If youâre working towards touch down on your front splits, Iâm gonna guess youâre probably already on your way and including some good old fashioned stretches for your hamstrings and hip flexors, like forward folds and lunges.
Awesome! We need flexibility in those muscle groups for our split!
BUT! If youâre ONLY doing these kinds of passive stretches, youâre really missing out on a whole world of magic that comes from STRENGTHENING your splits, as well as stretching for them!
Rather watch than read? I got you! You can watch the quick fire video of the theory in this post below! Keep on scrolling for more details and for the exercises!
Hereâs 3 reasons to add strength work to your front split mission!
Reason #1: We need strength to actively move into our splits in the air!
Even once we hit touch down on the floor, unfortunately it doesnât mean weâll be able to do our splits in the air!
When we no longer have the floor to help us slide into our splits, we need the opposite muscles to the ones weâre stretching to contract and actively bring us into our split position.
That means we need STRENGTH primarily in the hip flexors of the front leg and the glutes and hamstrings of the back leg, to actively bring our legs into the front split position.
Exercises that strengthen those opposing muscle groups in the end range of our flexibility will really help with this. For exampleâŠ
Strengthening the glutes of the back leg with active leg lifts right in the end-range of our hip extension:
Or strengthening the hip flexors of the front leg right in the end range of our hip flexion:
Reason #2: It can help reduce our risk of injury!
Unsurprisingly, given how much we bloody LOVE a split in pole, hamstrings are one of the top injury sites for pole dancers.
Dr Joanna Nicholasâ[i] pole dance injury study cited the injury types and potential causes of the 12 hamstring injuries reported in the study. The majority of the injuries occurred during front split maneuvers with the specific moves listed as: Split up the pole; Allegra split; drop split; and over-split stretch.
This is why we want the muscles weâre STRETCHING to be strong in those lengthened positions, too – especially our hamstrings, being one of the higher risk areas for pole dancers. This will help to give us a really resilient split that we can bust out on the pole reliably and move in and out of safely and confidently. The stronger we are through our full range, the better prepared weâll be to handle load at those end-ranges â and the less likely weâll do ourselves a mischief!
This is where eccentric training can come in really useful! Eccentric training basically means we are putting the muscle under tension as weâre lengthening it. For example, when we do a single leg deadlift, weâre lengthening the hamstrings as we lower, helping to build strength through that lengthened position.
Pssst: You can find out more about the single leg deadlift and why I LOVE to use that exercise in my programming here!
We can do similar eccentric focused movements that target our hip flexors for the back leg, too – like these back leg sliders where weâre loading the hip flexors as we lengthen into that position of hip extension.
Reason #3: It can speed up our flexibility progress
Building strength through our full range of motion alongside those more traditional passive stretches can actually help speed up our flexibility gains.
How? Well, when it comes to improving flexibility, research[ii] shows many different methods of training flexibility work, including passive stretching, PNF stretching, foam rolling, active stretching working the opposing muscle groups, and eccentric strength work for the lengthening muscles.
But WHYYYY do they work?
Unfortunately the science is not yet giving us a single definitive answer to that, but the studies indicate that there are likely a few different things at play when it comes to getting flexi…
Firstly, flexibility training = training! Weâre placing stress on our body and our body adapts to that stress â making physical adaptations within the muscle fibers and soft tissues themselves so that in the future they are better able to handle the same kind of stress.
In addition to these kinds of physical changes, the neurological impact of flexibility training is thought to be particularly important. Meaning that weâre increasing our flexibility by changing the tolerance of our nervous system to the end-range positions weâre using. And this may be happening in a number of different ways, for example:
- Acclimatizing to the discomfort of a stretch, so the stretch position feels less of a threat to our body, and our nervous system stops holding us back from moving deeper into that position.
- If our muscles are strong in end-range positionâfor example, if weâre doing a front split stretch and our hamstrings (the muscles weâre stretching in the front leg) are also really strong and used to being worked in that lengthened positionâthey are more likely to be sending signals back to our nervous system that âhey, we can handle this, weâre strong, we got youâ, and that can allow us to move deeper into the position.
- Weâre also impacting our bodyâs natural reflex response to stretching, particularly with PNF stretching where weâre inhibiting those natural reactions and telling our nervous system we donât need to contract and move out of the stretch position â again, telling our nervous system âitâs okay buddy, we got this!â, allowing us to increase the stretch.
