@Laura Rainbow Dragon thank you for tagging me here. Most yoga poses range in hold time from 30 sec to three minutes. That has to do mostly with consistency and what specific stretches do to muscle groups that may need to be activated again in a different pose that requires tension as opposed to flexibility. The splits challenge targets one particular stretch so longer times are needed in order to achieve the flexibility that is required.
For everybody who is on this thread I will detail what stretches actually do and how flexibility is established. As always when we do something physical three components are at work: The brain, the body and the mind. The distinctions I will make here are artificial to better help us understand the mechanism at work, in real-life they are intertwined and inseparable. What affects one, also affects the other two.
With that said, let's look at them separately so we can get a clearer picture:
- The brain. When we stretch muscle fibers elongate, so they become narrower. As they become more narrow they constrict specific nerves called spindles. Spindles are there to help the brain understand what happens to the body as we stretch. So as muscle fibers become more narrow and the spindles become compressed they send a signal to the brain that interprets two things from it: the speed of elongation (i.e. how fast we are stretching) and how much we are stretching. The brain interprets that signal as pain and sends it to the part f it that is the mind so we can become aware of what is happening. The faster we stretch and lower we go (in this case into the splits) the sharper and more persistent will be the pain we feel.
Depending on the speed and depth of the stretch, the brain also signals the body to "brace". This is a separate signal that travels back to the muscles and tightens the ones that are antagonistic to the ones being stretched. In the case of the splits the quads and hamstrings often tighten in response to the adductors being stretched to hold us back and avoid injury. Obviously the strength of the "how far and how fast" signal that the spindles send to the brain depends on how frequently we stretch. Even a very flexible person will experience pain if they try and stretch and have not done so for a while. This means that one part of flexibility is purely mental: the brain needs to recalibrate the point at which it increases the strength of the pain signal that makes us stop.
- The body. In the body there are two physical mechanisms that help us become more flexible. One is the recalibration of the pain point of the spindles found inside the muscle fibers (which I've mentioned above). This is highly responsive and we can often see improvements in flexibility within a day or two (this recalibration is also the reason we hold some stretching poses so long in DAREBEE workouts and Challenges). The other is the creation of more sarcomeres—the basic contractile units within a muscle fiber—in a line, through a process called
sarcomerogenesis. This helps make muscle fibers longer without increasing their girth. Sarcomerogenesis, obviously takes time and how quickly it is activated depends on the strength of the signal the body sends to the brain that the muscle fibers of a particular muscle group (in our case the adductor muscle), need to be made longer.
- The mind. The mind plays a crucial, active role in stretching, acting as both a moderator of physical limits and a beneficiary of the relaxation process. How mindful we are and how relaxed we are as we stretch play a key role in how much we can stretch. The "unconscious splits theory" suggests that flexibility is primarily restricted by the brain's fear-based protective mechanisms (pain/tightness) rather than physical limitations. While on social media posts it has often been suggested that an unconscious person is capable of doing the splits, this is not supported by science. What is supported by science and backed by studies as well as a truckload of empirical evidence is that when the central nervous system is relaxed we are, naturally, more flexible.
Back to the length of time for holding specific positions in DAREBEE stretches for so long: precisely of what is being achieved, namely a relaxation of the body/mind connection, a recalibration of the spindle 'alarm' points and the building of more sarcomeres which happens because we send to the brain a strong, persistent signal that justifies the energetic load required for the change.
I hope this helps.
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