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Hyperbolic Stretching is being advertised nearly non-stop on Facebook for me currently, offering a "simple, yet highly effective 8-minute per day routine that will skyrocket your athletic performance and improve the quality of your life" with "one single ancient trick [that] quickly unlocks flexibility and restores joint mobility". Everything about it screams "scam" to me from the hyperbolic (pun intended) claims to that almost every positive review I've found of it seems to be written by the same author. Is this any different from PNF stretching? Is there any evidence of efficacy?

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  • Someone sent me quora.com/…, which indicates it is hyped-up PNF.
    – Sean Duggan
    Apr 2, 2020 at 20:51
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    As just a small note, in mathematics there is a class of functions call the hyperbolic functions, such as the hyperbolic sine function. The non-math definition of hyperbolic is "exaggerated or enlarged beyond what is reasonable". It is a derogatory term! If you are being hyperbolic, they you are an unreliable source of information. My point is that these people use the term "hyperbolic" because it sounds fancy and super-scientific, but the definition of the word actually implies that they are scammers. I wonder if these people even looked the word up in the dictionary?
    – Chris
    Apr 3, 2020 at 1:32

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You shouldn't waste your time on this. It is a scam. I'm not even going to click that link because I don't want them to sap any of my limited energy. I'm at a point in life where I hang up the phone on scammers before they finish their first sentence. However, if you have some time to waste and want to look further into this, then try to find references to scientific papers in their promotional materials. Please report back on what you find. Note that scams like this inevitably claim to "be based on the latest scientific evidence", but if you dig deeper you will find not a shred of such evidence. Good luck, but don't go to deep down this hole.

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  • Honestly, I'm pretty sure that's the case, but with so little critical information out there, I figure asking may give us something that people will find when looking for an honest review. :)
    – Sean Duggan
    Apr 2, 2020 at 20:08
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So, I decided to risk myself for science, and I put my money down on the program. It is not precisely a scam, but it is also nothing novel. It's a simple program of PNF stretching, focused entirely on the movement for splits. The "one simple ancient trick" is one which has been used in martial arts such as Wu Shu for hundreds of years, so I suppose it counts as "ancient", namely going into the stretch and then contracting the muscle fibers being stretched to allow for a deeper stretch.

I have requested, and received, my refund.

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  • +1 for taking one for the team
    – DeeV
    Apr 20, 2020 at 21:35
  • As a side note, I did not get my refund just by asking the company (who ignored my emails) but rather by letting my credit card company know that they were not honoring the money-back guarantee.
    – Sean Duggan
    Mar 2, 2022 at 20:20

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