- High sweet friends.
Today we're gonna be doing a stretch routine
to get your middle split.
So, we're gonna do a little warmup
to get your blood pumping, get those muscles warm,
and then we're gonna move into stretches,
specifically focused on middle split muscle groups
and how to get that center straddle popping.
(upbeat music)
All right, let's get into that warm up.
So, if you were with us last week,
it's the marches into our jumping jacks.
And if you're new this week, it's easy to learn.
Here we go, march up. (pattering)
So you wanna get a nice fist with those hands,
get your arms up, your arms engaged and activated.
You're lifting your knees up as high as you can.
If it's a lower march, no worries.
If you're ready to take your knees up and point those toes,
get every part of your body activated and engaged.
Let's move into jumping jacks.
(patting)
So, a modification for this would be just step to the side.
Then if you can't raise your hands,
you can do just a little hip hop feel.
If you're able, go all the way up.
(pattering)
Jumping jacks are great full body warm up.
We're gonna move into squats, on the legs.
Depending on how your knees are doing,
kind of modify the depth of your plie or your bend.
Good, we're gonna step to the side.
Side.
Really get those legs warm.
Those middle splits are
a pain in the butt sometimes to work on,
it has to do with hip mobility
and your hamstrings and all of the above.
But those are tough areas of your body to get mobile,
but go ahead and slow it down.
This stretch routine will help you progress faster.
So what we're actually gonna do,
is start with our feet, wider than hip width apart,
breathe it up.
(breathing deeply)
Slow your breathing down a little bit.
(breathing deeply)
Again, breathe it up.
(breathing deeply)
And let's drop all the way down
and get straight into our hamstrings.
(breathing deeply)
You can kind of run your hands along the back of your legs
if you have that balance,
just to get those muscles warmer.
Shake your head up, no.
Shake it up, yes.
Beautiful.
From here, we're gonna turn your toes out,
you're gonna shift your weight into a plie
and bring your elbows to your knees.
If this is a little too deep for your body,
for those adductors, your inner thigh or your hips,
you can try and maybe come up.
However, what I want you to avoid is this.
See how my shoulders came up to my ears?
I want you to press out, always activate and engage,
rather than passively stretching.
So, if you're able to bring it down.
Another good tip for this position is to use your elbows
to push your knees back.
Ooh, hello stretch.
That definitely gives it a little bit of resistance,
it also activates your arm muscles.
So really push your knees back with your elbows,
wake those adductors up.
Beautiful, from here, I'm gonna start shifting side to side
while I'm pushing my knees back.
This is again, just waking up those inner thighs,
that is all.
We need those for our centers,
especially our up and over center, our straddle.
Beautiful, from here I'm gonna very gently
put my palms to the floor and stretch it up again.
Oh my gosh, my hips feel really, really different
than a minute ago.
From here you guys I'm gonna go into my triangle,
and I'm gonna hold,
and I'm gonna get a good hamstring stretch here,
lengthen over, you wanna have a long spine,
trying not to round over.
Long spine through.
Beautiful, drop this down to your high lunge,
we're getting into our hip flexors now.
Driving that back heel into the space behind you,
lengthen your back arm up.
From here, drop it down and lift up.
This is getting a nice rotation for that hip flexor,
and what I'm gonna is push back in the heel, up.
Back in the heel, up.
And I'm gonna bring all the way down,
push back up into a triangle,
making sure my hips are squared,
one hand on both sides of that front foot,
rotate through the middle,
rotate to the other side, triangle.
Hold it here, square that outside hip forward, and hold.
Again, long spine over everybody.
Beautiful, let's come to our high lunge,
straight line from your front knee to your front ankle,
just like this.
You wanna make sure you're not back or too far forward.
Push that back heel towards the back space,
back arm comes forward and then down and lift.
Get rotation in that hip flexor,
and drop it back down.
Beautiful, from here, we're actually gonna flip
to the front.
So, I have a straight line going from my supporting leg
down to my heel,
and I'm allowing gravity to let this outside foot,
oh, I'm sorry, outside leg really drop to the ground.
From here, I'm gonna try and come down
to my forearms and hold.
If this is too intense, maybe you're up like this.
It's okay, just hold, keep your palms on the floor.
Hold in that position for me, outside leg is pointed,
and we're stretching forward.
This is really getting into those adductors,
your inner thighs, and it's still working that hamstring.
So things that we need for those middle splits.
And gently press up and over using your palms
to get to the other side.
Holding it here, straight line from this knee,
down to your supporting ankle.
So for me, this side is a little bit tighter,
so I'm probably not gonna go to my forearms,
I might just do a little reach forward.
If you're able to come down to your forearms, awesome.
Let me test it out.
Doable, but a little tight.
