- So you wanna learn how to do the middle splits?
Well in this video I'm gonna teach you five
of the best mobility drills that you can do
to get you there quickly.
And stick around 'till the end
because I'm also gonna teach you the two things
that most people get wrong
to really stuff up their progress.
All that and more, coming up.
We are the gym that teaches people how to move
instead of just exercise because we believe
that health is about performance, not just body image.
Hi, in case we haven't met, my name's Rad Burmeister,
co founder of the Foundation Movement system
and Unity Gym, where health is measured
by the way your body performs and feels,
and not by the way it looks.
And where we teach you to nourish and move
instead of diet and exercise.
So, in this video I am gonna teach you
some of the most awesome drills that you can do
to increase your middle splits.
And the first one that we're going to do
is something called a Cossack Squat.
This is something that we teach
in the Flexibility Blueprint,
which is a free download if you guys wanna grab that
if you haven't done so already.
And the way you're gonna do this
is you're basically just gonna bring your feet out
to about double shoulder width apart,
and go up and down from side to side.
So there's two ways you can do this,
you can either go straight up and straight down,
or you can go from side to side.
You can also do it with either your feet
flat on the ground, or you can turn the foot out
on the leg that's straight.
So what you can do here is, on this leg
if this leg's gonna be straight when I go down,
I can go down like this,
or I can go down like this.
This one will get into the hamstrings a little bit more,
and this one will get into the adductors a little bit more.
This one's a little bit more advanced,
I like to work towards that one, definitely.
So, yeah that's the Cossack Squat,
you wanna do probably 10 reps on each leg,
and you can do up to three to five sets if you want.
You can do it just as one set if you want as a warmup,
but you can also do this as working sets as well.
The next one that we're going to do
is called an eccentric middle split.
And on this one you're gonna need these
Tumble Trak things that I'm using here,
which again, you can grab them online.
We've got a link here where you can grab them from Amazon.
And the Tumble Traks you basically they allow you
to slide on the floor.
So what you're gonna do is put your feet
on the Tumble Traks, have something in front of you
that you can hold unto to prevent you
from going so far that you cause an injury.
And then basically you're gonna create
what's called a posterior pelvic tilt which is where
you try and pull your hips forward like this,
so I'm actively trying to suck my abs in, tense my bum.
And that's going to help improve with your mobility here.
You can also, when you get to the very bottom
of the movement you can allow yourself
to go to an anterior pelvic tilt,
but it's good to try to keep the posterior pelvic tilt,
requires more mobility to do it that way.
And then what you're gonna do is basically just slide
your feet out, let gravity do its work
and you're resisting falling to the ground
by using the muscles on the inside of your legs.
We're gonna try and tense the quads, tense the glutes,
suck the stomach in and go down as low as you can go,
then you push on the seat
or whatever you've got in front of you to get back up.
And then we're going to do the same thing again
for between five and 10 repetitions.
Now we're gonna do something called
an isometric middle split, which is basically
where you go to the bottom of your eccentric range,
and you're going to hold it there for basically a max hold
up to 30 seconds, whatever your max hold is.
Whilst you're doing this max hold,
you wanna try and tense every muscle in your body.
So you're gonna suck the stomach in,
tense the glutes and tense the quads
to create that posterior pelvic tilt.
Then you push your feet into the ground
so it's like you're trying to push away from the ground,
tense your upper body, tense everything,
send the tension to the adductors,
which are the muscles that you're trying to stretch here,
the muscles on the inside of your thigh.
And hold that for as long as you can,
and then come back up.
And that's called a isometric middle split.
The last one that we're gonna do
is just a passive middle split,
so basically just sitting on the ground like this.
And if you look at the easy progression,
so for those of you that aren't that flexible,
you need something that you can hang unto.
When I used to practice this at home when I was younger,
I used to get like a towel and hook it around
a piece of furniture or something.
You just need something that's really sturdy
that won't pull towards you when you pull,
it should stay stationary.
So the upright bar that we've got
for our squat rack here is just perfect.
