September 16, 2013

Stretching Series: Knees and Legs

WOW! So it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here. I want to start this stretching series post by apologizing for my long absence. I’ve been really sick over the past two months and it’s actually stopped me entirely from going to ballet and stretching. As you can imagine, that’s been pretty frustrating… but I plan on touching on that in another post so stay tuned for that. Unfortunately I’m still only able to do very light stretching, and when it do it it’s far from pretty so I decided that I’d continue this post in the series by using found resources and photos. Hopefully within a few weeks I’ll be able to get back into the game and get some original photos and stretches for you guys!

Today I wanted to cover leg stretches, with some emphasis on knees since I know someone requested it! 🙂 The following are some of my favorite leg stretches, some of which not only improve flexibility but strength as well. I’m all for a double whammy!

1. Triangle pose: Ok so when I first stumbled across this yoga pose I looked at it and said “PIECE OF CAKE”. Then I tried it… haha. It’s not easy, folks! It requires hamstring and groin flexibility as well as core strength to maintain balance.

  • Stand with your legs about 3.5 to 4 feet apart.
  • Turn out your right foot, and leave your left foot turned in.
  • Lift your arms straight out to your sides.
  • Tilt your upper body over your right leg, stretching your arms and legs
  • Twist at the waist, lowering your right hand to your right ankle.
  • Repeat on the other side. For an added knee stretch, bend the knee of the leg that is turned out.

2. Knee Stretch: This one is pretty straight forward. I find that it helps stretch not only my legs and knees but also my lower back. I find this one super relaxing and love doing it before bed! Just lie on your back and bring each knee up to your chest one at a time, hold for about 30 seconds (longer if you’d like), and then lower your leg back to the ground. Easy peasy, but very helpful for tight knees.

3. Forward lunge/Warrior Pose: This stretch and yoga move is helpful for stretching the knee, hamstring, and groin all depending on how deep you can take it.

  • Start with your legs about 2-4 feet about depending on how far you would like to/can stretch. Keep one foot turned in, the other turned out.
  • Rotate toward the turned out foot and bend that knee.
  • Stretch as far as you can without discomfort.
  • Repeat on the other side! (don’t forget this!)

4. Hamstring Stretch: I love this one. I do this using Therabands but it can easily be done using a strap, rolled towel, bungee cord, etc. Just lie on your back and wrap whatever youre using under or around your foot. Then, trying to keep your leg straight, pull your leg up with your arms. When you feel that you’re about to need to bend your knee, stop and hold. Over time you’ll be able to go farther but don’t push yourself too hard or you could end up in a world of pain!

5. Hurdle Stretch: This is an oldie but goodie. Sit with your legs in a V position, as far as you can open them. Bend one leg in and lean toward your straight leg. You can do this facing straight toward the leg or to the side. Make sure you don’t bounce!

Hopefully these leg stretches (with knee emphasis) can help some of you! Let me know what kind of stretches you’d like to see in the future. I apologize for the lack of new pictures, I hope that when the next post comes along I will be able to actually participate!

-Caysie.

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September 10, 2013

Splits and Increasing Flexibility

There’s been a lot of talk about splits and flexibility in general on this blog, including a post on is there a such thing as too much flexibility as well as a stretching series with its first post on increasing back flexibility (and hopefully we’ll have more posts in this series soon by Caysie!).

Ballet stretch

Personally, I’ve kind of put stretching specifically for splits on the backburner, and I’ve recently adapted more of an injury prevention and working towards generally increasing my flexibility instead of stressing my splits, because things like my back tend to get ignored when I’m focused on splits. So I’ll be working on more general stretching for awhile until I get my way back to the splits.

But for when I do, I’m researching different methods to stretching. There’s a lot of different tips out there (many of which contradict others) such as stretch everyday, stretch every other day, stretch in short bursts throughout the day, etc. I even found this fairly lengthy split stretching guide–that I’m thinking about trying out.There’s just so much information out there that kind of makes my head spin.

What have you found works best for you to increase your flexibility?

 

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September 5, 2013

September (and Fall) Goals

One of these times, I’ll actually have to go back and judge how much I’ve accomplished with my goals, but for now, I’ll just give you my general goals for the month of September and the fall in general:

Follow an Editorial Calender for ABP

I’ve become the worst at actually scheduling and follow a blog schedule, so I’ve set up a schedule of posts for the month of September on weekdays. I already know that not all of these will probably happen, but I’ll consider myself successful if I get 3 or 4 posts up a week, even if it’s not originally as planned.

editorial calendar

A (rough) editorial calendar for September!

