Foundations: Hamstring Stretch

Quick Intro

For many people with tight hamstrings: runners, cyclists, many men, office and desk workers, drivers and so on… hamstrings tend to get short, resulting in imbalanced muscle systems, a tight pelvis, a faulty posture and possibly even injury!
This exercise is a great preparation for the Single Leg Circles but is a wonderful way to explore the relationship between the pelvis position (imprinted and neutral) whilst the leg is moving.  Try this stretch with you lower back on the mat, and then find your spinals and bring your pelvis into neutral.  What happens to the stretch? – Does it increase in intensity or decrease?
To get the best benefit of this stretch watch the following:

• maintain your neutral lumbo-pelvic position;
• keep your tailbone connected to the mat to help you maintain a neutral pelvic position.  Consciously activate to your lower back muscles to deepen your connection to them and strengthen them;
• keep your foot is dorsiflexion (ankle at right angles – try to keep your toes relaxed though),
• keep the stretch active by making small, controlled external rotations and you feel the stretch move across the three hamstrings…
• hold the stretch for between 45 – 90 seconds.

Consistency and frequency are key.

What’s it good for? ⁠

🌟 Learning and developing pelvic stability.
🌟 Stretching the Hamstrings.
🌟 Begin learning Single Leg Stretch for people with very tight Hamstrings.

A quick “how to”…

Title 

🌟  Lie on you back with your pelvis and lower back in a neutral position.
🌟  Hook a theraband, or belt or similar over the ball of your foot.
🌟 Maintain the position of ypur lower back and pevis and bring yur leg as near to vertical as you can.
🌟 Hold this position for 60-90 seconds.
🌟 Make very small external rotations to help shift the stretch around all the different fibres of the muscle.  You should feel the nature of the stretch change as you do ths.

Hints & Tips:

🌟 Duration – the mst common mistake I see when peope are trying to stretch out tight muscles is not holding it for long enough.  Take you time and stretch thoroughly.
🌟 Frequency – if you really want to see changes happen, do this stretch often.  Twice daily might seem an exaggeration, but if you want to see results…
🌟 Consistency over time.

Any Questions?

Ask away – I love to help!  Click here for the Contact Page 🙂 – or leave a comment at the bottom of the post – see you there…