Steven Kuo posted on May 07, 2010 12:26
As a martial artist, are you flexible enough to do splits or do you even know how to do splits? Doing splits is a great way for stretching in martial arts. It has also long been known as a measure of a person’s flexibility. If you are among those who want to improve your flexibility and want to learn how to do splits; I’d like to share some tips with you in achieving the level of flexibility which will allow you to do just that; SPLIT.
Now let’s get this straight; learning something new isn’t always that easy. But, with a little patience, perseverance and practice through actual application, I’m sure you’d be doing splits in no time.
Where do we start? Let’s start with what with what to wear. You need to wear something comfortable that allows you excellent freedom of movement like cycling shorts, jogging pants and a loose shirt or tank top.
Once you’re all geared up and ready to go; the next thing we need to do is to warm up and stretch. Doing this is very important to avoid having unnecessary injuries. You can do lunges, leg rotations and jogging in place.
You have to make sure that your legs and back are stretched. A good way to do that would be to sit on the floor with your legs apart while leaning face forward. Try to reach as far as you can and after that try to bend sideways both to your left and right and try to touch your legs with your head. You may feel a certain degree of difficulty when doing this for the first time.
After you have warmed-up and stretched, it’s time to get into position. There are several ways to learn how to do splits safely and effectively. This method I’m going to teach you involves using a bench or a table.
You start off by putting either your left of right foot on the table; turning that leg sideways with your toes pointing up and moving the grounded leg outwards up to the point where you begin to feel the tension.
Repeat this and hold each side for five minutes, two to three times a day. Remember that you should feel the tension for the stretch to be working but do not overdo this because it might lead to injury.
Another effective method in learning how to do splits like the side-split starts with the conventional horse stance. Make sure that you’re keeping your toes pointed straight ahead. Slowly move your pelvis forward while keeping your back upright. You should try to keep your legs parallel to the floor as much as possible while doing this stretch.
The idea behind this is that you gradually work your way down by stretching your legs farther out and lower until you start to feel pain and never to go beyond that. Follow this through by tensing your leg muscles for 3-5 seconds then relax. Check and see if you could go lower a little bit more; tense your leg muscles again and repeat these steps four times.
On the last repetition; tense and hold your leg muscles for 30 seconds. For best results, I would advice that you repeat the whole sequence 3-5 times daily. Make sure that you stretch and warm up before you do this.
The third method I’m going to share with you is how to get yourself to be flexible enough to do front splits. Learning how to do a front split is a great benefit for martial artists. Try to envision the position of your body when you do a front kick or a round house kick to the head. The position when doing those kicks mirror that of doing front splits.
Begin by extending either your right or left leg in front of you and position the rear leg in such a way that it lines up with the leg in front. Grab on to something like a chair or a table to support your weight on either side and pay close attention to how far you’re stretching the hamstring of your front leg.
The ability to perform this split relies on an agile hamstring as well as the flexibility of your quadriceps. Tense both the hamstring on your front leg and the rear leg’s thigh muscles for 3-5 seconds just like you’re trying to squeeze the floor with the heel of your front leg and the knee of the bag leg.
After this, relax and see if you can go lower a little further. Repeat these steps four times and on the last repetition; tense and hold the position for 30 seconds. You should repeat this cycle 3-5 times daily just like you would with the side split exercise.
Achieving great flexibility doesn’t have to be painful. Remember to go with a level that’s comfortable for you. Our primary goal is to be able to do splits and improve our flexibility; not injure ourselves in the process. Doing these exercises marks the start of a rewarding voyage to achieve martial arts flexibility that would enable you to kick higher targets easily.