Hi folks,
I would love to hear your advice on doing the side splits.
I’ve been trying now for three years with very little improvement, stretching 3-4 times/week.
Please note that although I appreciate the thinking behind it I’m not looking for any advice along the lines of:
everybody’s different
the goal is unimportant
just keep trying
etc.
I’m looking for practical advice that does actually lead to the fastest possible increase in flexibility for the side splits.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
have you tried gymnastic class ?
hey its not important to do splits , its not the goal lol
Side splits are EXTREMELY complex and would best be taught by a knowledgeable teacher in person. But let’s play a little, shall we?
Can you give some detail about what sort of stretching and warm-ups you do to prepare for the splits? When attempting the splits, where do you feel the stretch? What muscles are you engaging when you do the splits? Have you tried any props? How relaxed is your breathing when doing the splits? What goes through your mind such as, “Ow this hurts so bad I hate this why am I not getting down” etc.
Hi there,
I agree that a gymnastics class may be more of what you’re looking for. There’s a reason why you expect to hear the answers “everyone is different” and “the goal (the splits) is unimportant”. It’s not because people want to withhold useful information. It’s because doing a split is just so far from what yoga is about. It’s not the goal, as charliedharma said, and many yogis are not keen on propagating the misconception that it is. A gymnastics class may embrace and encourage your goal to merely do a split. Hope this helps!
While I agree that fully doing the splits is not the goal of yoga, there is much that can be learned about the body, mind, and emotions through the pose (as with every pose). It may highlight physical imbalances that are creating discomfort and occupy the mind when trying to sit for meditation. It may help the practitioner come to realize some of their habits and form new and healthier ones, and it may help in a whole host of other areas as well. Just as if you avoid a specific pose as much as you can you should take a hard look at it, if there’s a specific pose that challenges you or you want to do more than others, you should take a good look there as well.
Dismissing any pose a student wants to do as not being the goal of yoga in my opinion does a disservice because it’s an aspect of the yoga practice and where they’re at, at present. Who knows what the answer is. It may be, “Your body is not yet ready to do that pose.” It may be, “You’re holding emotion in X area of the body that we need to work with”. It may be, “You need to strengthen your sartorius, gluteus, and quadriceps so that your biceps femoris can properly relax in the pose.” It may be breath related, or goal orientation based mental habits or maybe all of those as well as other variables. It may be any number of things by which we improve the science of self examination which, in my opinion, is quite vital to the practice of yoga.
I can understand your opinion, David. But I feel that encouraging people to pursue nothing but the physicality of a pose does a disservice to yoga. I feel that doing a split is actually [I]not[/I] an aspect of the yoga practice at all.
I also feel that this forum may run more smoothly if focus is placed on responding to the OP instead of discrediting the various opinions are that offered to the OP. This thread does not appear to be a debate question.
I was being humorous ho ho ho , Mr Iyengars guru when asking a young B K S Iyengar to perform the splits for a demonstration , threatened to cut his hamstrings , as BKS protested he had not done this pose before , but as was the way before western liberalism Bks performed the pose , presumably out of fear respect and unswerving veneration for his guru , so with force he did the splits , he was not able to walk well for sometime afterwards , because his groins had gone .
when you say side splits are you referring to one leg in front one leg behind you (Hanumanasana ) or legs coming out to sides( Samokonasana) How old are you ? a mans sacrum fuses and loses mobility at around thirty I believe , you might double check this gem of information . If you’re young lad it will probably come easier . I believe in Karate they jump up and down on your legs to open the hips or they certainly used to , you could try this lol. Sorry feeling a bit strange today. Good luck
[QUOTE=trinley;56413]I can understand your opinion, David. But I feel that encouraging people to pursue nothing but the physicality of a pose does a disservice to yoga. I feel that doing a split is actually [I]not[/I] an aspect of the yoga practice at all.[/QUOTE]
I agree 100% that we shouldn’t encourage people to pursue only the physical aspects of a pose because there is so much more to every pose which is why I stated, “there is much that can be learned about the body, mind, and emotions through the pose (as with every pose)”. As far as I know, there is no actual sanskrit name for the side splits (just learned something, it’s Samokonasana 
), but forward splits has Hanumanasana.
[QUOTE=trinley;56413]I also feel that this forum may run more smoothly if focus is placed on responding to the OP instead of discrediting the various opinions are that offered to the OP. This thread does not appear to be a debate question.[/QUOTE]
If someone posts something you disagree with, agree with, want them to elaborate on, that you want to expound upon, etc, every member should feel free to. Such discussion isn’t just condoned here, it’s encouraged. Whether or not we choose to listen to, agree with, disagree with, respond to, and/or learn from subsequent replies is up to us.
