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This is only afffecting my left leg. During exercise 17, hamstring lunge and variations, I am experienced knee pain. As I push my body away from my left foot and straighten my leg, in order to intensify the stretch in my hamstring, I begin to feel a growing pain on the lateral and medial aspect of my knee. I don't feel a stretch in my hamstring at all prior to feeling the pain or during it. I'm guessing this could be due to calf tightness or just by me over doing the stretch and not taking enough rest? I also feel this sensation when I, from a standing position, flex at the waist and place my palms on the floor. When I begin to extend my knees I feel the same sensation. With no sensation in my gluteus or hamstrings.

In preparation for the two ST4P workshops coming up in Sydney in a week, Olivia and I were noodling around in the studio yesterday. I have a new technique that I intend to share with the world soon (relating to side splits, or middle/Chinese splits) but I am not there yet, so will hold off on that for now. What I want to talk about today is "dancer's splits". Many of you have heard me talk about what we call the full front splits (square hips, and the front of the back leg on the floor, and not the inside) and I have spoken on workshops about one of our senior students who was an international women's gymnastics judge, and who (after an intense Hip Flexor, HF, session in the old Monkey Gym), confided to the Advanced class that in 20 years of judging, she had never given full marks to any front split (FS) she had seen. FS used to be a compulsory pose, I believe, and her point was that all the splits that she had seen in that time did not show perfectly square hips—the back leg was turned out and the hips rotated to the back leg to some extent (or, in many people a great extent). And because I consider loosening tight HFs to be the #1 goal for most people (for many reasons which I can go into here, if people are interested) I have emphasised the square hip version of the FS in the past. But as I am regaining my old flexibility (in pursuit of my Holy Grail, Side Splits) I thought I would re-try a dancer's split to see if there were any benefits, and this is what I want to talk about today. Front leg in the above image is the leg that used to have the intense hamstring problem; not any more! And the other leg. Props to Nate Wells for one of my favourite T-shirts, too. So: are there any benefits to this version of the splits? Yes, very much so. The two main ones should be obvious from the pics: the front leg experiences a strong HS stretch (mainly semi-membranosus and semi-tendinosus on the front leg, and the back leg a strong adductor (and inner HS) stretch; as the leg is straight, we are talking gracilis and semi-membranosus. All important elements for pancake, pike, and side splits, in time. I am not strong enough to hold myself up via only these muscles, but that is what I am working on at present. It should be possible to balance on the inside of the back leg's foot, I feel—but I need to be much stronger; I know this will come. I am also pulling the kneecap of the back leg up strongly; this feels like it is protecting the inside of the back leg's knee well. Once I get down to the floor, I will be concentrating on leaning back to vertical and also tucking the tail (as much as I can, anyway); I am getting a very strong HF stretch, even though the hips are in line with the line of the legs. It feels to me that psoas is being strongly stretched (to stretch rectus femoris the hips have to be square, or even over-square if you are loose enough) in the back leg, even when it's fully turned out, as mine is. Added to this is a strong sense of multiple lines of fascial stretch being experienced; when I get looser I will be trying to twist the pelvis forward and back to add to/change this. A final note is that the famous Jujimufu's front splits are dancer's splits, with the back leg externally rotated, and the hips rotated away from the stretch: Looking at his position again, I see that the back hip has been rotated away and the back leg internally rotated slightly, to give the impression of the front of this leg is on the floor. Nice work! True (square hips) front splits are way, way harder, as anyone who has tried to do them will know. I do feel that the dancer's split is useful, though, and will be interested to hear your comments.

Hello All, I had a few bad months of training. Upon becoming more consistent over the past few months, following a weekly intense front or middle split stretch/mobility program I feel great during the program, but generally a few minutes after the session, once I get back down to earth, I am getting pain in my left hip flexor area when I walk. I actually think it is more around the TFL. The pain can be pretty bad like a 6-8 out of 10 where walking is very uncomfortable. It seems that reverse straddle hypers for Isometrics seem to help it. To me it seems like the intense stretching is shutting off something around glute medius/minimum on that side, but it seems odd that after a quality mobility and stretch session I am soon without mobility. I could just do activation drills following the programs but I was curious to what my peers and coaches have to say. Also, I have had this issue in the past, but it would come and go. As of late it is a multiple time per week issue. I also feel it is worse when I am busier/more stressed. Please weigh in and let me know your thoughts as I was unable to find a topic covering this issue in the forum. Thanks!