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Splits – How long did it take you?
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Great advice everyone! Sometimes backing off and stretching less is a good thing. It's not a race, so there's a benefit to being kind to your body and accepting where you are in your flexibility, AND pole journey at this moment. It's difficult to be content with where we are, but it makes for a more positive out look and then in turn, I think we end up seeing better results, because we're more relaxed with our progress and ourselves. https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_flower.gif
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Well I am a beginner of it all…just got my pole and will be doing lessons here and also learning to do the splits….wish me luck!
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beaniegoesnuts – thank you so much! I think you've pinpointed what my problem is 🙂 Must get to work on my hip flexors – I'm pretty sure they are what's been holding me back! Thank you so so much :-)))
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@Legend–I feel your frustration. I teach pole too and I am not to full splits…yet. I am hopeful that they'll come! I've never been bendy. :/
My hamstrings are SUPER tight…I think that's what's holding me back.
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k, so I was not gonna jump in b/c I am post partum and have lost a lil bit of my flexibility, but until I was 30weeks pregnant I was doing splits all sides. It took 18 mo. 4x a week. for 15 min. To those who are almost there, you'll get there! I couldn't even touch my toes after my last baby and I did it. Looking forward to pushing new limits this timehttps://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif
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Oh, and if some weeks you only get to 1 or 2x, don't worry, just pick it up the following week.
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Actively trying from April to October 2011. Got full splits on both sides within 6 months. Deep postures and deep stretching with Isaac Pena’s yoga classes 1x weekly, then Emil Valentino’s flexy workshop helped me get fully to the ground. I also do other vinyasa yoga classes 2x weekly but they didn’t open my hips up like Isaac and Emil.
Center split, I’m still the highest in the class. My friend said some bodies can never do some things and she’s convinced I have scar tissue that’s preventing me.
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no probs hazi- i was so happy when i figured it out i wanted to tell everyone!
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I have always had "splits", specifically on my right side, or so I thought.
I recently received my copy of Felix's Flexibility DVD, and I found out I have been doing splits wrong for years. I have always allowed the hip of my back leg to rotate towards the ceiling, yeah no! Once I rotated it towards the floor, and pushed it into the floor, it was a completely different feeling and look!
I am 2 inches from being on the ground on my right side, I think with an amazing warm-up, I can sit all the way down. Now my left side, I have about 6 inches, and for the middle or straddle split, I have about a foot to go.
I am taking my time, but that hip being in the right position really mattered.
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I just got aletheas DVDs in the mail yesterday and watched them last night (I like to think of it as exercising in my mind lol) I am really excited to try them and see what happens, I have lost so much flexy this round of baby baking and I wasn’t all that in the first place!
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@https://www.studioveena.com/users/view/4f4c1281-a030-45e8-ac0f-5c0a0ac37250 – Yes!!! Squared splits during practice are a must. That's the best way to train so all your standing splits and splits on the pole are easily flattened. I've seen many pole stars that have the flattest jade, but when they're doing squared splits on the ground, they're also a couple inches off. It's a different feeling. Pressure on top of your hip vs pressure on groin.
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Im curently working on the splits aswell. But I do have a question for those who can do a split or almost. Wich is easier to learn, the middle og side split?
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@CreativitybySteffie – Usually they say that the side/front splits are easier to learn than the middle splits, but I think it must differ from body to body, since I'm having a much more difficult (read: painful) time getting my side/front splits than my middles.
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https://www.studioveena.com/users/view/4d7295fc-e184-48a5-841e-6aac0ac37250 – Front/side splits for me as I'm flat and can finally twist and grab my knee. Middle/center/straddle, forget it. 1 foot away, not kidding.
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@healthalynne – HA! Thanks so much for breaking that down. I want to be as flat as possible – regardless of what I am doing. I am excited!
It is slowly coming along, my hamstrings are so stubborn .. sigh
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Thank you ladies so much! 🙂 I've been working on the side split for a little while, and I am feeling the progress each time I do it, but was thinking maybe I had picked the hard one. (not that it is easy either way)
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Maybe I should try the middle split routine, next time I work out. It would be funny, if I was much closer to get that one down.. 🙂
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I've been stretching 2-4 days a week for more than a year and a half and I'm still a good 4" off the floor in my front split. I am nowhere near the floor with my side split. I think my issue must be hip flexors.
