Stretching Routines for the Splits....

Anyone know any good stretching routines that will help with achieving the Front, Chinese and Box splits?!

Any help would be greatly appreciated; how often and for how long etc.

Thanks!

well talking of books again, have you heard of stretching scientifically? supposed to be THE ultimate stretching bible.

one other thing you can do is hyper stretching, which is what gymnasts do and have been doing for years. depending on how good you are already, it might not be comfortable to begin with [by that i mean the logistics because it certainly won't be comfortable!]
go in the front split position, and then find something such as a sleeping bag rolled up, and place it under your ankle/calf. roll forward and place each hand either side of your body. Basically this absolutely kills and hyper stretches the body as you have somewhere to "fall". OBVIOUSLY warm up and do some light stretches before this!!! you need to hold it for as long as possible, say at least 1 minute. try leaning forwards as well, which kills even more
When you come out of it, do the splits again without it and you'll notice an immediate difference. You are effectively tearing your muscles to pieces, therefore recovery is important. Not too helpful: don't know how often best to do this - it depends on how your body recovers.

i have never (touched wood) got injured seriously through this type of stretching, mainly because i know my limits and can tell if something is not right. luckily i'm quite in tune with my body, so hopefully you are too and can easily tell when to stop/how long it takes for you to recover. but the before and after shot is amazing!

my gymnast friend has taught me this and she has done it for years - gymnasts are pretty mental and hardcore though, so i am sure there is a safer version, but like i said i've never had any issues with this.

as for box splits, there are loads of things on the net you can read to help you anyway, and you are best off stretching more than one area for those.

anyway, hope this helps, i would recommend www.martialartsplanet.com and that book, and try my trick, you'll be amazed, especially if you already are quite flexible.

Thanks very much! I may have to look into that book!

The hyper stretching thing seems like it would do me some good...no pain no gain i guess haha! Thanks for the help!

the book he told you is great i have the dvd of it you can find on most torrent sites it is the best one out there