Ask HN: How did you learn to stretch effectively?

Do yoga.

If u are increwasing the intensity/frequency of workouts and experiencing discomfort/pain, sounds like you should slow down that acceleration of your training.

Easy to overtrain and reduce gains.

In Jack Daniels book of running he talks about increasing workout intensity, you should only increase intensity of one variable of your training every 6 weeks, that way you give your body time to adjust to increased stress levels, you know what is/isnt working.

Rather slowly ramp up than try go too fast, get injured, and spend weeks sitting on the couch waiting to heal.

Yoga

In my case, as in the lion's, there was nothing to learn. I stretch as I blink, as I breathe - as I feel, as needed, naturally.

Try the Ashtanga Yoga Primary series [0] - you don't have to do the whole thing, just the first 30-35 mins gives a good stretch.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgtMaAZzW0

DownDog is one of the best apps I've ever come across, and definitely the best stretching app I've encountered having tried many yoga apps on the App Store plus Pliability and GoWod

https://www.downdogapp.com

I created a playlist that tells the strech exercise name and then beeps every 20s. Efective stretch takes between 20-30s and the strength of it should be such that the intensity phases out at the end of the 20s. I did 3x20s for every exercise. My whole routine was approx 20minutes and took me daily for 3 months to achieve the angles that are checked by physio therapist.

I went to a gym and hired a personal trainer for 3 sessions.

I like this stretching routine: https://phrakture.github.io/starting-stretching.html

Interestingly, it's written by Aaron Griffin - the former Arch Linux lead dev.

I highly recommend https://pliability.com/

Daily videos. Not quite yoga. Great for athletes.

DeFranco mobility routines (e.g. agile 8, limber 11) have good exercises.

Just went to gym and they used to have a great stretching teacher. I did not know what is this but if they would call their activity a yoga I never join them because in my mind yoga is some good things plus ideology aplomb. I used to achieve a split in 2 years of very regular trainings and I consider this as the best physical experience I ever had. It made my old legs to bear different kinds of sports like marathon running, boarding, etc. I would never achieve this result without a trainer. For me 4 months was the time when I still was the worst student in group, just keep training. Maybe read a book "stretching russian method".

Do yoga and / or BJJ. Jiu Jitsu is fun and limbered me up so that my back doesn't hurt anymore; I reverse-aged by 10 years.

Also, do yoga practitioners in this thread also have wrist/hand pain when typing? Do they address this differently that general recommendations ie wrist rest, proper desk height.. ?