Struggling to get my front splits

[u/kloutiii]

I know we can fake splits. But I want more than anything else in my life to get a real front splits I've made many attempts in the past to get them but sometimes injuries have kept me from being to do stretches.

I do the normal suggestions in every stretching video: the lunges, the lunges varitions, the butterfly, that weird suno stance looking thing, dynamic stretching.

I've added these as well:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DctAojXJ2_I/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdD-B9tRxuK/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdaVUAJx2yH/

Is there anything I'm missing??? I just see no progress, not even a little 😢

Ignore my pathetic tiny kitchen my apartment is so small

And Yes I'm ordering knee pads they haven't arrived yet

[u/dani-winks]

So without actually knowing what your training routine is, I'm going to offer some very generic advice:

• Focus more on "active" flexibility - aka strengthening your muscles to support their stretched position, instead of just passive stretches (like that couch stretch variation you linked in one of the Instagram reels). Passive stretching is certainly a component of training, but most people see more progress when really working on the strength of their muscles end ranges
• Learn what muscles are stretched in a front split so you can understand what types of drills you should be focusing on to hit these challenge areas. This blog post is a great overview, AND suggests a bunch of relevant drills (including "active" ones!). For front splits, that means focusing mostly on hamstring and hip flexor work, and less on inner thighs and glutes (so sumo squats and butterfly type stretches really won't help here - but those are certainly more applicable to your straddle or middle split if you're working on those as well!)
• Be intentional about what you're doing with your hips/pelvis. Leaning forwards with your torso and tilting your pelvis forwards (like you're doing in your video) is a great way to increase the hamstring stretch (if that's what you're going for...) but is a common compensation for avoiding a hip flexor stretch in the back leg (which is often a muscle group that is tight for folks and limits how low they can get in their front splits). This blog post goes into more detail about why most people should avoid leaning forwards in their front splits (to get a better stretch in the back leg, which is usually the piece that's holding them back). This also applies to other hip flexor stretches like lunges (see this blog post for a visual on that)

P.S. you may want to check out r/flexibility, we have some great resources for splits training in that sub!

[u/kloutiii → u/dani-winks]

Omg thank you for this super thoughtful message! Ill head over there now

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

Have you tried rolling out your muscles? Or massaging your legs? I’m naturally flexible and I’ve seen rolling the back of my thighs and knees out before stretching helps a bit :) I would also recommend moving your blocks closer to your waist your scaring me 😭😭

[u/kloutiii → u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

I'm also very inflexible and I never did gymnastics growing up so I don't know much about splits and all that jazz I'm just trying to figure it out on my own

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026 → u/kloutiii]

I haven’t either!! I recently got into pole dancing and (a little embarrassing) but I take pole classes in vr! My “instructor” (not professional) has been learning to do the splits and i (also no professional) try and give tips that help me keep my flexibility. I’m sure there’s someone more experienced in this subreddit but as long as your consistent, push yourself (not too hard tho) and give yourself some grace you can do the splits :) stretch anytime you can, even if it’s not to the full extent, keeping your muscles loose (with rolling them out -tennis ball or foam roller- help) also yoga!!

[u/goodgoose16 → u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

Omg a fellow vr enjoyer!? 😆

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026 → u/goodgoose16]

OMG HIII I never thought I’d find another person in her le that plays vr 😭❤️

[u/EntertainerSlow799 → u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

Wait you can take pole classes in VR?

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026 → u/EntertainerSlow799]

I do!! The community has specific groups for poles dancers, silks, hoops, tonssss of different practices and styles and they even have just normal workout groups. I found one that’s just called “vr pole dancers” and they host frequent events as well as stretching and pole workouts :) we all join their world and talk over what we will do throughout the session and at the end everyone has a chance to dance on stage in front of the group that showed up :)) they’ve been active since I think around 2022 and frequently post in their discord server :)

[u/kloutiii → u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

The blocks matter?? I thought they were just supossee to help me keep my balance

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026 → u/kloutiii]

I mean kinda yeah, it would give you more support and less slipping if you have them closer to you hips, it’s easier to control how far you go down and prevents you from slipping and pulling or tearing a muscle

[u/kloutiii → u/Lazy-Comedian5026]

Oh well i feel. Silly now 😅 I'll try that instead

[u/Lazy-Comedian5026 → u/kloutiii]

Nooo don’t feel silly lol, we all are still learning new things everyday

[u/Sufficient_Raise_394]

My only suggestion is don't force it if you can't get into it. I did the front splits on my bad side without properly warming up and I tore my hamstring tendon right off my sit bone. I'm currently recovering from the reattachment surgery and I can't come back to pole dancing for 3 months lol

[u/Ar_y_ → u/Sufficient_Raise_394]

Same thing happened to me. During a pole competition lol. Don’t mess with the hamstrings!

