Relax into Stretch by Pavel Tsatsouline

Relax into Stretch is a solid book on flexibility that contains a lot of useful information. If you teach or practice flexibility, it is an important read. He covers critically important information such as the stretch reflex, nervous system re-education, tension vs relaxation, practical techniques, and much more.

In addition to being useful, it is slightly funny. Pavel refers to the readers as comrade and makes very corny jokes about science and flexibility throughout the book. I enjoyed some of the Russian humor and his fatalistic attitude.

To summarize, tension and relaxation are the yin and yang of stretching. Strength and flexibility go hand and hand and one without the other is useless. This is not a novel idea yet it is lost on the majority.