Heck, as I reread through my posts above I thought to myself, “I hope someone expands upon what I said because what I said is extremely lacking in comparison to the complexity of side splits.”
[QUOTE=David;56406]Side splits are EXTREMELY complex and would best be taught by a knowledgeable teacher in person. But let’s play a little, shall we?
Can you give some detail about what sort of stretching and warm-ups you do to prepare for the splits? When attempting the splits, where do you feel the stretch? What muscles are you engaging when you do the splits? Have you tried any props? How relaxed is your breathing when doing the splits? What goes through your mind such as, “Ow this hurts so bad I hate this why am I not getting down” etc.[/QUOTE]
Hi David, thanks for replying.
Can you give some detail about what sort of stretching and warm-ups you do to prepare for the splits?
30km cycle to work, followed by sun salutation, twists and a variety of other poses.
[[don’t know how to post another comment properly]]
>When attempting the splits, where do you feel the stretch?
In what I suppose are tendons/ligaments rather than muscles, on the back of my legs, in the upper half.
It feels like there is an extremely taught piece of piano wire running up my leg.
> What muscles are you engaging when you do the splits?
I have tried various combinations.
I’m not familiar with the proper names, but the front of my thighs, buttocks, calves, and anywhere else in my legs that I can focus my attention on.
>Have you tried any props?
In the gym at work, there is a kind of ballet bar affixed to the wall.
I sit on the floor facing it, spread my legs out up against the wall, and pull on the bar, attempting to set the angle of my pelvis somewhat forward.
> How relaxed is your breathing when doing the splits?
I would say pretty relaxed. I have not noticed any improvements when focusing harder.
> What goes through your mind such as, "Ow this hurts so bad I hate this why am I not getting down"
Recently, I’ve been going for the stretch while sitting down, as it allows me to relax a bit more. Note that this is after doing it standing up for about two years. I don’t hate it at all, but am a little surprised to see so little change after such concerted effort, using principles of muscle activation and breathing.
Hope this answers your questions.
In regard to the other comments, first of all I’d like to say thank you all very much. I’d really like to hear some specific advice, though I realize it’s a difficult topic.
I have my reasons for wanting to do the splits, and I hope you will consider that sufficient explanation.
Hope to hear your opinions.
All the best.
Hi CJR,
I can understand the desire to want to do the splits. When I was working towards becoming an acro yoga teacher, I felt rather lacking because I wasn’t able to do the splits and felt I needed to in order to do well in acro training. I embarked on a solid six months of attempting to do the splits and, like you, had very little success. So take that disclaimer into account I also feel a professional coach or well trained yoga teacher would be worth their weight in gold.
In talking to my gymnastic coach, she stated that when she was little and were learning to do the splits, a coach literally went around and shoved the little girls into the splits. She remembers balling her eyes out once she was forced into it but could do it no problem thereafter. I’m not at all saying force yourself into it, I’m just thinking more along the lines of it may not be something that comes all that naturally. I also feel that on a physical level, many of us have impediments to that range of motion that just plain aren’t going to allow the splits to happen. For example, scar tissue from previous injuries affects the elasticity of muscles. Of course, that never stopped ME from trying 
A few things I learned along the way:
There are a lot of cooperative muscle groups involved in performing the splits. Your “agonist” muscles are the muscles that perform the actual movement by contracting. Your “antagonist” muscles are the ones that operate in opposition to your agonist muscles during a movement and return whatever you moved to its previous position. Your “synergist” muscles work in, well, synergy with your agonist muscles to make sure they don’t do more than necessary (there isn’t more motion or energy used than necessary). And your “stabilizer” muscles or fixators keep everything in place while you’re performing a specific movement. Once a muscle is fully stretched, then the the tension is place at the connective tissue. Remember, ligaments do not stretch very much and tendons should not be stretched at all. As your muscle is stretched, information is sent to the spine and that triggers the myotatic reflex which is basically your body saying, “Dude, don’t stretch too far, we don’t wanna get hurt” and tries to inhibit the lengthening of the muscle. This is why holding a stretch is very important and relaxing with your breath is important because that signal lessens over time. The theory is that you can then train your muscles to allow for greater elongation of the muscle by not freaking out and sending this signal right away. This may be why your pulling on the ballet bar hasn’t helped. You’re constantly sending the signal of, “Don’t go much further you may get hurt” instead of, “Oh, it’s all good. It’s cool to be stretched this much.” This is why the use of props to help you relax into a pose can help (see below).
