Featured Image: Action Moments for Inside Cheerleading Magazine

1. Not Being Warm Enough

I’m sure you’ve heard this before… but it’s true! Warming up is one of the most important things you need to do if you want to improve your flexibility.

A proper warm up does many things for the body to prepare it for stretching, including:

• Increasing body temperature
• Increasing blood flow to the muscles
• Preparing joints to go through a large range of motion
• Activating specific muscle groups
• Improving focus and body awareness

Although not a replacement for an active warm up, taking a hot shower or bath and wearing warm clothing can also provide additional benefits to increasing flexibility.

For a full, detailed description of a safe and effective warm up, read this post: http://thecheerkin.com/the-perfect-warm-up/

2. Not Holding a Stretch Long Enough

Stretching can be uncomfortable, and this is why many athletes have a hard time holding a stretch for an extended period of time.

Ideally, you want to hold for at least 30-60 seconds so the stretch can have an effect on your muscles. Some stretches, such as a pike and a bridge, can be effective still with only a 10-20 second hold, as long as they are done repeatedly and you give it your full effort during the short time period.

3. Not Being Mindful

This is a huge one! Contrary to my last point, some athletes sit in a stretch for multiple minutes and think they’re stretching, but instead, they’re either relaxing, being distracted by YouTube videos or are in so much discomfort that they tense up and resist the stretch.

The key to becoming flexible is to be mindful while stretching. Don’t distract yourself by scrolling through Instagram or watching TV. You need to be actively engaged and 100% focused on what your body is doing and feeling to get the full effects of a stretch.

4. Not Being Tight

So many athletes I’ve coached have come to me with bent knees, relaxed feet and poor posture in their stretches. This point goes hand in hand with being mindful while stretching – if an athlete displays any of these technique issues it means they aren’t being conscious of squeezing their muscles.

Not only does squeezing your muscles tight and pointing your toes reinforce good technique in all other skills, but it allows your muscles to lengthen even further.

Each joint in your body has what’s called agonist and antagonist muscle groups. For example, if you were to straighten your knee, your quadriceps muscles are the agonists, since they’re contracting and making the straightening action happen. Your hamstrings on the back of your thigh must lengthen in order for the knee to straighten, so they become the antagonist muscle group.

On the other hand, if you were to bend your knee, your hamstrings are now the agonist group since they are contracting to make your knee bend. In this case, the quadriceps become the antagonist group since they must lengthen in order for the knee to bend.

To apply this to stretching, let’s imagine sitting in a pike stretch. One of the major muscle groups that is targeted in a pike position is your hamstrings. You want to have the best chance at stretching your hamstrings to their full potential, and in order to do this, you need to contract the agonist muscles! So, you must squeeze your quads hard to fully straighten the knees, which then allows the hamstrings to reach their full length.

This concept applies to all your joints in all stretches! When stretching your calves, you wouldn’t point your toes would you? No, you’d flex your feet to lengthen the muscles as much as possible. Be mindful of this concept whenever you’re doing splits, pike, straddle, bridge, etc.

5. Incorrect Alignment

To stretch splits effectively, alignment is key! To many athletes, it feels natural and more comfortable to let the back hip turn outwards, especially if their splits aren’t close to being flat on the ground.

There are 2 major areas you want to stretch when doing right and left leg splits: your hamstrings (back of thigh on front leg) and your hip flexors (front of hip on back leg). As soon as you let the back leg turn out, you lose most of the stretch in your hip flexors. Instead, you end up stretching some of your adductors (inside of thigh) as well, which isn’t bad to do but it’s not what you should be stretching in right/left splits.

To have perfect alignment, you want your hips, knees and feet on each leg to be in one line. Say you’re doing a left leg split, you want your back leg (right leg) to create a perfect line from the right hip, to the right knee, to the right foot. The same line should be present in your front leg as well. You’ll know if your back hip is turned out if your knee cap is not facing straight down towards the floor.

Putting yourself in correct alignment may make you go further from the ground in your split at first, but that’s okay. It’s more important to align your joints properly to have a better end result, stretch the right muscles and prevent injuries.

6. Overstretching

Some athletes and coaches take the “no pain, no gain” phrase a little too far. You are going to feel some pain or discomfort while stretching, since you are trying to lengthen your muscles beyond their current state, but you should never feel unbearable pain.

Stretching beyond your limits can damage your joints, cause injuries and muscle tears, and leave you feeling extra stiff in the days following. When you feel extra stiff and sore, you probably won’t feel like stretching for a while, and will end up doing so less often.

7. Not Stretching Regularly

Similar to what I discussed with overstretching, only stretching once a week or at random times will not be effective. You need to be consistent – not only in how often you stretch but with the types of stretches you do. Being creative and trying a new set of stretches every few days won’t give you the results you’re looking for because it won’t provide the same intensity or focus in certain areas.

8. Only Stretching Your Air Positions

Pulling only heel stretches and scorpions as a way of stretching is not very effective since these positions don’t focus in on one specific muscle or group of muscles.

It’s best to do other stretches that will specifically target your hamstrings, hip flexors, shoulders, etc. Once you gain flexibility in all the individual sections, pulling your air positions will be easy and come more naturally.

If you’re interested in a flexibility program for yourself or your team, please visit the Training Programs tab.