And what you're gonna do is,
I'm really emphasizing that as I pull forward
I'm trying to make my pelvis move
from an anterior pelvic tilt to a posterior pelvic tilt,
so that my back goes from what's called a flexed spine,
so where I'm hunching over which is bad.
You don't want that when you're doing the middle splits,
to an extended spine, where I pull forward
and my spine goes into extension.
And that really brings the stretch into the groin
and into the adductors, you'll feel it when you do it.
For those of you that are a bit more advanced,
and what I mean by that is,
as long as you can sit up
past vertical with a neutral spine.
So if I can sit at least vertical and lean forward a bit,
then I'm ready for this next progression.
And what I'm gonna do here is I'm putting one hand
in front of my groin and one hand behind my groin,
and I'm lifting my bum off the ground
and sliding myself forward.
And I just keep doing that over and over again
until I get as far as I can,
then I'm gonna hold it for
anywhere from one to two minutes,
and then I'll go again.
Push myself a bit further then hold it
for one to two minutes, then go again.
And you can point your toes and then pull them back,
so you can hold it for a little while
with your toes pulled back,
then hold it for a little while with your toes pointed.
That's really good 'cause that flosses the nerves
through all the muscles,
and it will allow your muscles to relax a little bit more.
The central nervous system will release its hold
on the muscles and allow you to stretch further.
And then you can also just go from sort of side to side,
you can, you know lean forward a bit,
lean to the side a bit,
play around with a few different positions there as well.
And that is the passive middle splits.
Now, with the passive middle splits,
I highly recommend that you only do it
when you're really, really warm.
All of these stretches are best done when they're warm,
but like the Cossack Squat for example
you can do it as a warmup.
The eccentric middle splits you don't need to be as warm,
because the muscles are working against gravity
in an active stretch to protect your body,
so it's much safer way of stretching like that.
But the passive stretch, you need to be very, very warm
when you do it, so it needs to be at the end of your workout
or when you're really warmed up.
And then the last thing that we're gonna do
is this side kick.
And what you're basically gonna do is lean over,
try and get your body close to parallel to the ground,
lift your knee as high as you can,
and then just do a couple of side kicks.
And then on the last one you're gonna hold for 10 seconds.
You can do between 10 and 20 repetitions
and then hold it for 10 to 20 seconds.
And when you do it, you're really trying
to tense your quads to straighten your knee
and lift your leg as high as you can.
You'll feel a burn in the glutes, in your butt,
that means you're doing it right.
And what we're doing here is we're strengthening
the opposing muscle group,
that's the whole idea of what we're doing
so that we create active mobility.
So, if you haven't already done so,
I highly recommend that you download our free
Flexibility Blueprint, it is gonna give you
an awesome strategy for how to get flexible
over your whole body.
A lot of this stuff that I just spoke about in this video
is included in that.
And if you like this video, if you wanna see more,
then consider subscribing to our channel
and click the notification bell
so that you get notified each time we do new videos.
And of course, I promised I'm gonna talk about
the two big mistakes that people make
when working towards the middle splits.
And the first is that they don't do loaded stretching.
So loaded stretching are those eccentrics
and the isometrics that we did.
That is a massive thing that people miss out on
when they're trying to get the middle splits.
And the second is that they work active mobility,
and that's where you strengthen
the opposing muscle group after you've stretched
and gotten as flexible as you can get.
So those two things are the big mistakes
that people are making
when they're working towards the middle splits.
So don't let that be you,
now that you've got the secret formula,
make sure that you follow the process.
And if you've got any questions,
please feel free to ask any questions in the comments
of this video and we'll answer them as soon as we can.
And if anybody has any videos
that they would like us to make,
if you've got anything that you wanna learn
or know about movement, then please put a comment
and we'll get around to making it as soon as we can.
We make videos every week and we release them
every Sunday and Monday,
depending on where you're living in the world.
Monday in Australia, Sunday in America.
So yeah, well until then guys, I'll see you next time.
Sorry.
We'll do that last bit again.
- [Woman] Mm-hmm, just go.
- Yeah.
Filming?
- [Woman] Yeah, you are.
What're you filming today?
- Videos on how to stretch your hamstrings
and the middle splits, and how to get hectically buff.