I hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know in the comments if you agree with this ranking. + Flexibility Program here: www.yiannischristoulas.com/side-split-courses
🤯 It's amazing the amount of detail, clarity and organization. As usual on this channel. Brilliant!! Deeply grateful. 🥰🤩👏👏👏👏 Greetings from Colombia 🇨🇴
I was super stiff from birth. Did years of martial arts, as well as baseball, football, basketball, soccer, and weights and still couldn't do splits... all of my coaches in each had us do the stretching before our workouts and cardio. This was totally backwards and my progress was extremely slow and counterproductive to my performance. I read Complete Baseball Player by Dave Winfield when I was about 14 and as I recall he recommended you should always begin with exercise before doing any stretching and it changed everything for my flexibility. I figured out that if I run 1 to 5 miles with some interval sprints mixed in and then go straight into my stretching I can easily take all types of leg stretches as far as I ever wanted -- immediately after those stretches I could then kick up over my head and drop into various splits while stretching for throws at first base without any kind of pain.
@@genin69 haha, that, along with a 3 year stint of being a skateboarder, is pretty much 95% of what I did by day...at night I listened to Vin Scully, sorted baseball cards, and played computer games like hardball ii, tv sports football, m.u.l.e., archon, summer games, winter games, and earl weaver baseball (greatest computer game of all time) and on sundays I binge watched NFL or NBA...it was the 80s in california so no streaming or social media distractions, we didn't have cable and couldn't afford to descramble satellite tv...and the most common saying of the time was "there's nothing on [to watch on tv]"
and my parents had 4.5 jobs, so I was home alone most of the time and rode my bicycle to most everything from about 6 years old...different era I guess (my youngest is 6 years old now, homeschools 3rd grade, and still has her training wheels on..I took mine off with a wrench when I was two...she is active in jiu jitsu at least :o)
Throughout my life, I naturally leaned towards all the three exercises on your S+ list. They're definitely the way to go when the goal is the side splits.
Unfortunately I can’t do that as I offer a paid program with everything one needs to do the side split. It would be dishonest to all the students of my program to share for free this knowledge here.
@@YiannisChristoulas You basically have shared with us "the bread and the knife". One can't expect to be served as well... Thank you so much for this path, it leads to good things. By the way, why is soreness really bad? don't we still make progress? And similarly doesn't combining strength/stretching exercises make sense in the long run? I mean, what do we need plain flexibility for anyway? I come from a martial arts background (kung fu in particular), and I'm interested in finding a more "organic" way of working out, meaning not isolating areas for stretching but rather moving forward your flexibility ability by using the skill that requires that ability in the first place : ) Does that make sense? Thank you again, Γιάννη, I am grateful! Κώστας
@@kotiskotanis6014 Thanks man I appreciate the kind words. Yes you should train both at the same time. However, strength is a long lasting project while flexibility is not. Some need only a few months to reach their full range. In contrast, strength is an ongoing process for everyone. The problem with soreness is that it limits your range delaying and many times completely stopping, flexibility progress. I’ve explained in detail why this happens on my loaded stretching video. For this reason during the relatively short period of flexibility development (not maintenance) it is very important to avoid soreness on the target muscles. My last videos topic was how do you make sure your strength program doesn’t mess up you flexibility progress. You might want to check it out.
Thank you! This was excellent! 👏🙏 I'm currently applying and selecting stretch exercises to reduce the distance from the heel to the glutes (and also expand the flexibility of the foot in both directions) for having more mobility and for different positions like sitting over your heels, improving your squatting, sitting with crossing legs or for Tai Chi positions where I need the heel closer to the butt... It would be great to hear your opinion on this (as a suggestion for a topic 😅) I notice that this kind of leg flexibility has an important impact on your range of motion. Cheers!
You've covered every posture problem, can you please make one video about Pelvic tilt fixing true method? It's a huge problem for many, it's fine even if it is a Shorts video of a minute or so but please cover that topic.Thanks alot.