In theory, you can get a better stretch by relaxing your antagonist muscles by means of contracting your agonist muscles (if you have trouble doing so, then you may first need to strengthen those muscles). You then hold the stretch for a long time, take lots of deep, calming breaths, and see what happens from there. Use props like yoga blankets, blocks, or wedges to help you relax into the pose so you can take deeper, calmer breaths (I never did this, my ego was too big in the past to use props).
Why do I tell you all of this? Well, I was never able to do the splits I’m far from an expert on any of this so I just want to share what I know. Figure out which are the agonist muscles and which are the antagonist muscles and your synergists (I don’t know that I ever did) and make sure each is strong enough to perform its necessary function. Turn the whole process into a meditation. While you perform your splits, withdraw your senses and go inside and see if you can allow for greater relaxation. As for warmups, there was a great youtube video floating around that showed a martial artist doing warmups for the splits, but I can’t find it now 
I’m admittedly a fan of Bikram Yoga so if you like hot yoga at all, maybe try the splits after a class where you feel you still have enough energy to perform the pose safely. I find i’m able to go deeper into poses thanks to hot yoga.
I don’t know if any of this helped, but have fun, make it a meditation, observe your breath, observe your emotions, and see what happens Good luck!
It might be worth having a look at Thomas Kurtz’s book “Stretching Scientifically”. He provides a series of exercises for this, and also suggests strengthening the muscles. He suggests going down as far as you can go and going up again without using your hands on the floor. He goes into some detail about PNF and his methods seem to have got good results from older people.
I speak as someone who can’t do this (one day perhaps!), but generally speaking I think regular practice is the best way and specifically strengthening the adductor muscles.
Lucas Rockwood also suggests PNF and doing the pose for 3-5 minutes a day.
Good luck!
Dickon
Side splits are BAD for the knees and joints, this is FACT!
If for example your upper body is upright and you do a side split - it puts serious pressure on your knees.
You should read Pavel Tsatsoluine’s ‘Relax Into Stretch’ book, which is much better than Tom Kurtz’s book which is very long winded and not all that clear and direct to follow. [B]You can get sneak ‘look inside’ here : [/B]http://www.amazon.com/Relax-into-Stretch-Flexibility-Mastering/dp/0938045288/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302473499&sr=1-5
Pavel also has DVD’s :
[B]‘Relax Into Stretch’ [/B]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA6AjRraUg
and [B]‘Forced Relaxation’ [/B]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInallL_o5U&feature=related
[B]Beyond Stretching [/B]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcsA7XspSBs&feature=related [B](look for more parts 1-5 at right)[/B]
Would not say Pavel’s methods are better than Yoga but for sure you will get results FASTER! Also certain exercises like side split are not really done in many forms of Yoga.
[QUOTE=MindNinja;57053]Side splits are BAD for the knees and joints, this is FACT! [/QUOTE]
I think my many gymnastics and acrobatics and dance friends who can do the splits but don’t have any knee or joint issues would tend to disagree with you. My guess is they would, however, agree that improperly attempting side splits is potentially bad for the knees and joints.
David,
You’re right there are many people doing proven ‘bad stretches’ that have no problems with knees or joints and will never get problems, for some though they may have problems later in life.
Doing a Side Split with upper body upright is very bad on knees and joints, it puts serious pressure on your knees. Same with bad stretches like Hurdlers Stretch one leg behind you (like hurdling) other straight out in front of you, head to knee with one in front, puts lot of pressure on your rear knee, some may not even feel it at all but the pressure is there.
Physiologically you have to ask anyone wanting to be able to do full side splits - what exactly are you trying to achieve? Because you can stretch the exact same muscles used in a side split using other safer different exercises.
[B]Worth noting too for anyone wanting to do a side split - simple test stand up get a chair put your right leg on it sideways at waist height, put leg down , now do same with left leg. If you can do that with both legs you CAN achieve a full side split for there are no muscles running from one leg to the other! All that is inhibiting you is psychological and you need to trick your muscles into relaxing. [/B]
Folks,
my sincere apologies for the late response.
thank you all very much for your input.
i wonder if anyone has an opinion as regards the degree of rotation inwards or outwards your legs should have when attempting the side splits.
i was advised to rotate my legs inwards while doing the splits up against a wall - what do you think of this?
also, would anyone like to comment on:
>Worth noting too for anyone wanting to do a side split - simple test stand up get a chair put your right leg on it sideways at waist height, put leg down , now do same with left leg. If you can do that with both legs you CAN achieve a full side split for there are no muscles running from one leg to the other! All that is inhibiting you is psychological and you need to trick your muscles into relaxing.
this seems to say that anyone could do the splits if they could relax properly. have any of you found you could stretch dramatically further, suddenly, as a result of relaxing?
i’d love to hear your comments on these points.
all the best.