I have a theory that it just takes longer as you get older and so I've given myself permission to not be as bendy as the 20-somethings in my class who can get their splits in 6 months. Anyone in this thread over 35 or 40 and find it's taking/has taken you longer than the younger polers?
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Emil Valentino is the most amazing stretch coach. I have had totally unflexible students that can now split, put their feet behind their head everything. I do think that you're over stretching and that leads to slow progression. Check out http://www.valentinobrothers.com or look up Emil Valentino on facebook and try a live class asap
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@ DedeJoy I just turned 26. I've been stretching regularly since december of 2009, and actual flexibility training (both splits, back, side, arms, all of it, but first focused on splits) for 1 year and 5 months. I actually looked back on a forum post I made on another site when I started the flexibility journey. I'm still about 8 inches off my center splits. I'm about an inch off on squared front splits, easier right leg forward, and if really warm and really stretched I can get the full split on both sides, but its like one day out of a month. I'm pretty sure hip flexors are the issue with front splits, so I've been paying extra attention to stretching those. For the center split, I'm not sure. Before I went to a chiro, I used to have horrible pain in my right hip when stretching. Now I don't. I've been mainly working on sitting on the ground and straight backedly leaning forward, while trying to creep my heels just a little further back each day.
Before I started stretching, I could barely touch my toes, and my center split was the top of a plie lol. I was never a flexible or athletic child, was never interested in it. I remember trying to do center splits in 2nd grade and a cheerleader friend of mind jumped on my back to try and make it happen. I was about a foot off the ground at that point lol. I started out, when trying to touch my toes to the back of my head, about 2 feet off the mark. Back flexibility is my biggest problem. As of last night, I'm about a foot off. So I KNOW I'm improving and getting better. I thought I could NEVER EVER do a split, and I have. Its taking for freakin' ever, but I'm getting there. I, personally, don't stretch into pain. I do allow discomfort, as is natural, but pain for stretching? Nooooo, not for me. So thats the story of a mid 20's learning flexibility who was not at all bendy/athletic/whatever as a child or teen 🙂
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Dwiizie, I had a great front split when I was 14/15. Until I came down with my body twisted one day and tore a bunch of ligaments in my right hip. That injury wasn't treated properly (a whole other parent thread) so it followed me around for years and years.
So, although I wasn't terribly athletic, I danced a lot and I know I could do it once upon a time. It just seems like it's taking so much longer as a middle-aged poler. I noticed that I didn't build strength up as fast as the younger women in my classes, so I'm working on the theory that all of it takes just a little bit longer when you get older. There's another woman in my class who seems to be somewhere between my age to maybe as much as ten years older, and I notice she gets hung on on the same tricks I get hung up on and usually, they are tricks that require extreme bendiness. We're both strong and we can both do most everything except these few tricks… Floating ballerina and allegra come to mind as examples. Funny, I can do a jade split, but it could be flatter.
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dedejoy- you can prob do the jade because it requires more hamstring flexibility than hip flexibility which might be tough due to your injury!
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You know, beanie, it never occurred to me until this thread that old hip injury could be what's holding me up now. I bet you're right.
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Hey everyone, thanks for the great tips, I've just started on my front splits journey, can anyone tell me, how many times a day do you stretch? So excited, I've dreamed of this forever! https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif
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I had started working on my splits last spring and initially made progress, but then due to a busy school schedule, I got off track with my stretching and so my progress sort of plateaued, Unfortunately, I started to develop some knee issues that worsened. In the process of figuring out what the injury was and how it happened, I think that a big contributor was my splits training (I can identify a couple "cheats" I think I was doing that were bad ideas!).
Now that I'm stuck with this injury (right medial meniscal tear), I've obviously had to modify a lot of my dance-related activities. I've always been limited more by my hip flexors than by my hamstrings, but I'm not sure of how I can keep working on my splits training without making my current injury worse. I have a hard time keeping my leg fully extended or putting any lateral pressure on it (i.e. any middle splits training or child's pose is out of the question). Even kneeling on the floor is tough.
Hoping someone might have some ideas?
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