow Tissue Preload: This step involves a slow tensing of the muscle before extending it to its full length. Through a series of controlled repetitions, you slowly work up to lengthening your muscles so they can be stretched comfortably.Hyperbolic stretching uses this technique in conjunction with what is called “polarized stretching.” This means that during the elongation, you minimize the muscle’s cross-sectional area by pulling the muscle and cutaneous ligaments apart.
- Active Extension: In this step, you use a controlled force to slowly increase your extended length until you reach (and hold) your maximum natural range of motion. This dissipates any tension developed during stretching that was not released through slow tissue preload.This is the main reason why hyperbolic stretch advocates recommend doing this type of stretching at least four times a week for 8 minutes each time.
- Muscle Relaxation: Once your muscles are totally elongated, they’re maintained at their maximum length by contracting your antagonist’s muscles. Since the effects of relaxation occur much faster than other stretching methods, this step is very important for hyperbolic stretching. The best way to do this would be through proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretch because it allows you to contract and relax specific muscle groups in order to further extend your range of motion.Hyperbolic stretching also uses a technique called “active pause elongation,” a slower version of the active extension that may well be the most important aspect of this type of stretching. This enables your muscle to focus on its elastic capabilities as you gradually increase your flexibility.The creator, Alex Larsson, believes that if done right, there’s no limit to how flexible you can become.
Interested? Take a look here at the official site.
Who Is Alex Larsson?
He is professional flexibility and core strength expert as well as a specialist in hyperbolic stretching.
He began experimenting with his technique after he had a complete neuro-muscular shutdown in his lower back, hips, and thighs. His mobility was so restricted that he couldn’t even stand up from his chair. He realized that most stretching programs were ineffective in achieving long-term flexibility and decided to do something about it after researching tendon elasticity and the physiology of lengthening muscles during a stretch. He spent years researching the science of stretching, exercise, and physical fitness in order to recover from this event.
What Are The Benefits of Hyperbolic Stretching?
According to the hyperbolicstretching.com, there are several benefits to using their technique:
- Maximum Range of Motion: The goal of every stretch should be full range of motion (ROM) in all directions. Hyperbolic stretching is believed to maximize your body’s natural ROM because it encompasses the entire tendon and not just the muscle itself.
- Injury Prevention: Since the idea is to elongate tissues over time, you can minimize injuries before they even happen because you are conditioning yourself for upcoming activities that may involve strenuous movement or awkward postures.
- Correct Posture: This method works best if it’s done immediately after a workout routine, which is why it’s considered a recovery method. It helps to restore your normal posture by lengthening the connective tissue throughout your entire body, especially in the lower back and neck regions.
- Less Stress On Joints: This type of stretching is very helpful because you are not overloading any one joint while trying to stretch muscles that are connected to that joint.
- It’s A More Efficient Way of Stretching: Many people don’t realize that stretching during a workout can actually reduce your performance and may cause you to feel sore the next day as well as weak muscles. Hyperbolic stretching, on the other hand, reduces these effects because it increases flexibility with less effort.
- Enhance the dancing skills and dynamic elasticity – a key for a professional dancer. Therefore, effective stretching that is affordable and takes a little time becomes a great option for dancers who are practicing anyway.
- It improves the blood circulation throughout your entire body, which is beneficial in so many ways including better sleep quality and reduced soreness after workouts.
- Beyond that, it’s a well-known fact that stretching before an intense workout is beneficial to your performance so you can consider using this type of stretching as part of your warmup routine if you want to reduce the risk of injury and increase ROM.
- The main reason why people love to use the hyperbolic stretching technique is that there are many ways to customize it, depending on your ability level. You can also change the positioning of your body so that you’ll feel less tension in certain areas.
- Back relief and decompression. Hyperbolic stretching is a great way to stretch and release your body’s pressure points. Stretching is vitally important for your body, but most people only stretch the largest muscle groups without ever considering all of their connective tissue. Hyperbolic stretching covers this by attacking muscles fibers with everything from lengthening to relaxation. The technique has even been shown to be helpful for people who suffer from chronic back pain or compressed discs in their spine!
Who Should do Hyperbolic Stretching?
This technique is ideal for people of all ages, especially those who are more active or have some sort of injury because it will allow them to recover faster. People who use this type of stretching are usually athletes, dancers, yoga enthusiasts, crossfitters, martial artists, and anyone else who wants an efficient way to improve flexibility.
Most people who try this type of stretching for the first time do it as a part of a physical therapy process because, unlike comparative exercises, hyperbolic stretching is believed to increase your ROM by an average of 12% compared to other methods.
The only limitation is that you’ll have to be patient in order to experience its full benefits because it takes a while to complete the exercises. However, you can test out this technique by doing a few of the stretches in your free time and seeing if you notice any changes in your flexibility levels.
You will need to be disciplined and do the stretches consistently if you want to experience the best results.
How Do You Use Hyperbolic Stretching?
It’s pretty easy to use this technique; all you have to do is stretch in the following manner, paying attention to proper form and breathing patterns.
You can use this method as your primary method of stretching. However, if you expect to lose weight or burn calories with these workouts, you should add hyperbolic stretching as a supplement to strength or other core workouts.
Athletes, dancers, and yogis use hyperbolic stretching as an adjunct to their core skills.
The Bottom Line
If you’re an athlete or anyone else who wants to increase flexibility while reducing the risk of injury, hyperbolic stretching is a good option for you because it’s known to reduce soreness and joint pain. The different positions that you’ll be in during these stretches will allow you to target problem areas that other exercises don’t address. If you love yoga, this is a great alternative because you can combine the breathing techniques from both practices for even more effective results.
It might take a while for you to achieve your desired results, but it’s totally worth it because this type of stretching is a proven method of increasing flexibility and range of motion. If you’re not a fan of long workouts, that’s OK because you can do hyperbolic stretching for around 8 minutes at least 4 times a week during a month and you’ll see the great results anyway.
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Professional Dancer, Dance coach. Favorite dance style – Pole Dance. Favorite Move – Sword Simakhina. A graduate of Saint Marys. Former Chief Editor and Owner of DanceBibles.com