hey what's up it's Coach E here from precision movement and today we're gonna
talk about a muscle called the rectus femoris okay so the rectus femoris goes
from up in the inserting or originating in the pelvis on the pelvis and slides
down on the anterior aspect the superficial aspect of the thigh
inserting into the patellar tendon okay so it's one of the quadriceps muscles
it's the most superficial of those muscles and it's the only two joint
muscle okay so the rest the quadriceps the vastus lateralis medialis and
intermedius they're all single joint muscles they only act on the knee but
the rectus femoris it acts on the hip and creates hip flexion and it acts on
the knee and creates knee extension okay so that's very important to understand
because if you want to get the best stretch for it and you want to work it
through the full range of motion then you have to understand how both joints
must be to make that happen okay so in terms of stretching the
muscle we need to fully lengthen it so because it's a hip flexor and a knee
extensor to fully lengthen it we need knee flexion and hip extension okay
that's the fully lengthened position of the rectus femoris okay fully shortened
position is hip flexion within the extension okay so there's a little amout
of me for you some biomechanics so you understand what is happening with this
muscle so the first stretch that we're gonna do now I'm all about active
stretching building strength through the full range of motion so that you develop
range of control not just range of motion okay so it's mobility over
flexibility that's the ultimate goal because we want to move for this for the rectus
femoris or also known as the rec fem the most common stretch is foot up on the
wall or foot up on a bench or a couch and then yeah jam it in there like so so
you fully flex the knee you see my calf is basically touching my hamstring and
then the hip is in extension I'm leaning back and I'm feeling a huge stretch
through the rectus femoris and all my quads ok iliopsoas as well so cool but
it's static stretch it's not helping us build range of control so how can we do
this better so first of all it's a build range of control
we've just got to work out the end range and passive range of motion okay if we
go so deep into that passive range there's no way we're gonna develop any
strength there because we don't have the neuromuscular control of that range yet
okay so what you've got to do is you got to find the end passive range so the end
passive range is basically if I'm in this same position and I stand up and I
actively pull my knee or pull my heel to my button so I'm flexing the knee there
that's my end passive range okay so I want to work around that range it's
close to that range as possible go a little bit deeper but no more okay so I
can find that range again get close to the wall okay and that's that's pretty
much perfect for me because now to increase the passive range I just rest
on the wall a little bit okay so what we're gonna do is you find that range
first find your end passive range I'm about there okay now I can increase the
stretch a little bit so now I'm a little bit past my end to passive range and
active range story here what I'm gonna do is I'm first I'm gonna drive my foot
into the wall so that's firing up the quads including the rectus femoris so
I'm building strength in that range there okay so shortening the muscle up
strengthening it hold it for five seconds like a PNF or contract relaxed
style stretch I call these en range activation sequences and then you relax
and you hang out there a little bit more yeah next you want to work the opposite
muscles the antagonist group in this case the hamstrings okay because we want
control in and out of that range of motion so the hamstrings bring us into
this range the quads, the rectus femoris brings us out of this range okay so to
do that I come off the wall a little bit and then I actively bring my heel to my
butt and I can add a little bit of force by pushing down on my heel okay and I'm
holding for five breathing and then I can go back into the passive range a
little bit okay so here as you can see we're building strength going in and out
of that range and that's going to help us to achieve lasting and better gains and
lasting gains because we're not just working on the extensibility of the
tissue we're working on the neuromuscular control of those
muscles so when we have the control there the brain is like okay we have
control no need to tighten up because we can use that stable it's functional yeah
so that's why I'm all about the active range of motion active range of control
okay so do that a couple cycles on each side that's the first technique the
second technique it's a little bit different similar but different yeah I
call it the BJJ quad stretch it's one of my favorite mobility exercises great for
warming up before workouts before anything that you do sport because we're
getting into these end ranges but we're doing it actively okay so for this
technique you know post up one hand opposite foot
okay I'm bridging and I'm gonna drive my knee forward but what I want to focus on
what I do this is squeezing the glute okay so I'm squeezing the glute and then
I'm pulling it back with my hip flexor to pull back into the seated position
then I transition switch sides drive squeeze the glute and when I come back I
pull back with the hip flexor okay so it's again it's all about control and
building active range not just passive range driving squeezing the glute make
sure that's on and then hip flexor to pull me back in
okay so here you can see we're doing the same thing we're extending the hip
flexing the knees so the rectus femoris is fully stretched that's the end range
there but now we're building strength in the glutes okay so this has more impact
on what's happening at the hip and then the hip flexor pull it back in so we're
building this neuromuscular control again of this range of motion and all
the different muscles not all the different muscles but in a bunch of the
muscles that influence this range okay we haven't really hit the rotators or
any of that stuff but that's okay this is gonna give you a great rectus femoris
stretch these two exercises together okay work wonderfully together because
they complement each other even though it's in the same range of motion the
control aspect of it the firing pattern or what I referred to as the activation
pattern is different okay so when we hit it with all these different from
different angles we're solidifying that range it's like a table if you have a
table I've got two legs it's gonna be wobbly gonna fall it might not even
stand three legs a little better four legs really stable so there's gonna hit
it from multiple angles and solidify that range so that you can achieve it
and keep it for life all right so there you have two best exercises for
stretching out the rectus femoris we're building mobility not just flexibility
and this is range that you can use alright so if you like this approach you
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