I have spent well beyond three decades trying to move as much weight as possible. This, of course, has come at a price. On top of all the injuries I have had over the years, my body has become tight AF!

There was not much stretching going on in my life other than when I was an athlete as a kid. Luckily, you don't have to be overly flexible to be a powerlifter. However, a little flexibility would have gone a long way.

After all my time under the bar, it's no surprise this lack of flexibility is biting me in the ass. I have some serious issues with my shoulders and thorax. I'm back with my old physical therapist and we are chipping away at it presently.

He always has to temper my stretching. I have a terrible habit of overdoing things. I certainly didn't bench over 600 raw and 900 equipped going into things gently. The answer to everything while training to get stronger is to push harder. Yep, that's not really helpful with stretching.

My therapist finally used a word that resonated with me. He told me we are trying to "Melt" your tightness away. I often tell people at seminars and during coaching, if your cue doesn't grab them, it's not going to work. This cue worked.

The word melt turned so visual for me. I thought about an ice cube. If you take an ice cube and push harder, it's not going to make it melt any faster. So for me, I realized, pushing harder through a stretch is not going to help me melt through my tightness. I have also incorporated this melting technique successfully for foam rolling and self trigger point work.

Another word that resonated with me for loosening up was "Gravity." I heard it being used in a yoga video. Yes, you heard right, yoga. My physical therapist recommended a particular yoga pose for me, so I was doing a little youtube research. That rabbit hole led me to a video for beginner yoga for the inflexible. Yeah, buddy!

There were only four poses in the 15-minute video. She talked about not forcing a stretch but using gravity. What was interesting was that she used a pose similar to something I saw and tried from Instagram last summer. It was a thoracic stretch by a social media guru that incorporated using a barbell to assist in the particular stretch. It screwed me up bad. I was in pain for weeks.

Meanwhile, this lovely yogi was doing the same stretch using gravity and even suggested using pillows to catch the arms to take some stress off the stretch. Again, the idea of not trying to torque everything to an rpe of 10 is quite novel to me. To my delight using the same stretch, but implementing the concepts of gravity and melting into it left me feeling awesome.

I am currently stretching three times a day using my gentle new concepts and am making great strides. I actually feel like I might be able to be pain free one day in the not too distant future. I have lived with so much pain over the years. To be pain free would be nothing short of miraculous.

So if you are having similar issues try a softer approach on your body. Instead of forcing your body to submit, which it never does, show it some love. The smaller consistent improvements will reap huge benefits. I guess that goes for most things in life.