Innate weakness or sth?

[fung lee]

I always find my hip adductor very stiff. My side split sucks, no matter how often I do those hip adductor stretch on Juji's page, its flexibility simply doesn't improve...
I stretch a lot and all my body part become moderately flexible except the hip adductor, despite my extra effort on it.

So, any suggestions on this? Or is it an innate weakness?
THANKS.

[Papa Lazarou]

Have you tried isometrics?

It may be that those muscles lack strength. Isometrics would help that somewhat. Most people have weak adductors, and weak muscles can't be stretched as effectively.

Other than that I can't guess what the cause could be. I mean, if you can feel a stretch you should improve flexibility in that area.

But yep. Probably a strength issue.

[fung lee]

You mean it may help if I improve the strength of the msucle to be stretched?
It sounds new to me, and I will try it. Thanks.

But I'd like to know the reason behind this, could you tell me about it?

[frozenpeon]

well Isometric stretch also increases strength in the entire range of motion which increases your cold flexiblity. Maybe you aren't progressing on your sidesplit simply because your cold flexibility always stays at the same level.

Also, maybe you aren't relaxing your muscle, it's hard to relax in a sidesplit position. You can try the toes up split if you want; sit down in front of a wall and push yourself against it.

[fung lee]

Get it, I will try it.
Thanks. :-)

[Ashtar]

http://pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/89248/200.jpg
Hmm... RoM is probably too limited, resistance is not progressive, and requites knees to be bent (and hips a bit flexed) neither of which correlates with side splits.

What was that cool machine someone posted that Chuck Norris had been endorsing?

[Papa Lazarou]

You could do adductor flies (flys?) couldn't you? They allow a full range of motion.

Strong adductors are easier to stretch because a strong muscle will contract to a lesser extent to hold up your body weight than a weak muscle. In a side split stretch, your adductors naturally contract to prevent too great a stretch leading to tearing. Naturally, the more relaxed a muscle is, the easier it is to stretch that muscle. A strong muscle will be more relaxed than a weak muscle while exerting the same force.

There we go!

[fung lee]

http://pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/89248/200.jpg


NICE PIC.:tongue:

Naturally, the more relaxed a muscle is, the easier it is to stretch that muscle. A strong muscle will be more relaxed than a weak muscle while exerting the same force.


Got it, at this moment I would do more isometric stretch, thanks!

[Ashtar]

I took the whole 'strong muscles will relax more' thing for granted, but actually it's probably due to strengthening muscle fibres that activate at that higher RoM and just using them. Since the spindles allow the groups to either contract or relax and there's no middle ground right? So you're activating fibres you normally don't use near the limit of your stretched RoM to support you. The same as you would activate those that engage near the peak contraction of a RoM for static-active ones.