Stretching

b3st

Anyone here know about stretching I have just started martial arts, and aim to do the splits to the floor. how long will this take me and what routine should I be doing form people with experience.

emberlea1

I use yoga to stretch and strengthen my muscles. I highly recommend Chaz Rough of YogAmazing. He has targeted, short videos on specific topics on YouTube, yogamazing.com and ITunes.

ktno1

I did ballet many years ago and had to get into the splits. Probably only took a month of good stretching (but I was quite flexible beforehand and quite young which I think helps).

I used to get up early in the morning and do some dynamic stretching - swinging the legs to warm up the hip joints for about 10 minutes. Then static stretching of hamstrings (sitting on the floor with one leg out and reaching over the leg, standing up and reaching to the floor, couple of different ones) and also the hip flexors which actually gave me more grief than getting the hamstrings stretched out enough. Long lunge position with back leg kneeling on the floor helped a lot. Also sitting cross legged and reaching forward.

For side splits most of the same applies but the inner thighs need some work as well. Just sat on the floor legs spread, reached forward.

Probably did about 20 minutes all up every single morning. I felt that stretching in the morning was better than at night because you use your muscles for the rest of the day whereas when you stretch at night you stretch out the muscles and then go straight to bed.

I can't comment on the healthiness or safety of this routine but I did it for years and was consistently able to do splits on both legs and sideways. Luckily never pulled anything but I had several friends who did their hammy which was super unpleasant!

ETA: there are lots of videos on youtube made by dancers, gymnasts, yoga enthusiasts, etc. which demonstrate which stretches will help you get down into splits.

cafeaulait7

Anyone here know about stretching I have just started martial arts, and aim to do the splits to the floor. how long will this take me and what routine should I be doing form people with experience.

If you've never done them, it could take several months of training, but that's OK.

I do splits daily to every other day as part of my flexibility routine, and I had gotten out of them for a few years. It took me about a month to 6 weeks to be able to get full splits again, so I had to figure out how to 'get there' when far from the floor.

If you are already pretty flexible, just use a pillow under your split or your hands to hold you up and stretch in split position as far as you can go without over straining. Do that a minimum of every day, and try to stay 45 seconds- a minute in the pose. Get warm first, btw, because these are static stretches.

Better, though, if you aren't almost there, is a series of poses:

#1 -- Pigeon from yoga, where you sit up as straight up as possible, square your hips to line up, and have your back leg in splits position. The front leg bent helps you concentrate on the back leg for a full stretch there. Your back leg probably won't be straight at first. Just work on it over time.

#2 -- Heron from yoga. Get to the point that your leg is pretty straight up with no bent knee.

#3 -- Full folds from yoga. Do any kind that uses both legs at once.

#4 -- Now use the pillow or your arms and try your split.

Just keep working it and don't overdo it at one time (like push too far). The muscles only stretch as much as they are going to stretch without training them over time, so don't try to push them past that or they'll get injured instead.

Side splits add different muscles. Get regular splits first before working those yet, but inner thigh (with hip) stretches are fine to start adding in, of course. Frog pose from yoga, Happy Baby, and Turtle are all great to start with there, imho. You don't have to lie all the way down in Turtle; it's the IT and hip opening you are looking for there, so work on spreading the legs in it.

noemibp

First time writing this:

Bump!

bhsishtla

I do Denise Austin 'Flex and Stretch'.It is 30 minutes video recording,a old one but it works on all muscles in the body.