Your Arms Are Your Secret Weapon for Achieving Splits Say what? Splits are all about the legs, no? Technically yes. But the process to get your legs to split apart all the way, depends on your arms! Most people get stuck at a certain point which renders them unable to complete their splits. For some, it can be anatomically not feasible. But for most, it's the lack of technique that prevents them from going farther. Splits are just that – split. So, both legs need to pull apart equally. That means keeping them straight all the way down and resisting the urge to twist at the hips ..read more

How Often Should I Stretch? The most common question we get is from people who want to know why they don’t see improvement in their flexibility even though they stretch, often at times, daily. We answer that here and here, and in more detail in our new book, When Stretching Fails to Improve Flexibility. The second most common question we get is, “How often, and for how long, should I stretch?” People expect a number, such as 3 minutes a day or 5 times a week. But it’s not a number. The most important aspect in determining the frequency with which one should stretch, and the length of time, is ..read more

Novel Exercises For Hip Pain To understand hip pain is to understand your hips and what they are doing inside your body. What makes this tricky is that painful hips are often the result of imbalance wherein the symmetry of two “equal” halves that make one whole unit is “off.”  What is hard to discern, even with x-rays, is the nature of the imbalance because hips can be thrown off for multiple reasons in multiple directions. They can be crooked vertically, horizontally and/or rotationally wherein:  One is higher than the other. One is more forward or back than the other. One is roll ..read more

Go Farther And Deeper With These Calf Stretches It’s easy to underestimate how the effects of tight calves can ripple up through the rest of our bodies and cause all sorts of aches and pains. Lower back pain can result from tight calves and so too can painful knees be caused by calves that are inflexible and under-stretched. Not to mention the fact that their agility is critical to preventing injury and maintaining good ankle and foot health, which we define as having the right balance between stretch and strength. In other words, you need to be able to move freely, but you also need the supp ..read more

What We Talk About When We Talk About Wellness Wellness is a multi-billion-dollar industry that offers various theories and practices on how to achieve a state of well-being. Implicit in that notion are all the benefits of inner peace and a sense of wholeness, which is obtained, and maintained, through the cultivation and care of mind, body and soul. Within that, there is a lot of talk about mental health – the mind part of the mind-body-soul line up, I suppose. This is where I get stuck. Something is missing. An important piece is being left out. We get that diet, exercise and sleep all nouri ..read more

How NOT To Stretch Your Hamstrings [Video] I promise this works!  I hope you'll join us on Instagram and Facebook ..read more

How To Pick Summer Herbs With Chef Jason Graham [Video] I was never a food person. Dancing started my lack of interest and then having a busy business career gave me more reasons to avoid developing responsible and conscious eating habits. So, when I got sick and fell apart, I knew little-to-nothing about food and eating right. I had to learn - a lot. Now, my life and career revolve around my health, feeling good, and sharing healthy living with others. Enter Chef Jason Graham who helps me with the most basic of basics. He's very patient. One thing I often wondered about&n ..read more

Fibromyalgia, Oxalates and Unexplained Pain We don’t talk much about the behind-the-scenes reasons why we do what we do here at Lastics, other than top-line stuff like, I created Lastics Stretch Technique as a result of a dance injury (partial knee construction); or Lastics Body Products were born as a result of running into all sorts of digestive and gynecological problems (toxic overload). And now, here we go again for perhaps the longest, most convoluted and difficult part of my story… and the next discovery that it spawned. People say this story should be a book, but it’s one that&nb ..read more

5 Reasons You Need to Stretch Flexibility has a major impact on how you feel in your body. “I love feeling stiff and tight,” said no one ever! But for a lot of people, stretching is often the last thing on their radar, if it’s part of their exercise routine at all. Why is that? What I find over and over again is that people de-prioritize stretching because they see no point in going through the motions. This is because, well, they feel as though they are just going through the motions without achieving the kind of results they see when they do other types of workouts. Or, they sometimes assu ..read more

If You Want to Increase Your Flexibility, Assisted Stretching Won’t Do It An assisted stretch is great for many things, but it’s not great if you are interested in improving your mobility by way of better flexibility. This is because the “assist” in assisted stretching has been completely miscalculated. Assistance implies a two-way relationship wherein the assister and "assistee" both participate. A good assister helps, guides, aids a process of learning, but never does all the work. Yet, assisted stretching, as we know it, does just that. It doesn’t require the person being stretched to ..read more