Body Stiffness And Dancing??

[Rage]

I wanted to ask about a little sort of problem of mine.

My body is really stiff and tight, from working out. Next month will be 3 years that I've worked out officially, and during these years the most I've ever missed was one full week of 7 days (was hell, had to go on vacation for my parents anniversary haha), and other than that have trained many times each week throughout these years.

I was at a bar last night in a conversation with a girl I met and the music they were playing was really good. She was trying to get me to dance a little bit while we were seated and I guess I played it off ok with my teasing and what I had to say and stuff: but I couldn't for the life of me like dance, and I really sucked at it, in large part because I'm so stiff.

I didn't used to know of this till it was revealed to me. I would go to massage and phisiotherapy for a while last year and my massage lady (who was also a bodybuilder) would tell me how tense and overly stiff I am, and that I should be going to massage once or twice a month at the very least (couldn't spring that at 75 bucks a pop though of course). I stretch a good bit and will foam roll massage too, but I kind of don't know how to get good at getting my body more loose?

Any ideas for how to better do that; or ideas also about how to be better at just general dancing? I'm getting acclimated to night game lately, and have the style of just wantign to talk and and banter and tease and be sexual and fool around and try to progress with my sets like that. But it would be useful to learn some basic dancing skill and body fluidity too I think, like some primer on that would be productive for me.

Thanks,

Gem

 

[Seventh_Sky]

Hello there.

I've been dancing for about two years now, and I've progressed to the point where I can claim some credibility on what makes a good dancer. Still no master, but definitely above average.

It's a skill just like pickup is, in that you had better be prepared to put in a lot of effort to see the results you want. But you aren't looking to impress any judges or win any battles. Also, your competition (the other guys in the club I assume) probably aren't experienced dancers. Maybe you don't have the time to invest into practice, which I always make sure I do.

So what's some quick advice for you on how to be a better dancer? Improve your posture. Sounds funny at first, but posture (I've found) is more than just whether or not your body is slumped or upright. It's much more complicated and important than anyone realizes. I could go into the details, but for now just try limiting the amount of time you spend sitting and pay attention to how you stand. Do you feel off-balance? Are there mysterious pains in your back? Do your arms have a full range of movement or does it hurt to raise them sometimes? Of course, any bad habits one has are already ingrained, and one might not notice any of these things even if they applied...

But I really recommend actually learning how to dance. I found it very fulfilling.

 

[Mr.Rob]

Well for one you don't HAVE to dance. I know some guys just genuinely don't like dancing so they don't do it.

I very rarely go dance with girls I'm talking to at a club unless I opened them on the dance floor.

I also think you might be overthinking the reasons you suck at dancing. For me, and I'm going to guess for you too, is that you are a little nervous and stuck in your head about how good a dancer you are and if someone is going to see you suck at dancing. So you basically have a stick up your ass that makes you stiff. To remove the stick relax, get out of your head and in your body, and groove however you want to to the music.

But correct me if that isn't the issue at bay. However I bet if I gave you $1000 to dance without being stiff you could pull it off.

dance as if no one was watching

-rob

 

[ray_zorse]

I wonder if there are any techno/rave/dance parties in your area, particularly outdoor/camping style although indoor is fine. Indoor dance parties are basically like nightgame except there is more of a groove on, I personally think they fuckin rock. The headline act will usually come on around 3~4am and play for 2~3hrs and the crowd just goes fuckin nuts, good artists are also good at building and releasing the tension in the room, leading to an even more intense experience. It's much better than, say, a megaclub pumping out the latest top hits to a crowd of club queens and wannabe PUAs, cos the focus is more in the music and the crowd is people who REALLY groove to that music (and there are a lot of sub genres, my main one is trance but I also like electrofunk / house and hard NRG sometimes). Anyway, I challenge you to go to an event like this and be an "I can't dance" stick-in-the-mud, trance parties are especially good for training yourself that no-one gives a fuck what you look like as long as you are obviously enjoying yourself. A side benefit is picking up cute little drugged out raver sluts and taking them back to your tent to give them the D if you can.
Ray

 

[Drck]

As far as stiffness, you simply want to stretch a lot, relax the muscles. When you are stretching you shouldn't feel pain, rather just slight pressure. Keep each position for couple seconds without moving, e.g. Static trenching is better than dynamic, and at the same time focus on relaxation and slower/deeper breathing.

Stretching should be comfortable, you should feel refreshed after stretching. They usually recommend to stretch after working out, however I believe that stretching before working out is much better (my experience). If you are lifting heavy, you don't want to stretch too much before exercising, just little bit to relax muscles. Stretch more on days when you are not lifting heavy weights. Or better, stretch in every AM while exercising in PM. 20 mins every day will do it.

You can easily find many different positions online.

 

[Lotus]

Yoga is fantastic for flexibility.

I agree stretching is very important.. especially if you find you will be sitting at work 40 hours a week. However, I partially disagree with DRCK's post:

As far as stiffness, you simply want to stretch a lot, relax the muscles. When you are stretching you shouldn't feel pain, rather just slight pressure. Keep each position for couple seconds without moving, e.g. Static trenching is better than dynamic, and at the same time focus on relaxation and slower/deeper breathing.

Stretching should be comfortable, you should feel refreshed after stretching. They usually recommend to stretch after working out, however I believe that stretching before working out is much better (my experience). If you are lifting heavy, you don't want to stretch too much before exercising, just little bit to relax muscles. Stretch more on days when you are not lifting heavy weights. Or better, stretch in every AM while exercising in PM. 20 mins every day will do it

Relaxing the muscles is important when stretching and you shouldn't feel pain. The pain signals you have gone to far and your muscles are fighting back. It should be longer lighter stretches at least 30 seconds each rep.

