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The Bendy Blog: Flexibility Training Articles

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4 Active Flexibility Drills to Strengthen Your Front Splits
Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks) Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks)

4 Active Flexibility Drills to Strengthen Your Front Splits

If you’re trying to get lower in your front splits - passive stretching is only part of the equation, you need to make sure you’re strengthening your muscles to support this unique range of motion in your hips (front hip flexion and back hip extension). These 4 drills help strengthen our hips to support both the front AND back leg stretches needed to flatten our front splits.

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Controlling Rogue Hips - Keeping Your Hips Square in a Split
Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks) Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks)

Controlling Rogue Hips - Keeping Your Hips Square in a Split

On Monday I talked about what it means to have “square” hips in a split, and why that’s often a preferred position to train in. Today we’ll talk about ways to help train your hips to stay square to ensure you’re getting that sweet sweet hip flexor stretch, and avoid letting your hips open to “cheat” the stretch.

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What Muscles Do I Need to Stretch for the Front Splits?
Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks) Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks)

What Muscles Do I Need to Stretch for the Front Splits?

If you’re asking what muscles do you need to stretch for a front split - then congratulations on trying to train smarter! Understanding the basic anatomy behind stretches can not only help you choose better stretches to reach your goals, but it can also help you understand where you should be feeling the stretch, and how to stretch with proper form.

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Work Your Active Split Flexibility with Front Split Slides
Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks) Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks)

Work Your Active Split Flexibility with Front Split Slides

If you’re looking to train flatter (and stronger!) front splits, working on your active flexibility is a must - particularly working on strengthening your hamstrings and hip flexors while they’re at their end range of motion. These sliding drills below are one of my favorite ways to train active front splits because they strengthen our muscles across a pretty full range of motion, including the end range, helping increase our flexibility over time.

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Advanced Quad and Hip Flexor Stretches for Contortion

Advanced Quad and Hip Flexor Stretches for Contortion

If you’ve got relatively flexible hip flexors and quads (ex. you can easily pull your heel to your butt in a standing quad stretch, and/or you have flat splits) - it may be time to up your hip work for those muscle groups.

These are all deep anterior (front of the) hip stretches that may make you feel your quads like you’ve never felt them before!

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How To: Femoral Nerve Glide for Tight Hips (2 Ways!)

How To: Femoral Nerve Glide for Tight Hips (2 Ways!)

As a follow-up to Monday’s post, Stubbornly Tight Hip Flexors? Quick Test for Femoral Nerve Tension, here are two quick, easy nerve glides you can do to help un-stick your femoral nerve before lunging into deeper stretches (pun 100% intended).

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Stubbornly Tight Hip Flexors? Quick Test for Femoral Nerve Tension

Stubbornly Tight Hip Flexors? Quick Test for Femoral Nerve Tension

Do you feel like your hip flexors (or quads) are always pretty stiff, even when doing regular, dedicated stretching? What if I told you the culprit may not be your tight muscles at all and no amount of passive lunges and hip stretches would really make a difference?

Time to learn about the role of our good ol’ femoral nerve and how it behaves differently in out stretches than our hip flexors and quad muscles.

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Help! My Knee Hurts in a Lunge

Help! My Knee Hurts in a Lunge

Knee discomfort - especially in the back knee - while doing a lunge is not uncommon for folks with tighter hips. There are many reasons you might be feeling some knee pain while in a lunging position: weak quads, tight quads, improper patella tracking, too much pressure on the patella, etc. Thankfully, there are several modifications you can try that can alleviate some of the pressure on your knee so that you can still stretch comfortably!

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How to Close the Last Inch(es) on Your Splits
Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks) Stretching - Lower Body, Front Splits Danielle Enos (Dani Winks)

How to Close the Last Inch(es) on Your Splits

So you’ve been training you front splits for what feels like for-ev-er only to get stuck 1-2 inches away from the ground for months. Sound familiar?

Don’t despair! There are two main things I’ve found help students the most once you get oh-so-close and need to just close that last inch or two to get that sweet sweet touchdown.

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