Started 20 minutes most mornings about five weeks ago, from a very stiff baseline — sitting cross legged is uncomfortable and my hands reach my knees in a forward fold. I feel looser during the session and completely back to normal by the next morning. Is there a point where the change persists, and roughly how long does that take?
Twenty minutes daily is a good dose. If anything I would swap one of those sessions for something more strength focused — the stiffest people I know got looser from getting stronger, not from more stretching.
Consistent with what changed things for me. Squats did more for my hips than any hip opener sequence ever did.
Measure something specific rather than going by feel. Fingertips to floor distance, or how far up the shin your hands reach, first thing in the morning under the same conditions. Feel is unreliable and it makes people quit at exactly the point where it starts working.
Five weeks in, being stiff again the next morning is entirely expected. What changed first for me was not range at all — it was that the same positions stopped feeling threatening, and the range followed a month or two after that.
@negative_split_nan · 10mo ago · 3 replies
The within-session looseness is mostly nervous system rather than tissue, which is why it resets overnight, and that is completely normal for the first couple of months. Lasting change is slower: most people notice something that persists between sessions somewhere around 8 to 12 weeks of consistent work, and real structural change is measured in months. Two things speed it up in my experience: hold long enough to matter, 90 seconds to two minutes rather than 30 seconds, and add some strength work at the end of your range instead of only stretching, because the body keeps range it can control and gives away range it cannot.
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@visible_stitch_vi · 10mo ago
Five weeks and expecting it to be permanent was probably the mistake then.
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@negative_split_nan · 11mo ago
Not a mistake, just an early check-in. Take a photo of your forward fold today and another in six weeks. The change is invisible day to day and obvious across that gap.
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