There is another idea I came across about movement and flexibility that I wanna share with y'all. Again, this is just an idea that's helped me. If an expert out there can explain why this is crap, please do. I won't be offended. The idea goes like this:
Imagine you dropped dead right this second. What would happen to your body? It would get really floppy right? You could probably arrange your limbs in any way you want without them "fighting back" and resisting you. What does that tell us? Could it be telling us that the resistance we feel when we are trying to stretch or improve our range of motion IS NOT from our muscles and ligaments and fascia? If all that stuff is floppy when we are dead, what's keeping it stiff or inflexible while we are still alive? Is it actually our nervous system trying to "protect" us from unfamiliar movement patterns? Every individual muscle fiber in you body is hard wired to your brain. Maybe that wiring and CPU need a software update. Maybe getting that system to accept the new normal is what will allow our joints to move more freely. We need to reprogram our OS to allow the new ranges of motion we are trying to get to. Sounds pretty plausible to me.
With that in mind, Part of my "I'm on the floor trying to move all my joints through their ENTIRE range of motion" practice in the conscious "telling" my nervous system "its ok to go there" while I hold a position. Yeah, sometime I talk out loud to whatever body part I'm working on. "It's ok little hip, you can get that ball socket to be there just fine. Your good!" Yes, It feels like weirdo hippy shit that I will not do in a room full of gym bros staking plates for dates. I don't care. I do this shit at home and I don't usually talk about it much.
Even if you don't wanna talk to your body out loud, having a kind internal dialogue to your body parts should IMHO improve the mind-body connection that I think is really important for a functional healthy body. Full disclosure, a little THC helps all of that feel like a pleasant break from a world that tries hard to grind us into dust. YMMV.
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