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The Bendy Blog: Flexibility Training Articles
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How to Fake a Split: The “Illusion” Split
Whether you are oh-so-close to flat splits, or still quite a ways away from the floor - anyone can fake a split if you do it at the right angle! And “faking” your split is easier and more comfortable than your regular split, so it’s fun to learn how to do.
4 Active Hamstring Stretches for Beginners
If you have tight hamstrings, you may have heard this could be because either “short” (which would imply you should stretch) or that they’re “weak” (which would imply you should strengthen, because stretching would only make them weaker…). So what’s a toe touching wannabe to do? The short answer: do both. Strengthen while your hamstrings are being stretched! These 4 hamstring stretches are my favorite active flexibility exercises for strengthening both your hamstrings and hip flexors to support a deeper hamstring stretch.
Help! My Front Knee Hurts in a Front Split
Stretching should never hurt - so if you’re experiencing acute pain in your knee when doing splits, you’re smart to look for a solution! There are several things that can lead to the sensation of pain in the underside of our knee. These three (below) are the most common causes I run into with my students - and thankfully all can be easily modified for during your training session, and conditioned to “fix” over time to keep your knees safe and strong while you continue to stretch.
Got Tight Calves? 3 Beginner-Friendly Calf Stretches
As someone who’s gone through several “do a lot on your toes” hobbies (cross country running, Latin dance, pole dance…), I’ve had tight calves virtually all my life. Thankfully calves typically respond very well to stretching (especially loaded/active stretches), so if you have calves that feel like rocks - there is hope!
Gentle Sciatic Nerve Glide for Happier Hamstrings
If you have sciatic nerve tension holding back your flexibility training any time you try to stretch your hamstrings, adding some nerve mobilizations like a glide and a tensioner during your warm up can help alleviate some of that tension so you can make sure your later stretching as addressing the muscle, not just tugging and tensing your sciatic nerve even further.
How to Tell if Hamstring “Tightness” is Nerve or Muscle Tension
If you have been trying to stretch your “tight” hamstrings but have seen limited progress, or if you often feel hamstring stretches in your calves or low back - it may not actually be your hamstring muscles that are the problem - it may be your sciatic nerve!
When (and How) to Start Working on Oversplits
While oversplit training may look like exercises reserved for those who are currently extremely comfortable in their flat splits, it’s actually safe an effective for students who are still an inch or two away from flat splits (and can even be a sneaky tool to help you close those last couple of inches!).
6 Active Flexibility Drills for Your Straddle Pancake
Looking to embody a flatter flapjack in your straddle pancake stretch? A straddle “pancake” (forward fold) requires a combination of inner thigh flexibility (to widen your straddle) and hamstring flexibility (to fold forwards). This post will specifically focus on active flexibility drills to strengthen our hamstrings and hip flexors to support a deeper wide-legged forward fold.
5 Beginner-Friendly Quad Stretches
There are a lot of activities that require you to really exercise your quads - literally anything that requires bending and straightening of your knee! Running, cycling, and weightlifting are all great at building quad strength, but without stretching after exercise could lead to tighter quads, which can eventually lead to knee pain.
If you’re looking for some beginner-friendly (and knee-friendly!) stretches for your quads, read on.
Contract-Relax Stretches for Middle Splits
Contract-relax style stretching is a common (and effective!) type of active flexibility training. As someone who struggled with middle splits for a long time, I really enjoy the difference in comfort I can feel after doing some contract-relax work - hopefully you notice a difference as well!
6 Exercises for Hip Internal and External Rotation
Hip rotation is one of the main actions of our hip (along with flexion, extension, adduction and abduction), so a healthy flexibility training routine should contain some exercises to help with your rotation. Flexy and strong hip rotators not only help in poses that require a lot of rotation (like the amount of external rotation required for pigeon pose, or sitting cross-legged on the floor), but they also help stabilize our hips in positions of flexion or extension (like our front splits!).
Hip Flexor Focused Warm Up
It’s always important to warm up your muscles before you do any serious stretching . The hip flexor focused warm up below is great to do before any kind of leg flexibility work, especially things like front splits where tight hip flexors can really limit your range of motion. These 12 exercises can all be done together, or you can pick a couple and throw them into your current warm up routine just for a little extra hip flexion practice.