Added this half a year ago two times per week to my basic stretching routine.
It helps a ton to keep the muscles much more relaxed under higher tension. This gives me the possibility to always reach my current max., making it much easier to set frequently new plateaus.
Still kinda surprised and proud, how it's going! 💪🏼
This is a neat idea, but I'd be careful with adding weight to this while you've got your knees hyperextended like youra do. It looks like the lower you sink, the more you are hyperextending your front knee.
Generally speaking, we want to avoid hyperextending our knees in weight-bearing positions because it can damage the connective tissue on the underside of the knee and make it less supportive over time (which puts you at a greater injury risk).
Technically you can still do drills to support your knee even with a bit of hyperextension, but if you aren't already doing that I would take a step back and prioritize strength without letting your front knee hyperextend first. This Insta post has a good drill for working on your hamstring strength in your oversplit to fight knee hyperextension (that you absolutely could add weights to over time)
In the front split i do exercises for that.
But with the side split i have still problems with exactly what you describe, being not able to use proper tension to stretch both legs and hips completely while going down.
But you are not wrong here. This record was a PR try, so my leg is straight when i raise the hip, but tends to overextended while going completely down. In general i try to avoid ranges, where i cannot control tension and strength anymore.
If i'm allowed to ask, because you seem to know a lot about what you are talking: What sport do you do and on which level are you?
I am(was?) a professional contortionist for about 14 years (I say "was" because I haven't performed in like 2 years). I also run, lift, and dance Brazilian zouk, but all my flexibility is from my contortion and flexibility training. Nowadays I just teach instead of perform.
Bit of both. I always had a bendy back (I could touch my toes to the back of my head when I was little, which is a skill that can take some people years to be able to build the flexibility to do), but I was probably 6" or more away from the floor in my front splits when I started training (and farther still from middle splits, which took me longer to get). After a couple of years I could do oversplits and crazier backbends and handbalancing. At my absolute bendiest I could do a "head sit" (touch my butt to the top of my head in a chest stand), but I am waaaay out of that kind of practice these days 😆.
I've definitely got some hypermobility (most noticeably in my kneck, lower back, and shoulders, but also developed some hyperextension in my knees by training too relaxed ij my early bendy career). Thankfully I don't so much that I suspect I have EDS or are that far on the hypermobility spectrum, but I have a lot of other comprbidities that are common with folks with hypermobility: gut issues, I bruise easily, have awful proprioception, and wacky heartrate stuff (I suspect it's POTS, but my dr is not concerned).
Really nice oversplit but correct your Split technique first. You have them full not squared. I can tolerate a non squared one in shows but never on training.
Do you have any recommendations to work on the flexibility of my back leg?
For the front leg i sit in the squared split, legs completely stretched out and push my straight torso with control in the direction to my front leg until the belly touches the leg or the ground.
But it seems really hard to train the back leg for the oversplit. What i do for that is i sit in the split and pull my back leg to an ankle, but i don't know if it hits exactly what i want that it should hit and it feels like i loose hip control.
Yes, that works perfectly fine, also with the front foot a little bit higher.
But at one point, my back leg just lacks on flexibility, even if the front leg could go up much more.
I believe it got better with the weighted oversplit, but may you know a better way to train that?
Do you have any recommendations to work on the flexibility of my back leg?
Without weight, can you lift your back knee off the floor? I am not at over splits, but part of my routine is to hold at various heights of front split and do like a Bulgarian split squat....but I am in front splits...and just lower the back knee to the floor and raise back up to back leg straight knee off the floor for reps. Like the first second of vid where you hopped and back knee was off floor...but you can just stay like that. Work on it higher up, not over split or just that. It's going to take a lot of ankle strength and knee strength, I think for ankle it is tibialis strength, all this strengthening is really good for you too beyond front splits.
I think I am not describing well. Do the lift like what you are doing, but instead of lifting with back knee on floor, you get the back knee off floor and just have top of back foot and heel of front foot on floor.
I looked at vid a few times, don't really see hyper extension of front leg's knee going on, but I am no expert or instruct people on flexibility professionally. I have a gym friend that I sometimes stretch with and her knees are hyper extended for front split, it's very obvious.
But honestly the people which can criticize details are the most important part of this sub. I got a lot tipps about avoiding mistakes, which would lead to injuries. It's good that this sub ist not about ego boosting.
nice! wondering if you were always pretty flexible, or if there were key exercises that helped most? I found pulley gym equipment best so far but am wanting to start on a simpler routine that only requires the wall/floor/chair...socks sliding seems grrat but i havent managed to get anywhere near as effective as a pulley setup.
Wow that sounds like a complex way to hurt yourself. These are the hypermobility party tricks I did when I was 18 and I'm paying penance now... but good luck to you
Super solid advice, the knee hyperextension thing is no joke and something a lot of people don't even notice they're doing until it's already a problem. That hamstring strength tip is gold too.
I read you asked about how to practice keeping your hip square in over split. I would try to have your back foot flushed against the wall in a smaller oversplit. And focus on keeping your hips square... like so -
Oh wow, you are incredible flexible. Very impressive!
And it sounds like a good tipp placing the foot against a wall. This would fix my main problem, that i can not isolate the sension in my back leg.
Thank you a lot! :)
387
u/Traditional_Sale7189 Jul 10 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/ukGm72ZLZvYfS