I am compelled to tell you that this is not something that will happen overnight unless you are an extremely flexible individual by
| nature. Most of our bodies, however, are not designed to do the splits right away and they require some conditioning. The key to this is repetition and stretching. I’ve got a really excellent instructional video up first of all that should probably help a lot, and then I’ll elaborate with some additional instructions and |
tips afterward that may answer any additional questions you might have.
Let’s get started: get a mat out and try it yourself!
Here’s the video, I’d recommend you watch it once through, then start it again and do what you see her doing as best you can as she does it. Wash, rinse, repeat, every day. It’s that simple.
Written Instructions
1. To begin, be sure you have warmed your muscles up. This could be with a light stretch, followed by a warm-up workout of your choice. The point is to get your muscles loose and flexible.
2. Once you are warmed up, spread your legs out past your shoulders and go down until it feels uncomfortable. Do not go to the point of hurting yourself at this point. If it hurts, come up a little bit. Remember, most people are going to have to work their way into the splits. Once you are in position, rest your hands on the floor in front of you and hold this position for two minutes.
3. After two minutes, come up and shake your legs out. Then repeat. Go to the same position and see if you can go a little lower this time. If you can’t, that’s okay. Just stay in the same spot as before and hold it. If you can go a little further, then do so. Just be sure that you do not go too far – you don’t want to pull a muscle. Hold the new position for two minutes. Then come back up and shake out your legs.
4. You want to repeat these stretches at least five times. If you
| are not able to go down any further on the subsequent reps, don’t worry you will just need to do a little more stretching, be patient. Try pushing yourself just a little bit further every day, but don’t hurt yourself in the process and remember to go slowly. Also, when it gets easier to hold the two minutes, try extending the time. Hold the stretch for three minutes, then four, etc. |
For front to back splits, you will do similar stretching exercises:
1. Warm-up with some light stretching and a light warm-up exercise of your choice.
2. Prop one of your feet up on something one to two feet off of the ground and leave the other foot on the ground. Rest your hands on whatever you are using to prop up your foot.
3. Stretch the foot on the ground back to point where it is uncomfortable. Again, if it hurts, you’ve gone too far and need to come back up a little. You don’t want to tear a muscle. Once in position, hold the stretch for two minutes.
4. Come up and shake your legs out. Repeat. Do these reps at least five times a day. Once it becomes easier to hold the two minutes, go for longer. Extend it to three minutes, then four, and so on.
Further Reading and Additional Resources
How to do the Splits (for the very unflexible) at WikiHow
‘How to do the Splits’ from Cheerleading.About.com (how appropriate)