Recently, in the dance world, more people have been discussing appropriate vs. harmful stretching habits. Stretching oversplits has become a hot topic within this umbrella of harmful stretching practices. In this blog, we will cover why you should avoid stretching your oversplits and what are the better options for improving your flexibility.
Anatomy of Stretching
When you are stretching your splits, you are stretching the muscles in your legs, tendons, and ligaments. Tendons connect muscle to the bones around them, and ligaments connect bone to other bones. Tendons are best compared to a theraband in that you can pull and stretch it but the band will return to its normal length afterwards. Ligaments are more like a piece of cloth; you cannot stretch them like the theraband, but when you apply enough force, the cloth may lengthen and become loose. The ligament like the cloth will NOT return to their original length.
Stretching Into Hypermobility or Over-Splits
When you extend past your body’s range of motion and stretch your over-split, the ligaments are impacted and cannot return to their original stable state (Burnett, 2021). Yes, this may get your leg to extend further up on a yoga block or chair, but it will also cause long-lasting damage to the ligaments surrounding your joints. Over time, your joints won’t be able to rely on the ligaments for support, leading to injuries within and around the joint space (Slattery, 2019). Later in dancers’ careers, these injuries are often seen, resulting in increased pain – both while dancing and during day-to-day activities.
What To Do Instead
Increasing your flexibility more safely will still get you that beautiful split, tilt, or leap. These safer practices are geared towards strengthening muscles to get you into those positions, instead of relying on passive range of motion of the joint. One example is sitting in a pike position on the ground with your legs out in front of you. While maintaining a straight torso, can you lift your leg off the ground? Can you draw the letter “O” while keeping your leg off the ground and with a straight back? You can also complete this exercise standing, lifting your leg off the barre. Make sure not to fold forward, towards your leg up on the barre, as you should feel the muscles in the front of your hip and thigh doing most of the work.
Instead of sitting in your middle split with your ankles up on yoga blocks, you can apply this strengthening principle as well; a good exercise for this would be to kneel on all fours with the working leg stretched out to the side. While keeping a straight back, lift up your leg to the height of your hips. Doing this without rotating your back or shifting weight onto your non-working leg is a great drill for working on your middle splits.
Conclusion
Stretching your over-splits can cause your ligaments to length and be strained, decreasing the support around the joint, and leading to pain and possibly other injuries. Instead of overstretching, strengthening your muscles into the range of motion you want is a more effective and safer practice.
Amanda Hodgetts, PT, DPT, Cert. DN In addition to treating all populations with performance-focused 1 on 1 physical therapy, Dr. Hodgetts specializes in dancer rehabilitation of ballet, modern, jazz, contemporary and Irish Step, and is an active member of Doctors for Dancers. Her other specialties and trainings include Functional Dry Needling and Hypermobility training with The Ehlers-Danlos Society.
Resources
Slattery, Katie. 2019. “Do I Have a Labral Tear? What You Need to Know About Treating This Common Ballet Injury.” Pointe. November 21, 2019. https://www.pointemagazine.com/labral-tear-dancer-2640877137.html.
Burnett, M., 2021. Injury Prevention Strategies for Pre-professional and Professional Ballet Dancers. American University.
