Stiffness

[Zeld]

Hey everyone.

I’m writing this thread for some help. From as long as I remember I had problems with my muscles. I am very stiff. Even as a child when I was training karate I wasn’t able to do a lot of stretching. Now as a 20 year old guy I’m still not satisfied with my abilities. I figured maybe by training yoga I can finally break some sort of barrier and start to feel better about my body.

I wanted to ask what sort of techniques (especially for beginners) can I use to help me with this problem?

Cheers

[Aaron]

I’m going to give the obvious answer and say just stretch regularly for a week or so and see if it improves. Chances are it will.

Other possibilities are stress and diet issues which would require relaxation (or removal of stressful stimulus) and improved diet.

[Sasha]

First of all, do your exercises in the evening. Thats when muscles are really fit for stretching. So, relax your body sitting in your favourite posture (Vajrasana as an example). You may also warm up by doing light dynamic moves for every group of muscles. Few years ago I have been taking a hot shower each time before strething, its suitable too.
All of mentioned above protects you from painful feelings and injures and gives an opportunity to go further (stretch better), achieving ideal in asanas.