Connect with my Fellow Ballet Bloggers More

Ever since making the switch to self-hosting (and really before that, too) I got really bad about follow-up on other people’s blogs. I’m trying to do better. One of these ways I’m doing this is following blogs on Bloglovin’ and trying to comment when I can. Seriously, if you read this blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments and I’ll give you a follow.

Another way I’ll be doing this is by hosting a blogger link-up on Monday on the topic “Why I Love Dance.” It’ll be a chance for bloggers to share posts, old and new, focused on why they love dance. I’d love to have as many people take part as possible, even if it’s just sharing a post that loosely fits the topic.

In the future: I’d love to host another TweetChat but I’m not quite sure what my schedule looks like for September, so that’ll fall into more of a fall to-do along with more link-ups.

Be Successful at Both Running and Dance

I often feel like running and ballet are competing factors in my life–it seems like I’ve yet to have a month where I happy with my performance in both. My goal for the fall is to not over do one or the other and try to find some sort of happy balance between the two–even if it means having to run quickly from a running event (with a free gift card and discount running registrations!) to ballet class if it’s the only way I can fit both in this week.

and…because it’s always a goal: STRETCH

Stretching and flexibility is always on my goal list, and I know I need to do it more. There will hopefully be more stretching guides up here as well in the fall. 

What do you hope to accomplish this fall?

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August 5, 2013

Can you be TOO flexible as a ballet dancer?

OY VEY! I am so sorry that I’ve sort of “slacked off” on my stretching series. I’ve been sick for the past week and then I just sprained ankle on top of it. Apparently I can dance better than I can walk. 🙂 So while I’m taking a little hiatus from dance and intense stretching to let my body heal from the illness and injury, I figured I’d bring up a topic that seems to be controversial at the moment- can you become TOO flexible or overstretch when it comes to ballet?? I found an article about how the positions of ballet have changed over the years and how they require a different level of flexibility and it raises interesting questions about the pressure it puts on dancers to be crazy flexible. I’ll fess up… one of my guilty pleasures is following a ton of little ballet Instagrams that are likely run by 12 year old girls (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m “old” in comparison so it makes me feel a little silly haha). So my Instagram feed is overrun with pictures of girls doing tilts, oversplits, and various other insane in the membrane stretches.

One of the first pictures on google image search of "oversplits"

One of the first pictures on google image search of “oversplits”

Part of me is blown away at the awesomeness of the stretches. It’s really amazing to see what the human body is capable of when you stretch it out and push its limits. The other part of me is really curious as to the concerns and dangers associated with stretching to extremes. I am, of course, a huge advocate of stretching as I find it’s very important to keeping a healthy body as well as progressing in ballet. I am also very cautious and try to make sure to weigh the costs with the benefits before I do anything. For me, the biggest concern that I have with these extreme stretches are the dangers involved. Could you imagine if one of the chairs in the above pictures slipped out during the process of getting in this position?! Holy pain, Batman. Or when I see people stretching their arches by sticking their foot under a couch and forcing it down I can’t help but wonder how much potentially “unnecessary” strain they are putting on their joints, tendons, ligaments and muscles that could later lead to serious injury.

When trying to do research on the topic I found some really weird mixed messages. A lot of sources say that you can’t really be too flexible and that you should try and push and push until you can get further. A lot of other sources say that being overly flexible is neither necessary nor helpful in ballet because it actually makes you need to work harder to maintain the classic lines that make ballet seem graceful rather than looking contorted. Although I found a lot of opinions of parents of dancers, adult dancers, and teen dancers, there aren’t a whole lot of easily accessible resources based from more reliable “official” sources. So, because I am no expert and definitely cannot give you advice on the matter, I advise that you weight the pros and cons yourself before attempting any stretches of that magnitude and always recommend caution. But I figured it could be an interesting point of conversation. Do you feel that these extreme forms of stretching can help or hinder ballet? How do you feel about the ever increasing flexibility requirements of ballet and how it changes the way the lines of the body look?

