How to help with flexability?

Question

I am a 13 year old dancer. But I'm just not really flexable! I stretch a lot but still nothing has really changed in the past 2 years. Help!!!

Answer 1

Are you holding the stretches? Because I've seen some girls stretch...but they stay in each position like five seconds. That won't do anything.

Talk to your dance teacher. They know how you dance (assuming that you've been at the same studio for at least a year) and they'll be able to tell you what your doing right or wrong.

Answer 2

intensify your stretching do it until it hurts! I was stretching until I was comfortable never more stretch it out until it hurts and when it hurts, thats good because your muscles will stretch.

Answer 3

I'm seeing answers from people here saying to stretch until it really hurts. You have to be REALLY careful with that. Yes, you should push yourself further but not too much. You should push yourself so that you feel some discomfort when stretching so that it's not comfortable, but not so much that you're in pain. If you overstretch you can end up severely hurting yourself. So be careful!

What I suggest is stretching for about 15 minutes each day. Here's what you can do:

-First warm yourself up. You should never stretch without warming yourself up. That's another way that people end up hurting themselves! Do the warm ups your dance teacher does in the beginning of your class.

-Practice your splits. Hold it for one minute . Do each side two times.

-Frog stretch. I don't know if your teacher does this, but my jazz teacher makes us do this stretch. It improves flexibility and your turnout. This is how this stretch looks: http://gvctemp17.virtualclassroom.org/sp...

Make sure your pelvis is flat on the floor. It's ok if you'r legs don't fall perfectly flat on the floor, it takes time. I usually stay in this position for 2 minutes.

-Straddle. Do your straddle against a wall. Face the wall and do a straddle against it. Push yourself in as close to the wall as you can without feeling pain. Stay like that for a minute. Then push yourself a little bit closer, you should feel some pain. Hold it for another minute. If you do this every day you will get a lot better with your straddle in a few months.

I hope I could help! :)

Answer 4

I have the same problem. I have been dancing since I was 4 years old as well. I am flexible but not as flexible as my class mates and it gets to me.

So what I do to help is to stretch once in the morning and once at night - and also before you dance.

Also make sure you are cooling down.

Also another point, are you stretching during the breaks and holidays. Because I used to find that during long periods of time I would lose my flexibility.

Talk to your dance teacher as well to get some tips. But thats what I recommend!

Hope it helps and good luck with your flexibility.  

Answer 5

Flexibility takes YEARS to gain.

Answer 6

if you dont push yourself enough when your stretching then you'll never get any further, it should hurt. if your going as far as you can go then try turning in/out, putting something under one or both of your legs, etc. until you feel a stretch