Flexibility

I've never been flexible, but because of my current program I have been doing a LOT more stretching than usual, including yoga and I'm getting a little better. Couple of questions google doesn't provide real good answers for...

Can you over-stretch? I know you can push a stretch too far, but can you properly stretch too many times per week?

Some people just seem to be naturally more flexible than others, but anecdotally, have any of you been 'shin' guys and turned into 'past the toe' guys? I know genetics plays a roll in everything, but I'm curious how far, realistically, hard work will take me as far as flexibility goes.

i can suck my own dick

I'm stuck and working on this too. My hip/hamstring flexibility sucks. Besides regular stretching (virtually every day) I've started doing Yoga, done a lot of PNF stretching with a trainer, and gotten sports massages.

I've never heard of over-training stretches. I'll be like a mine-canary if so, because I stretch a lot. I'm making a little progress, but way slower than I'd like.

p90x got me pretty limber. i used to be extremely flexable (back in HS). i started p90 with my finger tips about half way down my shins with locked legs. at the end, i can flat palm the ground with locked legs. so a pretty large difference. the first phase really sucked for stretching. it was painful to do so. now it feels great to stretch.

2-3 times a day 10-15 minutes of solid static stretching with normal breathing. You absolutely can "overstretch" or separate your Golgi tendons too far leading to elastic tears (which are more painful than anything you can imagine and take months of sedentary recovery to heal up). If you start to feel an odd pull during stretching, slowly release from the point you're at and get out of the stretch. That's telling you it's your stretch limit.

I've been doing this little by little for about a year and can bend and put my face to my shins.

overstretching is pretty hard to do if you're flexible to begin with and you warm up properly... but yea it's possible.

The general rule of thumb in gymnastics and ballet is that from maximum flexibility stretching one should have 36 hours of rest before repeating. This is from intense 5 minutes long stretches. When stretching it's important to relax as much as possible and not try to stretch with your muscles (ie. don't use force to pull you in position, if you can't achieve the position yet do an easier stretch). If you're stretching with muscle strength you're like to rupture something. Breathing is the key thing in proper stretching.

keep in mind that there are different kinds of flexibility , dynamic , static etc. to be incredible human machine, you need to have them all.

You will get better, it just takes a while.

I have always had a problem with flexibility. I remember in school when you had those awards for gym class..you know the "presidential" or "national" awards or whatever they called them for being able to past certain benchmarks. I would get presidential on everything except that damn sit and reach. I would barely get back to '0'.

Whether or not you can "overstretch" depends on what you are stretching for. If you are stretching to improve your performance in an exercise or sport (squats, for example) you could become too flexible and actually hurt your performance.

In general, you want to be flexible enough to easily perform movements with good form but no more. The "stretch" in your muscles actually generates force.