Touching Toes

UKBouldering.com

Help Support UKBouldering.com:

James Malloch said:
Fiend said:
Slightly off-topic but in case it's useful, I can confirm that being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

OTOH it's a fairly pleasant stretch, it is directly measurable, and I agree with the common sense advice above of starting gently, doing it regularly, doing longer holds etc.

Definitely not for climbing use for me - it’s to basically do this photo.

I’m very much like the bottom half of the photo and holding someone there is super hard for me. If I could make a nice L shape with vertical legs, so much more would become possible to do/try.


vietnamese characters

I'd say reclining hamstring stretch using a strap could be very useful for you -- it's a great stretch anyway, easy to modify for wherever your current level of flexibility is, and relates most directly to the position you're trying to work towards.

This, basically:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Of03DkVMA

You can keep the passive leg straight or bend it and put the sole of the foot flat on the floor, whatever feels most comfortable.

Also forgot to say that it's all easier if you do it when you're warmed up rather than "cold".
 
seankenny said:
slab_happy said:
I owe my front splits largely to a box set of The Wire (not a joke).

I’ve just been getting into stretching recently as thanks to long covid I can’t do anything else that you could remotely classify as training. A bit of consistency has seen me go from just touching toes to putting all my fingers on the floor in front of me, with the full palm touch not that far off. So progression is pretty quick and suitably satisfying. But now I’m thinking of more ambitious aims… roughly how long/how much effort did it take to get your front splits?

Hard to remember because it was ages ago, but I'd say that most of the progress happened over a year. However, that was the year of my Epic Psychiatric Misadventures ("freak neurochemical reaction" are never words you want to hear ...) so a fair amount of that time was spent stuck in a hospital room with fuck-all to do except watch "The Wire" while doing yoga. So it's a bit hard to work out how that'd translate into time/effort in ordinary life!

Side note: worth remembering that front splits isn't just about the hamstring stretch on the front leg, it's also about opening the hip flexors on the back leg, so make sure you've got some stretches for that too. You can build a really little nice routine with things like pigeon and janu sirsasana which work those different components (and get some bonus hip rotation as well).
 
Thanks for that s_h, and also thanks to everyone else who posted clips. Plenty to go at! Seems like this might take some time…
 
Fiend said:
being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.
 
Yeah I might have been speaking in biased absolutes (it is the current fashion though....), partly based on having always been able to get at least middle knuckles to toes from cold, and feeling exactly zero benefit for climbing / climbing flexibility. Incidentally I tried proper glute / hip stretching for the first time in months yesterday, and I whilst I could get middle knuckles to toes from cold, I was bloody rubbish at glutes / hips - something which I've definitely noticed has made me feel a bit awkward and restricted on some climbing recently.
 
cheque said:
This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.

Standard n=1 but I have awful hamstring flexibilty and can't touch my toes but can get my feet extremely high... I always mean to work on my hamstrings but never quite find the motivation!
 
cheque said:
Fiend said:
being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.

I can happily get hands flat on the ground with my legs straight but am comically bad at getting my feet high or opening my hips past 90degs. Go figure....
 
galpinos said:
cheque said:
Fiend said:
being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.

I can happily get hands flat on the ground with my legs straight but am comically bad at getting my feet high or opening my hips past 90degs. Go figure....

Those are multiple different things, though. You’ve got passive range of motion (touching your toes, where gravity’s helping pull you down) and active range of motion (how much you can use your hip flexors to lift your leg relative to your torso). Your active range can’t be more than your passive, for obvious reasons, but just having the passive flexibility by itself won’t give you the active control.

Then opening your hips out to the side in the “frog” position is external hip rotation and nothing to do with your hamstrings.
 
Carl said:
cheque said:
This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.

Standard n=1 but I have awful hamstring flexibilty and can't touch my toes but can get my feet extremely high... I always mean to work on my hamstrings but never quite find the motivation!

Me too.
Stepping up does not meaningfully depend on hamstring flexibility. Even when I was doing yoga 3 or 4 times a week, my hamstring flexibility was poor. I can sit comfortably in lotus though and hip flexibility correlates massively with stepping up and getting centre of gravity in to the wall. That is useful. Hamstrings, not so much.
 
I have to say that if I was on a once in a lifetime trip to Spain I'd be more worried about touching tufas than toes.
 
mrjonathanr said:
Me too.
Stepping up does not meaningfully depend on hamstring flexibility. Even when I was doing yoga 3 or 4 times a week, my hamstring flexibility was poor. I can sit comfortably in lotus though and hip flexibility correlates massively with stepping up and getting centre of gravity in to the wall. That is useful. Hamstrings, not so much.

I'm quite similar to this - 20 odd years of regular yoga and my hamstring flexibility still sucks (can get both feet behind my head at the same time though so guess my hips are pretty open)

One thing i have found is that Chair Pose is a great way of activating the hamstrings and prepping them for straight legged forward folds (for me at least). Seems to really help wake them up and open them up.
 
