Autumn Calabrese walks through seven stretches to work toward the splits, starting with hip flexors and hamstrings, then moving to seated forward folds and straddle poses. Hold each stretch about 30 seconds, keep your knees straight on hamstring work, and use pillows under your hips to make the final split practice easier.
Questions this video answers
About 30 seconds.
Pillows (or a mattress) placed under the pelvis for elevation.
Chapters
Hey guys, Today we are working on flexibility. In fact, I had quite a few requests from guys asking me how to get into the splits. I don't know why, but I'm going to show you. Let's talk about it. We're going to come down on your mat to get started. I want you in a 90 degree angle in your front leg and in your back leg. Abs are drawn in tight. You're gonna take your arms up by your ears and you're gonna squeeze your glutes and press your pelvis forward. So what you're doing here is you're feeling a stretch in your hip flexor. That's gonna help when you go into the split. Now when you're holding these stretches, you'd normally hold for about 30 seconds. I'm not gonna hold that long. It will bore you. But that's the first part of the stretch. Now go back into that stretch. Let's go a little deeper into the hip flexor. You're gonna reach to the side, really elongate in here. You're just gonna feel more of a stretch in the hip flex.
Now bring it up. Now we're gonna go into the hamstrings. So what I want you to do is extend this front leg out. Take the hands to the ground. You need to keep your knees straight. So even if you're right here, if this is where you feel this stretch, hold it there until it releases. If you have a little more flexibility, start to sink back into it. If you can get all the way down under your heel. Great. Hold it right here. Feel that stretch again about 30 seconds or until you feel that hamstring release.
Now from here, bring it all the way up. We're going to take both legs straight out in front of us.
Again. Need you to keep your knees straight on this so that you actually get the stretch on the hamstrings. Sit up tall, you're going to reach for your toes. So even if you start right here and that's where you feel the stretch, that's fine. But eventually we're trying to take the tummy all the way down to the tops of the thighs. Hold it right here. If this still feels too easy and you feel like you have a little bit more, you can grab the toes and actually pull the heels off the ground and you'll feel that go even deeper into the hamstrings. Still holding the abdominals in. Alright, let's release that. Now we're going to lay all the way down on your back. So this is a straddle stretch. What I want you to do is take the legs straight up in the air. You're going to open them up. If you can grab your heels. Great, because you're going to use your hands to press your legs closer to the ground. And you're going to feel this stretch all in the inner thigh. Eventually, you'd like to get towards the ground. I don't have that flexibility, but what I'm working on. Good. Now, from here, you're gonna take your first two fingers, interlace them between your big toe, and you're gonna pull the legs into happy baby yoga pose here. So we're just opening the hips up a little bit more. Hold this stretch right here.
Good. Now we're gonna release, and we're gonna go back into another hamstring stretch. Because if your hamstrings aren't loose, you're not gonna get into the split. The leg is straight. You can either grab behind the thigh at the calf or at the ankle. And you're just going to pull your leg towards your face.
As you start to feel your muscle release, you can bend your knee, pull it into your chest. That releases it, and then extend it. You'll get a little bit more of a stretch right there. You may start to shake. That's normal.
And release it down right there. So now what we're going to do is we're going to come all the way up, and we're going to start with our split. So what I want you to do, if you're new to it, is grab some pillows.
Might need more than two. Might need a mattress. Whatever the biggest pillow is that you need to start with, because you're going to put it under you to give you a little extra lift here. So it goes right in the center of your body. Extend that front leg out, extend the back leg, and you're going to sit here again until you feel it release, sitting up tall. Now, from here, if you can, you can take it forward again. You'll get a little bit more stretch in that hamstring, and you just want to hold it.
Now, once again, when you get comfortable and you feel that leg start to release, you can take one pillow out. It's going to bring you a little closer to the ground. You're going to feel it a little bit more. Same thing. Stay there. Watch a TV show, call somebody. Once you feel it release again, you can remove both of those pillows. This might not all be in the same day, you guys. It might take time to build up to this, but there you go. You're in your splits. You've done it. Make sure you repeat all the stretches on the other side. You gotta keep flexibility on both legs, not just one side. But that's it. That's how you get into the splits. Thank you guys for joining me. Leave your comments, tweet me, Instagram me. You can always hashtag it with my name, Autumn Calabrese. And I'll see you guys next time.