So that's a good lesson, to listen to your body.
You want to get a stretch without strain.
And hold it there, were leaning forward,
beautiful, gently come down to your booty,
gently bringing your legs together,
and we're gonna sit in a butterfly position.
Butterfly, is perfection for your hips,
it's perfection for your adductors,
kind of that lateral part of your leg.
We're gonna sit up tall and then stretch
all the way forward.
I'm using my elbows to push my knees down.
You can even push your calves down,
just really focus on that external rotation
and all the way over.
If you notice, I'm not round.
I'm still long in my spine,
because that's where the stretch is.
So we're holding in here.
We're gonna reach our arms forward.
Beautiful.
And we're gonna walk our hands up,
we're gonna come to a half butterfly.
Half butterfly is one leg out, one leg in.
Make sure you're not sitting back, okay?
You need to have your weight lifted and slightly forward
to really get into that leg.
If you're sitting back, you're not really doing anything,
you're just hanging out.
So stretch all the way over and hold.
Beautiful, round through, and stretch.
Middle, but a little bit to the side.
Feel free to flex that foot that's on the outside.
If you can go lower, awesome.
If not, just stay right where you are,
and then come back up.
Let's shift over into our other half butterfly,
and hold it really quick with both feet.
Remember don't sit back, sit up and forward and stretch.
From here, your gonna round your spine,
you're gonna go through the middle,
slightly towards the other side.
When you're here,
your butt is gonna want to lift off the floor,
where those sits bones are, so keep your booty pressed down,
but lengthen out.
Try and keep this outfit nice and straight,
so that it's activated, that's my favorite word today.
And then we're gonna come back up.
All right everyone, you're gonna come to your 50% center.
So what I mean by 50% center is, for me, my center is here,
this is my 100% center.
So I'm gonna bring it in halfway,
so go to whatever your 50%, five-zero-percent center is,
and hold.
What I want you to focus on here
is pulling up your kneecaps.
See that difference there?
I'm straightening my legs, and I'm activating that leg.
I'm not just kind of sitting here.
This is not a stretch, okay?
So lift it up.
We're gonna flat back hinge forward, and we're gonna hold.
You may not be able to go that low, it's okay.
If you can't get to your forearms,
come up to your palms and hold,
but keep your legs activated, you guessed it.
And come on down, go ahead and flex those feet.
You can kind of rock your weight side to side,
get those hamstrings really prepped to get to our center.
Good, hold it there in ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one.
Come on up, go ahead and go to your 100% center,
and point those legs, point those toes, I mean,
and fold it here.
What we're gonna try and do right now is called,
"Activate your legs, release."
Activate, release,
activate, release,
activate release,
keep going forward.
And three,
and two,
and one.
The way that I'm doing that is squeezing my quads
and then pulling my knee caps up, okay?
From here, you guys keep those feet turned out
as best as you can, I know it's tricky,
feel free to flex, and you're gonna stretch
all the way forward.
In your center, it's okay to rock forward and back
a little bit,
you actually don't wanna rock that much in stretches.
It promotes tearing a lot,
more than if you were to just kind of be stationary.
So I know there's different theories on that,
but I would recommend not aggressively
going back and forth, or looking at your lunge.
You can just do like little, tiny, tiny rocks.
Holding it there.
10 more seconds here, before we move
into our last little set.
Good, come on up, bring those legs together.
Oh, my hips. (laughing)
You're gonna go ahead and get
all the way down to your belly, however you can.
You're gonna bring your knees up,
and you're gonna externally rotate into the frog position,
and we're gonna fold it here.
So I don't particularly care if your feet touch,
not a big deal, I'm more focused on making sure
if you're a dancer, that your feet are winged in the back,
get your pinky toes up to the sky, that you're pressing
into the floor with your knees.
Push out of your shoulders with your arms, and pause.
From here, this is what I call a low frog.
You're gonna push it back into a high frog.
So you're just gonna sit in those hips and fold.
From there, we're gonna push it back to a low frog,
and we're gonna pull that up here for 10 seconds or so.
You can always go from low frog to high frog,
low frog to high frog, and hold for as long as you want,
for those.
So this is a really important one for you to kind of splits.
Really gently, bring your knees back to a parallel position,
tap them and sit.
The light's still on camera?
(laughing)
Good job, you guys.
All right my loves.
Great job doing today's center split,
middle split stretching routine.
This is something that you can do every single day,
and it's not too, too intense on the body,
so for daily use, absolutely.
You can do it when you're watching TV
or something like that.
Just memorize the routine, watch the video, follow along,
and get those center splits.
Go ahead and type in the comments,
let me know how your progress is going,
and what else you wanna see on our Flexibility Fridays.
Love you guys so much, and I'll see you soon.
(upbeat music)