If you're working on the full splits and you're just not making any progress, you get down on
the ground and you struggle and you're not making any gains, this video is for you. Hey, my name is
Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a teacher trainer. I used to be a stiff office guy and I opened my
body up in my 20s and I achieved the full splits around age 26-27. And after I got the full splits,
to be honest, I just kind of left it behind, and it wasn't until recently I started running and
I could feel my hamstrings tightening up, and I thought let me try the splits again,
and I realized I needed to do a little bit more work. I thought since I'm working on the splits
again I would share what I'm doing, the same thing I did in my 20s, with you here in this video.
Here's what we'll cover. Number one, we'll talk about the anatomy of the splits, which muscles are
we working in the splits? Number two, we'll talk about the nervous system element to the splits,
specifically your muscle spindles and your stretch reflex, and PNF stretching to turn
off the muscles that are fighting you. Lastly, we'll do some long hold, deep stretches together,
and it'll be difficult but it'll make really great results. A couple of disclaimers here. Number one,
this is not gentle at all. You can absolutely do this as a beginner, but do not push, please be
careful, work at a seven of ten intensity. Number two, this should be done after, not before, any
other type of exercise. When we get done you will feel wobbly, you should have two to three hours
before you do anything exercise-related after we do these stretches. And lastly, you will find lots
and lots of research online, there's actually a couple of papers that get circled around, talking
about 30-second holds as the optimal time for stretching. I wish that were true when it comes
to the full splits and most poses, it's just not. I've been teaching yoga for nearly two decades
and I can tell you for these compound stretches you need a long time. We'll be working with five
minutes. That's the bad news. The good news is it actually does work. If you'd like to grab a
PDF of the poses, you'll find that down below. If you'd like to skip forward to the exercises,
you'll find time stamps down below. Let's talk about the anatomy of the splits. The full splits
is a compound pose, meaning we have multiple areas of the body being stretched at one time.
With your front leg, that's an extension, it's your hamstrings, semimembranosus, semitendinosus
on the medial side. On the lateral side you have biceps femoris, your hamstring muscles. On your
back leg this is actually hip extension, so psoas, iliacus and rectus femoris, your main hip flexors,
those are the main ones being stretched. There are some other muscles that come along for the
ride like sartorius and some of your adductors, but let's focus for our conversation today on your
hamstrings and your hip flexors. Since they're being stretched at the same time, your body has
quite a reaction. Your body from a biological prerogative standpoint has two main objectives.
Your body wants to keep you safe and your body wants you to procreate. It wants you to stay
alive and make babies, basically. And what that means is, when you do the full splits your body
is really worried that number one, you're going to get get hurt, which is not helpful for staying
alive. Your body's worried you're going to tear your hamstrings right off their attachment point.
And number two, your body doesn't like when you expose this region, or this region to the world,
because another caveman could come and stab you with a spear, or an animal could come and bite
you and then no more babies, right? So if those two things triggered your stretch reflex or your
body's fighting of you in the pose is extremely strong in the splits. How do we manage that?
Two things that we do. Number one, we do nose to mouth breathing. This sends a rest and digest,
parasympathetic nervous system response to our nervous system, which is very, very, helpful
for relaxing. You see inside your muscle belly there's a sensory organ called muscle spindles,
like in your hamstrings for example, and those muscle spindles when they sense that you're
stretching really far, again thinking about this region, what that means to your body. Your muscle
spindles send a signal to your spinal cord and your body starts to fight you. When you breathe
nose to mouth breathing it helps to reduce that muscle spindle myotatic stretch reflex. The second
thing that we do is we work with our Golgi tendon organ. Our GTO, our Golgi tendon organ. This is
similar but different. Not in the muscle belly but in the tendon where the muscle hits the bone
there's another sensory organ that works in a different way. If you've ever seen a weight
lifter trying to hit a personal record, like with a back squat, and right before they get to the top
they fail and they collapse and maybe they even hurt themselves. It's kind of terrifying to see,
but what's happening with that lifter is their Golgi tendon organ has sensed that they're going
way too far and if they keep going they might rip their biceps off their attachment points,
or rip their hamstrings off their attachment points. So again, to keep that person safe the
Golgi tendon organ what it does is it inhibits the muscles. So you'll see the lifter strong, strong,
strong, and then Gumby. What does that have to do with us? Well for the lifter it's terrible,
they collapse onto the ground. For the stretching student it's great, we like the Golgi tendon
organ. We want to activate that inhibition and we'll do that through contracting our muscles
really strongly. These two techniques, breathe to relax and Golgi tendon organ activation through
proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, this contract-relax technique, this is what makes
stretching very, very effective. That sounds like a lot of words and a lot of techniques,
but it's much, much simpler than you'd think. Let me show you how it works.
For this splits practice you need a very large stack of pillows. I've got little seated cushions
here, but I'd encourage you to use couch pillows, they work great, but you need a lot. Secondly,
you need some blocks or books, something to put your hands on. Let me show you how to get into the
pose. You straddle the pillows, so quite literally you put them right underneath your pelvis, with
your right leg extended, your left leg back behind you, my toes are pointed, I'm as relaxed as I can,
I'll use my blocks on either side. You'll be tempted to go much, much further than
you should at first. We're here for a full five minutes. We'll be utilizing this PNF stretching,
along with breathe to relax, so the process is really important. We'll ratchet up about every
minute roughly. Here's how PNF stretching works. It's simply a contract-relax process, but when you
contract don't go deeper, instead come out of the pose, engage your quads, engage your back legs,
so much so that you feel like you're going to tremble and you might even feel like you cramped,
that's what we're looking for, total muscle overwhelm to trigger that GTO response,
that inhibition. So when we release and we exhale you'll go even deeper. Let me show you how it
works. I'll start our timer, I've got my hands on the blocks, I'll lift up out of the splits,
now engage my front leg, engage my back leg, and inhale to the count of five through my nose.
