In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I still have a long way to go when it comes to developing my own flexibility. I’ve spent a large portion of my training career chasing higher poundage on the bar with the bare minimum time put into stretching. While I did make sure that I worked towards having optimal range of motion in my lifts, I never sought to increase my range beyond that, and I tended to always prioritize strength over flexibility. Many of you are probably in the same boat.
When I took a step back to look at my training as a whole, I realized a few important things were holding back my progress: