Fast Fitness - Don't Shorten Hip When Stretching Hamstring
Friday, December 19, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
When lying on your back to stretch your hamstrings by lifting one leg:
- Lie flat. Keep the leg you are not lifting flat on the ground, not bent at the knee and hip, or with upper body curled and neck craned, as pictured.
- Don't let your pelvis and hip round under you. Don't let your backside curl up off the floor.
- Keep your hip, leg, back, shoulders, and head relaxed, flat, straight, touching the ground.
It is a myth that you must bend your knee to protect your back. If you must bend your knee to protect your back, how are you supposed to stand on one leg and lift the other in real life to climb stairs, kick, and even run and walk, without curling into bent over, old-looking, tight, injury-producing position?
When stretching your hamstrings, remember function. Why practice a position that is rounded, tightening, and detrimental to how you move when you stand and extend your legs. Get stretch by lengthening you body enough to be able to straighten out.
Send me your photos of fixing this stretch. Doing is the best learning. I will publish the photos in a reader success post to come.
Related posts:
- What Does Stretching Do?
- Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
- Better Achilles Tendon Stretch
- Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
- Healthier Hamstring Stretching
- Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?
- The Cause of Disc and Back Pain
- Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
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Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free.
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Find fun topics on the Fitness Fixer Index.
Labels: fast fitness, hamstring, hip, hip stretch, leg strength, myths, strength
4 Comments:
At Sunday, January 11, 2009 2:03:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I'd appreciate if the photo was showing the 'what not to do' that you marked it, and always included a 'what to do' photo. Images are powerful, and memorable.
Thank you for the great work you do.
At Sunday, January 25, 2009 10:16:00 AM,
Anonymous said…
Hello,
I have been having difficulty finding any topic on strains and sprains in the back so I figured this is as good as any to post my questions..
First off, I love that you give the "facts" and your methods. I bought your books and they have me re-thinking how to exercise in the Gym(if I decide to go back lol, this stuff is tougher then alot of wieght bearing exercise!)..
Anyway I have not found much about sprain/strain here accept in the knee and ankle area. I have recently yanked myself doing bad exercise positioning(over arch/squats!) in the Gym(how unusual! lol)..
The first day after the pull I could barely move.. Despite this I continued on "working out" heavy and just kept aggravating the area. I finally gave up after about 20 days..
The doctor just gave me the straight leg test(ofcourse no pain when doing this so he thought nothing of it) and told me sprain/strain and if it doesn't get better blah blah..
So ok(losing thought here as I am very hyper!). I had slowly started to improve but realised that doing "nothing" was not really an answer either. My back began to feel weak! I would have none of that so I started doing typical "gym" exercises where you use some kind of weight bearing to push against, even if it was forward bending.. This was before I came across your site and books.
Anyway this aggravated the area "again".
I finally came across your site/articles/and books. Within 3 weeks of starting to "experiment" with your methods I slowly stopped having pain. I mean "experiment" as I was unsure because of all the data out there with varying opinions on how to recover.
So now going into 3 months(one I was still training full force with bending and all so I don't count that anymore as part of the recovery lol).. So almost 2 months the area has slowly started to come back to me(thank god)..
I guess this is leading to questions! First off, would you mind placing somewhere anything on muscle/ligament strains/sprains in the back/buttock area?
Secondly, I may be blind but I cannot seem to find any stretches for the buttocks or lower back(if you don't bend over what stretches are used to lengthen these areas? I seemed to ahve a very tight buttock issue so I am curious!)..
Lastly, I have found that simply doing all the plank stuff and holds to help tremendously.. The pain seems to dissolve(and there really is not much anymore now) slowly over time now whereas before all the exercises I did just kept re-aggravating the area.
The only thing that is bothering is the time frame.. I know patience is a virtue but when you want to just go back full force to what you could do before(but with more attention on avoiding injury ever again) it can be very frustrating crawling back to full health.
BTW how do you tie your shoes? Is all bending prohibited?
Thank you for the wonderfull material!
At Friday, February 06, 2009 9:22:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Anonymous, send in your photo. I am glad to post reader successes and good examples.
A funny, but telling observation, is when I search photo databases for the hundreds of photos I need for all these articles for all of you, searches using keywords of "exercise," "health" or "fitness" or searches of fitness sites yield the worst and most unhealthful positioning. Often, unless I take the photo myself of a student, or a patient or reader sends one in, there is no "good" example. Come be one.
At Friday, February 06, 2009 9:27:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
R. Davis, great work, great story.
"All bending" is not prohibited. The idea is to bend well for functional exercise and stretch, not bend in injurious ways, and be able to have better range of motion and ability than before. The idea is not to limit your life to limit the pain. Use good bending for daily life activities - one example in Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle. Tying your shoes is a simple lunge with one foot in front of the other, or standing with one ankle crossed over the other knee. Use the Fitness Fixer index - www.drbookspan.com/fitfix-index to find topics and use labels under posts to get all posts on a topic.
To stretch the posterior hip, good bending is a top functional stretch. See posts on squat, lunge, and hip stretch.
For muscle/ligament strain/sprain in the lower back, see the dozens of posts in Fitness Fixer and my books on injuries to the area. Don't get stuck on a label like "ligament" or "strain/sprain." Posts and chapters are listed by pain and area. Often pain is not ligament or sprain and searching that way misses actual causes.
As far as patience - don't wait. With my methods you can tell right away if something is working. See the well-written comment/success story by DD following the post Prevent Back Surgery.
Keep up your good work and send photos and for a post of your success story.
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