How to do a Left Split Stretch for Gymnastics

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Mandy Butler on behalf of Expert Village. And I'm going to take you through a gymnastics class stretch and warm up. Now I'm going to reverse what I just did with my right leg and I'm going to do my left leg split. It's going to be the same technique as the right leg; I'm going to slide from my hip flexer stretch into my splits with my left leg straight. My back leg is going to be as straight as possible. Now if you're unable to get all the way down to the floor, that's OK. Your back leg might bend a little bit. It's very important though, that no matter what, you keep your front leg straight. That will really get you stretched and eventually you'll become flexible enough to do a full split down to the floor. Again, my hands are going to be on either side of my leg and I'm going to keep my chest nice and erect. I'm going to slide into my left leg split. And this is a left leg split. You want to hold this, as always, for at least twenty seconds. Try to hold it for longer, because the longer you're in this stretch, the more stretch you're going to get. Now you don't want to push it and stay in it too long. Your body will tell you when you need to get out. I like to get my athletes to hold it for about a minute. This is your left leg split."