Thursday Tips: Hamstring Flexibility
Nemesis Trick: Splits
So, the front splits. Sigh.
First of all, let me reiterate that you don’t NEED to get the splits to be a great pole dancer. But, if you really want to train for splits, you need to do your research, and see what’s out there, and be RESPONSIBLE about what you are going to be subjecting your body to. Because if we were all naturally meant to be able to drop into splits, we wouldn’t all have to work so damn hard for them. Flexibility training is rigorous and can be hard, so don’t take it lightly.
If you are looking to get your splits, you will need hip flexor AND hamstring flexibility. You need the back leg to have a long, flexible hip flexor so that you can set the thigh of that leg on the floor behind you, and a long, flexible hamstring in your front leg so that you can extend that thigh on the floor in front of you.
We’ve already covered hip flexor flexibility. A pretty good test of where you are limited is to reach down and touch your toes. If you can’t get close, you probably need to work on hamstrings. If that’s easy for you, but you still don’t have your splits, you probably need to work on hip flexors.
For hamstring flexibility, I’m going to point you towards a bunch of video links on YouTube that explore resistance stretching of the three different parts of your hamstrings. I’ve talked about resistance stretching already in the hip flexor blog entry, but the reason why I like this method of stretching is that it’s very, very difficult to go too far and pull your muscles when you stretch this way because you are engaging the muscle you are stretching. There’s a bunch of science behind the method (which I’m currently exploring while researching for a paper for one of my classes, joy!) and it helps to know that I can recommend this without being too worried that people will be doing it wrong and risking injury the way that they might with passive stretching. If you’re new to the blog and didn’t read the resistance stretching primer in the hip flexor blog entry, do that now!
So, without further ado, here are the links. The guy (second set of links for each part of the hammie) is a little bit more groovy and talks a little bit more about some concepts that might be a little left-field for some of you, but his fundamentals in stretching are solid.
Central Hamstring: here and here
Outer Hamstring: here and here
Inner Hamstring: here and here
I hope that helped! I found a lot of improvement very quickly with this method, so I hope it works for some of you who are looking for more information on flexibility!
Tomorrow’s post: Significant Others…
Hi Amy! Great tip as usual!
I’ve already bought this VBook for my iPod thanks to your post on hamstring flexibility. It’s good they have upload all the videos for free now.
Ok , I know that I don’t need splits to be a good poledancer, but since it became a kind of bigger and bigger psychological burden in the last months I decided to go into it.
I have been trying resistance stretching methods for let’s say 10 days, but should I consider it as a stretching-like exercise, so to get the best I must be consistent and stretch every day for at least x minutes or x times, or should I consider it as a more complete workout and give my muscles the right time to recover and “transform” the workout?
The day after this isometric workout I feel my muscles very tired and aching.
Hey Elisa,
If you’re interested in more information, I’d contact Ellen (her info is in the hip flexor entry) as she is the expert
She also does Skype private one-on-one sessions which is really helpful to get your technique down right before you really get into the program.
Thanks for the videos! I’m trying to figure out if the reason that my front splits/back splits ( while I can do them just fine) tend to look like my back leg is broken is due to quad or ham tightness so I can stretch out correctly. Its the bane of my existence when I’m in the air!
It may be quad tightness, but it could also be that your hamstrings aren’t strong enough to pull the leg all the way back, or that your hip flexors are too tight!
Yay! The first stretch video in each of these is done by the folks who trained me. This method can be confusing but it definitely works!
Thanks for the comment Ellen, definitely will send people your way if they have any questions. I think it’s a great idea to do a private online session first to make sure you have the technique down before you go into the method full force