colin

colin

Bard male from Wales
Pronouns: He/Him
Posts: 333
"Starting again"

Straighten my legs or touch the floor?

I have lots of flexibility challenges.

I'm doing some yoga and some martial arts stretches to, I hope, address my hamstring flexibility (which is very bad).

A couple of these exercises are similar: gorilla squat and yoga forward fold: in both, you are asked to bend or squat down so your hands touch the floor and then straighten your legs.

I cannot straighten my legs, which I'm hoping to work towards.

To help me get there, is it better to keep my hands on the floor and do what a can to straighten my legs, or straighten my legs and just reach as far down my legs towards the floor as I can?
 
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Hello @colin , I think my yoga teachers told me that my bust should touch my tighs, and /then/ I could straighten my legs just until the point the bust really wants to leave those calves, no matter where the hands are ; the goal was to be sure to keep the back nice and straight.
Do I make sense ? And of course some persons (specially those trained into yoga, hint hint) may have other opinions and reasonings, but that's how I was taught, and why.
 
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colin said:
To help me get there, is it better to keep my hands on the floor and do what a can to straighten my legs, or straighten my legs and just reach as far down my legs towards the floor as I can?
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Better to keep your legs straight and use the force of gravity to pull you lower :)
 
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If I may suggest something that I've found useful. Before you do either, roll your foot over a tennis ball for a couple of minutes. Apparently this releases something that can help you reach lower. I haven't had to do it myself but I tried it out on an inflexible daughter and she went from fingers at her knees to halfway down her shins after doing this just once. Aside from that, I'd probably opt for Wolfie's suggestion, getting into a sort of crouch first, because then you can gently bounce your legs back as you try to straighten. But do the release first.
 
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