Coaches Help with poor leg flexibilty

[gralch1]

I have a gymnast that is severly lacking in her splits. I have her doing over splits, split and straddle jumps on tramp, leg kicks on floor and have been manually stretching her daily. I have seen very little improvement. Any ideas on how I can help my gymnast? I am afraid she will never be able to get required split on leaps and jumps.

 

[bogwoppit]

Do you give her a home workout sheet? If she practices all three splits daily at home they will improve way faster.

 

[Empowered]

If someone comes up with a good "out of the box" solution to improve this, please message it to me. My daughter is extremely inflexible and the stronger and more muscular she gets, the worse it gets. She is equal opportunity inflexible too, legs, shoulders, back, feet (toe point)... The problem is she does stretch every day at home. She does all three splits and sits in them for 3 minutes as that was what a ballet teacher once told me. She then moves to "oversplits" though she makes no progress on them.

It's like her muscles fight the stretching, literally. At the gym when she's with a coach they will often apply pressure and try to force her further, but they know what they are doing and I don't so I don't ever help her at home for fear of hurting her.

The lack of flexiblity though affects her leaps, her beam (can't get shoulders open enough when doing her bhs causing much aggravation with one coach in particular despite the physical limitation), her bars (straddle glide kip out of clear hip is hard because her straddle is so small)...

Clearly inflexibility and gymnastics don't mix, but she loves this sport...

 

[gralch1]

She does have a home workout to do. All 3 splits and leg kicks. She and mother say she is doing them.
We are going on 4 months with this process.

 

[bogwoppit]

There were two sisters in our gym for ten years. They trained three times a week and trained their splits at home. One of them briefly managed to get her right leg split, that was it. Some kids just are terribly inflexible. But those girls could vault and tumble like springs!

Doing splits is the best way to get splits.

 

[coachmolly]

You could try leg kicks with a theraband. Otherwise, just keeping working at it. For some kids it will come, for others they might just need to find ways to work around it.

 

[Kiwi]

It's like her muscles fight the stretching, literally. At the gym when she's with a coach they will often apply pressure and try to force her further, but they know what they are doing and I don't so I don't ever help her at home for fear of hurting her.

This sounds a lot like my DD. One of her coaches actually did pull her hamstring and damage it badly by pushing her in a stretch. I took her to see a St John Neuromuscular Therapist, who advised that DD had a pelvic rotation that was causing the hamstrings to be in a constantly stretched position, putting them under strain. So her muscles were literally fighting the stretching. The NMT gave her gentle exercises to do at home, and once her pelvic angle improved, she was allowed to do hamstring stretches at home. There is one that I help her with, it is a special kind of PNF stretching, I don't the name of it, it is very gentle and very effective. Her leg flexibility has improved a lot. The pushing methods used at the gym don't help her and only injure her, and I have instructed her coaches that she is not to be pushed in any stretches (although I don't think her current coach is very happy about it).

We are now going through the same issue with shoulder flexibility. The coach has been pushing her (despite my specific instructions) and it has been hurting her back - the NMT thinks it may be a lat attachment. I know the coach only wants to help DD improve, but her forceful methods simply do not work for my DD. I will continue to work with my DD at home using the stretches recommended by our NMT.

Edit: Another thing I have found helpful is the Front Splits Fast program by Australian dance physiotherapist Lisa Howell. She is into increasing flexibility by releasing neural and fascial tension, and some of her techniques involve working on other parts of the body as well as the legs. She writes the ballet blog and has some videos on YouTube. It's quite interesting stuff and might be helpful for people who have tried with traditional static stretching and not really gotten anywhere.

 

[BlairBob]

Check out MobilityWOD for assistance stretches. Obviously, the bread and butter stretches are not working so it's time to try something else.

 

[gralch1]

Thanks, will do.

 

[iwannacoach]

Check out MobilityWOD for assistance stretches. Obviously, the bread and butter stretches are not working so it's time to try something else.

I checked out MobilityWOD (a new one for me) and after looking at 3 different videos found an article in Crossfit Journal titled Hamstrung by Kelly Starrett, issue 59 July 2007. If you use this as a reference you'd be ok, but while using that as a reference I'd add a few tweaks to enhance it. Look at the photos and how the stretching is done. What I've done with kids is to have them start with their leg up as far as they can raise it with out rotating the pelvis. From this position the athlete should push against a partner who starts out with a mild level of resistance while the stretching athlete bends at the knee until their foot is at their butt. From this point the athlete tries to resist while the partner staightens the leg to and just a little past the orininal position.
I like to have them do at least 15 reps with the resistance gradually increased on each rep...after the 5th rep has been done. So it goes like this...easy and gentle to warm up for 5 reps, then gradually increase resistance and range for reps 6-15. Do both legs and your will notice quite a bit of improvement. Some static stretch should follow the movement/resistance stretches and the static could be repeated every 30 minutes to enhance the muscles flexibility.
I use this same approach to stretch calves, glutials, and lower back as these muscles seem to be inter-connected. If you do all three exercises the results are amazing. Same goes for shoulders, front splits, and quads...full range of motion with resistance in both directions 5 warm-up reps followed by 10 with gradually increased load.

 

[caraburn]

I don't think anybody has the same views on how to deal with flexibility. I have been coaching for 5 years and have a degree in Sports Science and the most important thing with dealing with flexibility is patience. It can take 6 months to a year to be able to see much of an improvement. I understand this can be frustrating because it hard to decide whether or not the methods are working. Improving muscular strength is a much quicker processes. Holding splits for more than a minute is probably not going to be beneficial. Doing sets of stretches tends to be the best method I have found through my experience and education. An example of this would be holding splits 3 times for 30 seconds. It is also important to localize which areas of the legs are the tightest and focus on separate stretches that isolate those muscles.

 

[Valentin]

I have to disagree with people who feel that flexibility is hard to gain. It comes down to a few factors however, some mentioned some not.
1- Is most effective method is CRAC method, Contract, Relax, Agonist, Contract
source Welcome to The Gym Press: Leader in gymnastics coaching and physical education
read - Stretching Scientifically Part I: Myths, Facts and Science
read - Stretching Scientifically Part II: Stretching methods, the pros and cons to each method
these two articles will give a good grounding knowledge in what you need to know about stretching.
But basically stretch regularly, stretch to the point of beyond discomfort, if experiencing a growth spurt, you will need to stretch EXTRA (but be more careful about intensity of stretch), vary the stretches, spend time.
1min stretches are long good length if you have the time, with 3 sets. Multiple sets of stretch is better than 1 long stretch.

Hope this helps.