Good. Now exhale through your mouth and relax.
Stay here completely relaxed. Inhale.
Exhale.
I'm going to progressively remove cushions. You do not need to follow me, you should not
go past a seven out of ten intensity. How would you know if you've gone past
seven out of ten? Your voice will be strained. Let's again lift up and engage your legs really,
really strongly. Good. We'll hold here five, four, three, two, and one, and relax. Good.
You stay where you are. If you'd like to, you can drop a couple of cushions down lower. Do
not push past seven out of ten intensity, otherwise you will have the opposite effect,
you will again trigger that stretch reflex, and you'll feel yourself fighting your nervous system,
not actually affecting any change in your soft tissues. Let's lift up and out of the stretch,
not deeper, but up and out of the stretch. Now engage, one,
two, really, really strong, three, four, five, and now relax.
In through your nose.
Out through your mouth.
So your stretch reflex is very, very strong in this pose. Again, your body is nervous. It's
nervous you're gonna stretch too far. It's also nervous that you're exposing your pelvis to the
world. Because we're turning off your stretch reflex, you have to be in control of how deep
you go. Do not push too far, too fast. This is a really intense pose. Let's again engage,
one, two, shaking trembling legs, three, four, and five.
Completely relaxed, wet noodle, soft, completely relaxed. Good. Again, do not go past your limit.
This pose has value, even if you have five cushions stacked up. But if you'd like to,
maybe we drop a little bit lower, see how you feel here. Let's engage our legs, one,
two, really intense, three, four, and now we relax into the pose.
Inhale through your nose for four.
Exhale for eight.
If you have a decent amount of mobility going into this, it might take you one to three months.
If you're really starting from zero, it might take you three to twelve months. Don't worry
about the speed, just focus on the process and do not push past seven of ten intensity.
Let's do it one more time. Lifting up, engage really,
really strong. We're coming out of the stretch, one, two, three, four, five.
Inhale through your nose for four.
And exhale for eight.
Good. Let's slowly, slowly, slowly reverse out of this. Hopefully you get an idea about why you
need a full five minutes. It really takes some time, even if you have this range of motion,
to overcome that stretch reflex and start to actually affect change. Let's
switch sides. I've got my pillows, I'm going to start way up here, high on top,
put my blocks on either side. This time my left leg comes forward.
Find my pose, find my hands.
Good. Seven out of ten intensity, you should be able to talk with a normal voice. If you go to
eight of ten, you'll start to talk like this. If you get to nine of ten, you won't be able to talk
at all. So you should gauge the intensity based on the strain in your voice. Remember, our goal here
is when we contract our legs, you need to come out of the pose, don't go deeper. We get out of the
stretch, engage your quads on both legs, engage your hamstrings on both legs. Let's do it. One,
two, really strong, three, four, like they're cramping, and five.
Sending clear signals to our nervous system with that slow prolonged exhale
that we're cool calm and collected, that were safe, and that we're not in danger of
doing damage. Which is where you come in. Don't do damage, be careful. Let's do it
again. Let's lift up high, contract your legs really strongly, one, two, three, four, five.
After that exhale, think about your body the opposite of contracted, instead totally relaxed,
as soft as you can, allowing the stretch to happen completely passively. I'm going to drop
down a couple of cushions, you can come with me or you can stay where you are. Please don't be
in a hurry, and please do not push past a seven of ten intensity. If you do, again, you'll have
the opposite effect that we're looking for. Let's lift up, let's engage, one, really, strong, two,
shaking legs, three, four, like they're gonna cramp, and five.
If you feel exhausted during that contracting period,
you're doing it correct. We are trying to overwhelm that GTO, that Golgi tendon organ,
with sensation, so that your body inhibits your muscular contraction. It's the opposite
of a stretch reflex. Your body goes Gumby and allows you to stretch deeper.
Let's do it again. Let's lift up, contract, strong, one, two, three, four, and five.
In through your nose for four.
Through your mouth for eight.
I'm going to go a little bit lower. You can come with me or you can stay where you are. Remember,
don't push too far, too fast. It's actually counterproductive. Let's lift up a little bit,
get your legs really strongly, one, two, three, everything tense, four, and five.
So, how often should you do this? Well if you're really serious about the splits
you want to get into a pattern where you're doing this quite literally every single day,
at the end of your day, for five minutes per side. The challenge is more than
physical. Psychologically this is really intense, this is very, very uncomfortable,
so you have to psych yourself up for it. You should not do this before anything athletic,
before running, before lifting. It has to be at the end of your day. By the time we get to this
end of this 10 minutes your body is going to be completely frizzle, frazzle, fried from the
intensity of this relaxation. One more time. Let's lift up, one, two, three, four, five.
Good. Slowly make your way out of that pose. You can rest in child's pose and take a moment.
I hope you found this video helpful. Just to reiterate what we did here. Five minute hold
and we were working on two different mechanisms of action. The first one is breathe to relax,
nose to mouth, four to eight breathing. That's to turn off our myotatic stretch reflex. The
second thing we did was that PNF technique, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation,
that contract-relax. And remember, our goal is to overwhelm that GTO, that Golgi tendon organ,
that inhibits our muscles fighting us. Remember seven out of ten intensity is what you're looking
for. Do this daily for five minutes and five minutes, and you should get some really great
results. If you'd like more science-based yoga videos, hit subscribe down below. I try to answer
all the questions in my comments down below. And lastly, you can find my teaching calendar and my
stretching courses at yogabody.com. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.