Stretching before workout

Here are some preteam and excel kids and part of their warm-up across the floor:








Related post:

[Not] Stretching the Truth

Adductors & Abductors with Resistance Bands

Photo of the Weekend

Laurie Hernandez

[Not] Stretching the Truth

In light of an apparent recent study supporting older studies (Hat tip:  JAG), here's a reprint of something I posted on my "hidden" blog (set up for my old gym, moreso than for the general public) over 2 years ago:


Read more »

Gymnastics Progressions

Justin Laury's new resource site is now open for business.  Check it out.

I've long admired his attention to body shaping.

Sacred Cows Die Hard

I think this research has a lot of merit:

There is much more than just hip flexors and quads in relation to structures that limit motion for the back leg of splits. The hip joint has two types of stabilizers to support it, static and dynamic stabilizers. Static stabilizers are more passive things out of the athlete’s control like inherent boney congruency or shape, ligaments/capsular tissue, and the labrum. Dynamic stabilizers are muscular based structures like the hip flexors, hip rotators, and other glute/adductor muscles. These muscular dynamic components tie in heavily with neurological control and strength to maintain hip stability during motion.

Passive hip stabilizers like the iliofemoral ligament, ligamentous teres, labrum, and anterior hip capsule are very important structures in the front of the hip that assist in stability during high force skills in gymnastics. The iliofemoral ligament and extension of the anterior capsule have been noted in anatomical research to restrain external rotation and extension ranges of motion, like seen in extreme back leg split positions, and stabilize the hip against excessive movement out of the front of the joint.  The labrum is a fibrocartilage ring of tissue that deepens the socket, aids in joint stability, and helps disperse forces. Research suggests it too can be stressed with excessive movement of the femoral head out of the hip socket.

Read more from Dr. Dave Tilley. 


Old school habits will die hard, though; and when coaches are still getting results (or perceived results), will their methods evolve?  Or stick with what they know and with what's been done for ages?  I'd love to see research examination on rhythmic gymnasts. 

Another important point is that gymnasts in the video are clearly hyper mobile individuals who don’t have an issue with passive range of motion. I’d be willing to bet money on the fact that on xray they have morphological hip changes like hip dysplasia or femoroacetabular version that make passive flexibility easy. They also likely have connective tissue level differences that makes it possible for them to get into these positions, with naturally reduced static ligamentous and capsular capabilities. These naturally mobile gymnasts with reduced static stability depend on exceptional dynamic stability to keep their hips safe and to increase their gymnastics performance.
This is usually the case for most flexibility examples in videos or presentations, where gymnasts who have huge flexibility ranges naturally are chose to demonstrate the drills. I will tell you honestly not all gymnasts will have the same hip anatomy. The same drill that is easy for one gymnast demonstrating the drill with underlying hip dysplasia or differences in morpholocial boney alignment will completely destroy another gymnast’s hips who don’t have that naturally.

More slider conditioning drills

Toe Point Conditioning

Two toe point videos I really like are these:

And I kind of like this foot arch stretcher, as demonstrated in this video.

This foot stretcher is $200!