PropanePodcast 58: Interview with Kit Laughlin Part 2

This is part 2 of our interview with Kit Laughlin from Stretch Therapy. If you missed part 1, go back and listen to it here.

This is one NOT to be missed. Here, Yusef interviews Mr Stretch Armstrong, Kit Laughlin.

Kit is, in our opinion, the leading authority on stretching and flexibility in the world. He’s the founder of Stretch Therapy, and while ‘Cat like movement’ is their slogan, he seems to have had 9 lives himself. Trained as a medical anthropologist, logician and massage therapist, he’s extremely well grounded in musculoskeletal anatomy and physiology – also drawing on wisdom from his time as an Iyengar yoga instructor, olympic lifter and powerlifter. He’s also an ex academic, . .

00:00: awareness, not strength training (full session later in the program; I will add this detail later)
30:00: why a ’sets and reps’ approach does not work for flexibility
02:00: why you need a little hyperextension in the elbows and knees
03:20: why you can’t convince a skeptic by argument alone
04:15: description of the contract–relax (C–R) approach (using biceps as the example)
06:00: the problem with the distinction between the ‘mind’ and the ‘body’, and “Descartes’ Error”
07:30: anxiety and breathing
09:00: in stretching, you can’t separate the mind and the body
10:15: “If you don’t think you can do it, you will not be able to do it”
11:00: the virtues of single-arm hangs
13:15: “tendons and ligaments have about 1/10 the nutrient supply that muscles get”
14:10: tendon and ligament injuries
15:45: tensegrity structures
16:20: levers and pulleys are an outdated and inaccurate model of living anatomy
16:45: stretching to find out what the body needs
17:20: “when was the last time you felt your clothes on your body?”
20:00: when full tension is necessary, and when it’s not
21:20: “most peoples’ bodies are fighting themselves”
23:20: “we start with good biomechanics”
26:25: improve your sleep
27:00: overtraining
27:45: benefits of being able to relax
28:45: talking specifically to Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and bodybuilders
31:10: “when I was a middle-distance runner”
32:00: leg-length differences
38:30: people are ‘mollycoddled’
40:20: immobility is damaging to the body
41:30: lying meditation
46:10: a common fear people have
48:25: the essential stretches
51:45: talking about a Q&A
52:45: concluding remarks
58:20: “our programs are very inexpensive”
1:01:30: end

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:45 — 52.9MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Email | More Subscribe Options