What are the best stretches?

Question

Hi, I need to get flexible for gymnastics and I need to know what are the top stretches I should do to perfect splits as well as being able to swing legs around in the pommel horse. If you can tell me the name of the stretches and how to do them you will get automatic best answer lol ^_^. Thanks.

Answer 1

Sorry that I cannot help you with the pommel horse part, but I can definately give you advice on your splits. I bet you could ask your coach, because they know a lot about stretches and probably encourage you to stretch at home anyway.

Before you go into your split, put the front leg directly square with your hips, and bend it. You should be in a lunge, with your back leg straight behind you on the floor. The deeper your lunge is, the more you will feel a stretch. Hold this for about a minute.

Then grab your back foot and bend your back leg. You should still be in the lunge position as before, but now feel the stretch in the front of your back thigh. Hold this position for a minute, and remember to keep a deep lunge to enhance the stretching. After you have done these two things, you should go into your split, and sit in it for a little while. THe more you sit in your splits, the more flexible you will become.

You could also do oversplits, before going down into splits. The only difference between a normal split and an oversplit, is that your front foot is on a raised surface. This raised surface should be around 8-10" high. Try to go down in your split, and you will feel a deep stretch. After this, try going into your split, and you will see how much farther you go down.

HOPE THIS HELPS :)

It took me like twenty minutes to write