- Active flexibility training can also improve our proprioceptionâthatâs our nervous systemâs sense of where our body is in spaceâand increase the number of muscle fibers that are working in these end range positions, giving our nervous system more information, increasing the mapping our brain has for our bodyâs position so it can understand and tolerate those positions more easily.
How to organize your splits training sessions?
When I work with clients on front split goals, we will usually incorporate a mix of all those different types of flexibility training.
To give you an example⊠a single session might look something like this:
- Some foam rolling after a nice long warm up;
- Followed by two active end-range strength exercises like those covered in #1 above (one focused on the hip flexors and one focused on the glutes);
- Two eccentric strength exercises like those covered in #2 above (one targeting the hip flexors and one focused on the hamstrings);
- Depending on the client, I will also usually include some hip rotation exercises following a similar structure (active end-range and eccentric work). Itâs beyond the scope of this post to cover it here, but just know that limitations in hip rotation range of movement can impact our splits. Both internal and external rotation is important for SO MANY things we do in pole, so donât sleep on that! If you have limitations in your hip rotation mobility, you might benefit from giving some love to that, too!
- Then we might finish with PNF stretches and some more passive stretches.
Of course, this is all tailored to the individual. If I have a client who is hypermobile, for example, we might skip the more passive stretches altogether. Some people respond better to certain approaches than others, and we all have different sticking points when it comes to our flexibility, so itâs all about figuring out your own âsticky pointsâ and finding what works well for your body so you can make your training as efficient as possible! But I hope this quick overview gives you some ideas of why and how to incorporate strength based exercises into your flexibility training for splits!
You wonât regret it!
Want a full âdone for youâ 6-week training program for front splits? Well, I have just the thing! My 6-week Strength and Stretch for Splits program contains all my ‘go-to’ front split exercises, structured in a progressive week-by-week format with videos of all exercises. Itâs all wrapped up in an interactive training workbook with waaay more nerdy detail than I could included here! You can download and start it today!
[i] Nicholas, J 2019, âThe psychological, physiological, and injury-related characteristics of pole dancing as a recreational activityâ, Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Western Australia. https://doi.org/10.26182/5e7d60d09e2cd
[ii] Alizadeh S, Daneshjoo A, Zahiri A, Anvar SH, Goudini R, Hicks JP, Konrad A, Behm DG. Resistance Training Induces Improvements in Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2023 Mar;53(3):707-722. doi: 10.1007/s40279-022-01804-x. Epub 2023 Jan 9. PMID: 36622555; PMCID: PMC9935664.
Wilke, J., MĂŒller, AL., Giesche, F. et al. Acute Effects of Foam Rolling on Range of Motion in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review with Multilevel Meta-analysis. Sports Med 50, 387â402 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-019-01205-7
OâSullivan K, McAuliffe S, Deburca N. The effects of eccentric training on lower limb flexibility: a systematic review. Br J Sports Med. 2012 Sep;46(12):838-45. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2011-090835. Epub 2012 Apr 20. PMID: 22522590.
Vetter S, Schleichardt A, Köhler HP, Witt M. The Effects of Eccentric Strength Training on Flexibility and Strength in Healthy Samples and Laboratory Settings: A Systematic Review. Front Physiol. 2022 Apr 25;13:873370. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.873370. PMID: 35574461; PMCID: PMC9100951.
Thomas E, Bianco A, Paoli A, Palma A. The Relation Between Stretching Typology and Stretching Duration: The Effects on Range of Motion. Int J Sports Med. 2018 Apr;39(4):243-254. doi: 10.1055/s-0044-101146. Epub 2018 Mar 5. PMID: 29506306.
Lempke L, Wilkinson R, Murray C, Stanek J. The Effectiveness of PNF Versus Static Stretching on Increasing Hip-Flexion Range of Motion. J Sport Rehabil. 2018 May 1;27(3):289-294. doi: 10.1123/jsr.2016-0098. Epub 2018 May 22. PMID: 28182516.
Warneke K, Wirth K, Keiner M, Schiemann S. Improvements in Flexibility Depend on Stretching Duration. Int J Exerc Sci. 2023 Jan 1;16(4):83-94. PMID: 37113511; PMCID: PMC10124737.
Konrad A, Tilp M and Nakamura M (2021) A Comparison of the Effects of Foam Rolling and Stretching on Physical Performance. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Front. Physiol. 12:720531. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2021.720531.
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