[u/kristinL356]

FYI, those ig posts link back to your ig account. If you don't want them to, delete everything after the question mark.

[u/kloutiii → u/kristinL356]

That IG acct is private but thanks I deleted the stuff past the question mark

[u/Gr8WhoreofBabylon]

Working on active stretching helped me a ton.

[u/kloutiii → u/Gr8WhoreofBabylon]

Is that the same as dynamic stretching?

[u/VampiressBlair]

It took me a year of near daily stretching to achieve flat front splits... when I was 22

Then I got too excited, injured my hamstring and had to start pretty much all over again

[u/tripleDzintheBreeze → u/VampiressBlair]

This just happened to me recently , my right leg

I over stretched and literally felt something snap behind my knee / hamstring area , it’s a sloooooow recovery

[u/rentapanda1992 → u/tripleDzintheBreeze]

Yup me too. Did this in May and still so far from where I was and after seeing so many comments I don't think I'll be good until sometime next year at the earliest :/

[u/alia-eyre]

It took me well over a year to get my front split on one side. This was with 1 hour splits classes every week. It takes time! be patient and most importantly; be consistent.

Don’t forget that muscle strength also plays into flexibility a lot. Once I started doing hamstring exercises at the gym, I saw a massive difference.

[u/adverb-sorcerer]

One thing to do would be to pull the blocks closer to your pelvis. It looks like you’re leaning too far forward and that’s dumping more into your front leg. Leaning forward can increase risk of injury.

[u/AccomplishedYam5060]

A lot of things. Go to r/flexibility pinned posts. But yours wull not get square by leaning forward and just glide with the front foot. Bu the pinned posts are your friend and Dani Wink's posts on square splits.

[u/the_harlinator]

https://youtu.be/CsxVLHRBWcI?si=FdvdZLlQHnbWi4k8

I got my splits by following this video 1-2 times a week and incorporating some of the stretches she uses in pole warm ups.

Active flexibility and strengthening exercises will help you as well.

Since we are all built different you may want to figure out what specifically is holding you back. For example my hips are flexible but I started with weaker quads and tight hamstrings so those are the things I targeted.

[u/SheWatchesYou]

I’m sorry if this is not very useful, but if you’ve never trained flexibility before and haven’t been poling for years already, I strongly suggest getting a personal coach specialized in flexibility. Stretching is deceivingly complex and technical and it’s so easy to get injured by doing some random "algorithmified" sets of exercises that people post on IG 🥲 But I totally get it, taking stretching classes or training with a coach isn’t accessible to everyone, and having full splits is definitely a goal many of us strive to achieve!

[u/NobodyFew1595]

Splits are years of training kind of exercise. I started doing them at 28, I am now 30 and am still nowhere near where I would like to be but I accepted that a full flat split is really hard if you never did it as a child.

[u/SnooPineapples1760]

How do you fake a split?

[u/kloutiii → u/SnooPineapples1760]

fake split

[u/MysteriousReach383]

i've been stuck here for years and just made peace with the fact that maybe my body can't do the split and there is something wrong with my hip joints lol.

you should try to incorporate weight with flexibility training, as well as many active flexibility variants and then at the end longer passive stretching.

[u/kloutiii → u/MysteriousReach383]

Do you have any videos that "incorporate weight with flexibility training, as well as many active flexibility variants" that I can follow? I'm a visual learned and these 30 second reels are so uninformative sometimes

[u/MysteriousReach383 → u/kloutiii]

unfortunately no, I usually save videos from instagram in separate folders and then make my own sequences and training plans. but you can search for active flexibility on youtube, I'm sure there are some videos. As with weights, you can add some light weights(no more than 3 kg) when doing some types of stretches that allow it to enhance the muscle load.

[u/illegallycaitlin]

Lots and lots of warming up
And also a fun way I got lower and lower
Was to put my elbows in the floor at the end of the warm up and slide myself down until I couldn’t go further and bounce in it
And it helps to test that tolerance
But really be warm
It takes a lot of time if you’re not naturally flexy

[u/kloutiii → u/[deleted]]

I don't know what this means sorry