"the stretches that are most effective are the ones you do" : i would watch TV/Youtube on my computer, stand in front of it, one foot on the table, stretching !
this works better if you have done some sort of activity just before (climbing/walking/cycling, anything that has git some blood flowing through your legs)
 
People saying you have awful hamstring flexibility.... I need figures. For example, I'm about 11 inches from touching my toes atm. Glad to hear though this won't affect my high stepping :beer2:
 
seankenny said:
Thanks for that s_h, and also thanks to everyone else who posted clips. Plenty to go at! Seems like this might take some time…

Yeah, but that's what makes it brilliant when (for whatever reason) you can't do other forms of training, so you can still have a big juicy ambitious goal and see steady progress towards it.

Getting full front splits is ultimately just a party trick (unless you're a gymnast or dancer or something that requires perfect front splits), but the increase in hamstring and hip flexor range of motion you get along the way is very worthwhile, IMHO.

And it is a pretty great party trick.

Also, might just be me, but I find the Yin-style long holds really good for de-stressing when I’m feeling frazzled, anxious or burnt-out.

So, cool goal, have fun with it!
 
mr chaz said:
People saying you have awful hamstring flexibility.... I need figures. For example, I'm about 11 inches from touching my toes atm. Glad to hear though this won't affect my high stepping :beer2:

I always thought I had awful flexibility, but turns out I'm actually quite good!
 
mr chaz said:
People saying you have awful hamstring flexibility.... I need figures. For example, I'm about 11 inches from touching my toes atm. Glad to hear though this won't affect my high stepping :beer2:

As mentioned in the heel hooking thread the other day, heel hooking is my biggest strength in climbing with high stepping not far behind.

Without warming up, my fingers can get just below my knees before my back and shoulders start to round. It takes about a full hour of intense yog for my finger tips to just about reach my toes with a straight back.

But my hips are very open, especially in external rotation: I can go deeper than anyone I know in stretches like pigeon pose, figure 4, lizard, cork screw, flying pigeon etc. I'm close to side splits having never put any work in to them.

External rotation, plus a little bit of glute strength and hip flexor strength are the key ingredients for high feet and high heels.
 
I bet everyone who is particularly good at high feet has strong hip flexors.

Everyone loves tests, so try sitting on the floor in a straddle position (straight legs approximately 90 degrees apart), put both palms on the floor in front of you and lift your feet off the ground for 5 seconds. Move both hands forward to increase the difficulty and get a 5 second max. I think hands further forward than your knees is a good score and in line with your feet is equivalent to 1 arming the BM2K middle slot ;)
 
sdm said:
mr chaz said:
People saying you have awful hamstring flexibility.... I need figures. For example, I'm about 11 inches from touching my toes atm. Glad to hear though this won't affect my high stepping :beer2:

As mentioned in the heel hooking thread the other day, heel hooking is my biggest strength in climbing with high stepping not far behind.

Without warming up, my fingers can get just below my knees before my back and shoulders start to round. It takes about a full hour of intense yog for my finger tips to just about reach my toes with a straight back.

But my hips are very open, especially in external rotation: I can go deeper than anyone I know in stretches like pigeon pose, figure 4, lizard, cork screw, flying pigeon etc. I'm close to side splits having never put any work in to them.

External rotation, plus a little bit of glute strength and hip flexor strength are the key ingredients for high feet and high heels.

You actually have very flexible hamstrings then if you can touch your toes with a straight back after warming up!
 
slab_happy said:
galpinos said:
cheque said:
Fiend said:
being able to touch your toes is absolutely bloody useless for 1. Any form of relevant climbing flexibility (hip-opening, wide bridges, etc), 2. Any form of climbing performance.

This is just the sort of thing that people who either can’t remember what it’s like to have really tight hamstrings and lower back or have never been that tight in those areas say. It’s directly related to how high you can lift your feet up so has a huge impact on how hard you can climb.

I can happily get hands flat on the ground with my legs straight but am comically bad at getting my feet high or opening my hips past 90degs. Go figure....

Those are multiple different things, though. You’ve got passive range of motion (touching your toes, where gravity’s helping pull you down) and active range of motion (how much you can use your hip flexors to lift your leg relative to your torso). Your active range can’t be more than your passive, for obvious reasons, but just having the passive flexibility by itself won’t give you the active control.

Then opening your hips out to the side in the “frog” position is external hip rotation and nothing to do with your hamstrings.

Forgot:

It's also a relevant point that the hamstrings are biarticulate (they cross two joints). So they have to stretch when you flex the hip OR when you extend the knee, and they have to stretch the most when you do both at the same time, e.g. trying to touch your toes with straight legs -- think of a rubber band being stretched from both ends.

High stepping generally happens with bent knees, so it's not going to demand as much hamstring flexibility, but is going to demand good hip flexor strength, and external hip rotation if you're stepping onto a foothold to the side of your body while keeping your hips in.
 
Liamhutch89 said:
… so try sitting on the floor in a straddle position (straight legs approximately 90 degrees apart), put both palms on the floor in front of you

Failed at the first hurdle
 


Write your reply...
Back
Top