 

On a more fun note, I also decided to do the ABC survey Kristen posted to tell you a little more about myself after the jump 🙂

Continue Reading

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July 17, 2013

Stretching Series: Stretching Tips and The Back

In my previous posts, as well as on the Adult Ballerina Project Facebook,  I mentioned that I would be doing a post on stretching. I got some good requests and feedback on what type of stretches you’d like to see and I decided that rather than squeeze it all into a horrible 5 page long post or a short one without pictures that I’d do a series instead. So this will be the first of my stretching series and I’m starting with my favorite part of the body to stretch: The back!

83eb6bb7f3e5113d03859d2cf0cfcc79Before we begin with that, I’d like to give some of my general tips on stretching.

1. Bundle up. Ok, this may sound really unpleasant. Especially because it’s summer. But this has been a huge help in increasing my flexibility. When I stretch I typically wear tights, legwarmers, shorts, sweatpants, a leotard, and a sweater. As I heat up, I strip layers but I tend to leave my legwarmers and shorts on to keep my legs and hips nice and toasty. One word of caution if you do decide that this tip is something you’d like to try… don’t overdo it. Make sure you’re hydrated and that you’re not pouring sweat. It should serve to help get and keep your muscles warm, not to make you pass out from heat stroke.

2. Warm up for your warm up. This may sound silly but when I stretch I like to walk around the room fast for a few minutes, do a few jumping jacks, or something similar. Getting your blood flowing just a little bit will help your muscles warm up and be more flexible.

3. Use Therabands to help add some resistance or to help you grab your leg when your arms cant quite reach yet.

4. Make good use of fences, counters, doorways, couches. I love to stretch my legs out by just resting one on my counter like its a barre. When I’m at hotels I use the door frame to help me stretch my back out. Be creative and use whatever is safe that you can use to help aid you in stretching.

5. Don’t push yourself too far. Stretch just enough for a little discomfort and hold for 15 seconds. Then next time hold for 20, then 30 and so on. When it becomes “easy”, then push yourself a little farther and repeat the process. This will keep you from torn muscles.

6. If you’re having a stiff day, stretch after a warm bath.

7. You might not look like the hot babes in the yoga pictures you found online- and that’s ok! I get annoyed with this all the time. I imagine myself doing a stretch I see online and when I do it it looks TOTALLY different (and much less cute) than the pictures I saw. But lets get real- that’s what the person in the picture does for a living and they usually have also sat through hair and makeup (and get touched up) and are taking a full day to take like five pictures. Stretching isn’t about the visual product as much as it is making sure that your body is flexible and ready for dancin’.

Ok so now I’ll start with my favorite back stretches. I do these almost daily, if not twice daily. I have found that my posture has totally changed with these stretches and that my arabesque and port de bras have also improved as well.

back2

 

1. (Left to right) I start with a cobra pose focusing on keeping my shoulders down and pushing up with my sternum rather than my lower back.

2. Once I’ve reached that pose and have held it for about 30 seconds or longer, I bring my feet up as close to my head as I can get them. It’s ok if you can’t get them to your head yet, just keep trying by bringing them up as high as you can.

3. I always like to reverse my stretches. When I stretch one muscle group, I stretch the opposing muscle group. I find that this helps me avoid soreness and keeps me from having any part of my body from being more flexible one way than the other. Soooo, to reverse these back stretches I do a cat pose, remembering to pull up from the back as well as pushing up from the core.

back

 

4. From there I turn over and do a back bend, feet and hands flat on the floor. After holding as long as you’re able between 15 and 30 seconds.

5. Slowly go down onto your elbows one at a time. I like to put my hands together in the center but you can also put them parallel to each other on the ground. Start by staying on flat feet and holding for a few seconds, then go up on demi pointe. Hold.

6. Walk your feet outward as far as you can to see if you can straighten your legs. I’m still unable to straighten completely but I’m getting there. I find that the easiest way to get out of this pose is to just keep sliding until you’re laying on your back.

7. Last I like to lay on my back and sort of just wiggle around, loosening everything back up. It seems super counter intuitive that stretching would make you tight, right? But I’ve noticed that sometimes with back stretches, your back wants to revert back to it’s previous happy place right away after you’ve pushed it so I just roll out my back, twist around, and try to loosen it back up before I go about my business. 

This is also a great video that can be really helpful. Click here.

What stretches do you do to increase your back flexibility/strength? Also, what parts of the body do you want to see stretches for in this series? (I know that we got one request for knee stretching and I will be certain to get that done!)

Happy Stretching!

**Keep in mind, these are just MY favorite stretches and you definitely need to make sure are careful trying anything new.

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