I wouldn't say static stretching is better then dynamic at all. Dynamic stretches are very important for before workouts to warm up your muscles for activity. If anything you want to warm-up with dynamic, then go into static once your limber and then also static stretch longer and deeper after workouts when your muscles are the warmest.

Study's have found static stretching before work outs negatively impact power and performance.
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article027.htm
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewc ... ontext=etd

I actually just listened to a Joe Rogan Experience podcast where he talked about stretching on THC and how it helps relax your muscles so you can get deeper into stretches...don't know much credibility he has on the subject but the conversation was with Steve Maxwell who has good cred in the fitness industry.

Stretching to increase flexibility is a slow process and takes months of consistency to actually improve on and there is a lot of bad advice out there... ei: touching your toes to stretch hamstrings is not good for your back. There's only so much flexibility you will be able to achieve because you lift so much.

Dancing, unless you commit to formal training, is just about not giving a fuck what people think of you.

-Taylor

 

[Drck]

Well, I used to stretch a lot, as a part of martial arts we used to do for example splits. As far as splits, my experience is that you should rather be static, I used to stay in a split normally for 1-2 minutes and even put lots of pressure (body weight) to overload the muscles and make them stronger as well.

To gain lots of flexibility, the best is static + lots of pressure (body weight). For example, you'll get to slightly uncomfortable position (split), use body weight while resisting with muscles, keep it 20-30 seconds and relax. Next time do the same with stretching further, and with more body weight. Repeat couple of times. Do different stretching, then come back to it. But that is for more experienced. It is also good if you warm up little bit before stretching, e.g. run for couple of minutes. At the same time it wasn't just static because we followed the stretching with kicks.

But this was different kind of stretching, we didn't do for example heavy squats after it. Lots of stretching can actually hurt you while lifting heavy weights, you don't want your muscles to be 'too stretched'. For just lifting keep it moderate.

So yes, Lotus is absolutely right, you don't want to do long static stretching before e.g. heavy squats, it can hurt you. At the same time if you do more intensive dynamic stretching it may also hurt you as it may damage the muscles. That's why it is better to stretch more e.g. in AM (if you want to achieve more flexibility) and lift later on in the day with perhaps just slight stretching before or in between.

Use reason, avoid pain and you'll be fine.

 

[Lotus]

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification on the static stretching. I always wondered how you attain such ridiculous flexibility in martial arts.

Without derailing the thread too much more.. why is it that you found it's better to static stretch for flexibility better before, rather than after a workout?

 

[Drck]

It's more about feelings, it might be personal habit but I simply don't feel the need to stretch during and after heavier weight lifting. I suppose that mild to moderate stretching may be fine. I used to stretch every single morning after I woke up for some 20-30 minutes, then I felt refreshed for most of the day. Stretching is great, if you combine it with relaxation/meditation and awareness of self, you can't go wrong.

There is also a great book: Beyond Stretching : Russian Flexibility Breakthroughs from Pavel Tsatsouline
Definitely a must if you are looking for more advanced stuff, this guy made people doing splits in no time

 

[Rage]

Hey thanks for all the replies guys !

Seventh Sky

Hey seventh sky, welcome to the boards! Will try to keep this tip in mind; I do several stretches a week for posture and try to train to keep my posture healthy and stuff, but working a desk job and typing a bit often lately can give me tendencies of crappy posture if not careful.

Once school starts and I can get back to working on a standing desk again, this will be much better handled though I reckon

Rob

Hey bro, you were like the first to hit it right on the nail and I failed to think of it this way at all. I would like to do it and enjoy doing it if I could; I lean back on that tendency of doing what I'm comfortable with and flirting and doing sexual things for night game.

But your bet is correct and I think I’m just in my head a lot; I didn’t even consider that as obvious it perhaps might seem. That’s good though because now it can be one of those things that I just say fuck it and do it, and don’t care if I look like an idiot (or just learn from that in the process, whatever the case).

Ray

I was at a bar, but I reckon there are probably some places like that in LA likely yeah. My first experience ever with a club was that sort of megaclub at 18 years old haha, learned then that those places probably suck and are what all regular guys are trying to score at (I got kicked off a gogo dancer’s stand, with a girl I was dancing with and the security guard threw me off and let another random girl from the crowd go on! What an asshole hahaha)

Hmm maybe an environment like this would force me out of that shell a bit whether I liked it or not; was that case in the megaclub back then even though it was mostly just dancing with friends we went there with, and a string of largely rejections from random girls.

Drck and Lotus

Interesting perspectives. I train for heavy powerlifting and have always tried to squat and deadlift heavy. I think my first year and a half or so I wouldn’t stretch at all and was all right.

As my lifts and workouts started getting heavier though I found I would get doms time to time. Then there was one day a couple years ago where I was having steak with my friend after a leg day when my legs locked hard from doms. And it was painful as fuck and I couldn’t move and he had to carry me out and I had to lay down on the concrete floor outside for 30 min. till I was good to walk and then he drove me home.

From then I did static stretching lightly for the next year and a half.

Now I only do light static stretching and will do dynamic stretching a couple days a week. I threw that in about 6 months ago, and it was pretty critically helpful for increasing my mobility. It was one of the major tweaks it took for me to get my squat past double bodyweight recently.

My mobility and stuff is better in my lower body and my upper body could use work… but I think what I was wondering about most in general in this thread was basic dancing and not being rigid and stuff. I think for that, what many of the guys suggested is probably apt: just feel music, kind of go for it and not give a fuck about what others think.

Will put all this stuff into action then.

Cheers,

Gem