Supine Leg Lifts
Supine Leg Lifts
Muscle Group Stretched: Hamstrings
Muscle Group Strengthened: Hip Flexors
Type of Stretch: Active Dynamic
Difficulty: All Levels
Suggested Prerequisites: none
This is one of my go-to conditioning exercise for active hamstring flexibility (also a convenient warm up for hip flexors, the muscles doing the contracting, before doing hip flexor stretches). This drill can easily be scaled up or down depending on flexibility: stiffer students can bend the lifting leg slightly to fucus more on hip flexor strength (often lacking for folks with tight hamstrings!), and more flexible students can challenge themselves by flattening the non-lifting leg on the floor (which rotates our pelvis forwards, making it harder to lift the working leg).
How To
Step 1
Start lying on your back. epending on your flexibility level, there are a couple of ways we can set up our legs for this exercise (in increasing order of difficulty):
Option 1: Bending your left knee, plant the left foot on the floor. Extend the right leg out (this will be our “working” leg, the one we’ll be lifting. Slightly bend the right leg.
Option 2: Same as above, but with the right leg straight
Option 3: Starting with both legs straight and flat on the ground
Option 4: Starting with a yoga block under your hips (which helps tilt our hips forwards a bit), with both legs straight and feet on the ground
Step 2
The right leg is going to be the lifting (or the “working”) leg in this exercise. Lift the right leg up as high as you can, while keeping your left leg in the same starting position you chose in Step #1. You should feel a squeeze in the front of the right thigh and hip - those are your quads and hip flexors contracting. You may or may not feel a stretch in the back of the right leg (in the hamstrings) depending on how strong/weak your hip flexors are. Even if you’re only feeling a contraction sensation in the front of the leg (and not a stretch in the back of the leg) - that’s OK!
Lower the leg back to the floor with control. This whole movement should be slow and controlled - think of these more as “lifts” and less of “kicking with wild abandon.”
Repeat for 8-12 leg lifts.
Modifications
Need to make it easier?
Bend the lifting leg more. This will decrease the hamstring stretch, making it easier to lift - this is still a helpful way to train your hip flexor strength to assist with this stretch as you get more flexible over time.
Related Content
Flexopedia: Supine Hamstring Stretch
Flexopedia: Supine Leg Lifts with Hips on Block(s)
Blog Post: How to Tell if Hamstring “Tightness” is Nerve or Muscle Tension
Blog Post: Can't Touch Your Toes? 8 Hamstring Stretches for Beginners
