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My hip flexors are driving me bananas… front split regression
I’m perhaps needlessly frustrated because I’ve spent the past week with a terrible cold, and now have a lingering cough and probably a pending stomach virus to contend with (yaaaaaay…). I’ve been forced to “rest” and I am not a fan of sitting still…I can barely get through a movie without getting irritated and antsy.
Yesterday evening I was finally feeling well enough to do a light warm up and some stretching. After 5 days of sitting around doing nothing I was quite stiff and I couldn’t get as warm as I wanted to thanks to the cough. I made the mistake of stretching my splits and of course I look and feel like I’ve regressed big time. Even before I was sick I was feeling like I couldn’t quite reach my max. At the end of April I’d come within a few centimeters of touchdown…then lost it, then again at the beginning of May it returned and actually felt comfortable. I kept up with the same stretching regime and somehow I’m now a good couple of inches off of the ground again – what the crap, hip flexors?! And yes, it is 100% my hip flexors that are at fault here.
I’m not in pain and haven’t experienced any injury. I haven’t intensified my flexibility routine, except I’ve added some foam rolling. That should be making things better, though. Is this normal? What is the best way for me to make my new ROM stay?
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3 Replies
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Are you by chance quad dominant, and do you have an anterior pelvic tilt when standing? This can cause your hip flexors to become shortened. I’m asking because this was what was holding back my own splits progress. I fixed it by strengthening my glutes by doing weighted glute bridges and hip thrusts.
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Marilyn Monster – yup, that sounds like me. I do have an anterior pelvic tilt – my back kind of sways and my stomach sticks out. This sometimes makes it hard for me to position my pelvis properly so I actually get the stretch in the front of my hip flexors and not my low back when I do things like lunges and couch stretch. 🙁
I’ve been doing glute bridges and hip thrusts, but I’m going to get my instructor to check my form and I might try adding weights. How often did you train your glutes and how many reps/sets did you do at a time?
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I sent you a message. 🙂 Although it looks like my formatting went a little wonky.
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