Super interesting and well explained! I try to stretch a lot for my highkicks in kickboxing but everytime I progress a bit at a certain point I get a sharp pain in the side of my hips (especially during the frog split) and it stops the movement. Any tips for this?
Firstly, great video. Love your channel. Secondly, at 10:09, you say plyometric. I understood this to be an error and understand that to be the eccentric, so maybe it was just a mistake. But then I thought that @YiannisChristoulas may understand a lot more than me. Was it a mistake or is there something I need to educate myself on? Please do this ranking for front splits and shoulders! Would love to hear your thoughts
Well now that mention it I’m not sure if I should use this term that way 😂. But let me explain. The word ‘plyometric’ comes from the Greek word ‘plyometria’ which means ’eccentric’ . It’s a word taken straight from Greek to characterize exercise which rely heavily on the eccentric (plyometric in Greek) phase of an exercise. In recent years the word plyometric is more commonly used in strength and conditioning to describe exercises that emphasize the eccentric activity of a muscle but more often involve the facilitation of the stretch shortening cycle. So, I’m not sure if the term ‘plyometric’ should exclusively used for those exercises or for all exercises that emphasize eccentric work.
Greatfull for your videos! Question: isn't it possible to use an exercise like the cossacks squat peformed with the contract passive range method you have presented? Getting the best of both worlds, stretching/strengthening at the same time?
@@kotiskotanis6014 Thanks for the support man 🙏 Sadly no. The Cossacks can be performed only with the Active Dynamic or the Contraction Active Range. That's another reason I don't use this exercise for flexibility development
Can you do the same video with slide split please, And by the way it's a direct sub even if I disagree with you about the weighted stretch the Jefferson curl (not moving just keeping the down pose) helped me a lot to get a better stand slip while I was totally stiff, and the soreness is inexistant
@@doodelay Mostly yes. The key is not in the exercise selection however but in the combination and proper orchestration of a large variety of methods in these exercises. There a currently more than 11 methods you can apply in each of these position resulting in more than 30 different drills.
In my experience, the tailor pose does not transfer well to the side split. I can easily touch my knees and head to the floor in tailor pose, but feel very stiff when stretching out my legs and trying for the pancake, so certainly no S-tier for me.
@@moxley914 that's because you have very flexible short adductors but tight long ones. Yes, for people like you the tailor pose will not contribute a lot to achieving the aide split. You need to focus on straight leg exercises. However, this is not the case with most people. If you have tight adductors overall the tailor pose is a great way to isolate some part of them before working on them all together. It’s also convenient for all the other reasons I mentioned in the video.
But this video is about gaining flexibility, not gaining strength. It's good to do strength training, but a strength exercize doesn't give you much flexibility. Just like doing cardio and strength training: you do those things separately, with different exercizes, and that's fine. Doing cardio and strength simultaneously is counterproductive.
Okay, this is amazing. But what if I tell you that I was recently scanned and they found out my leg bone doesn´t attach properly to the hip because the socket is misaligned and so I have a much shorter range of internalk and external roation on my right leg? How can I do the slpoit if this causes continuous tension on my legs where it actually stops me from doing the splits. Dk what your opinion would be for a case lke mine. And yes, I have tried your methods for a few months but this limitation is constant
I’m sorry to hear this. I can’t fully understand your issue from here but if you have an anatomical limitation that is actually blocking your movement then you probably won’t be able to go beyond that point. However, I’m not sure if this entirely true for you as I’ve coached people with supposed anatomical limitations and they were able to reach their goals. If I where you, I would make sure to do so all the right things consistently for reasonable amount of time and test progress. If you can measure progress then you’re getting better. It’s simple as that. Also doing one method doesn’t work for many people. Many people need a combination of methods and techniques to make progress. That’s why we build programs like the one I offer. I hope this helps
The S tier side split. I don’t see it checked all methods. I can only imagine passive and contraction relax. I think active is not possible or you lift with your arms. Is that the solution ?
i was like:" pancake is S tier!!" and it went to s so i thumbed up the video. floor frog,when you slide extended knees and then plie to 90 is A tier and with a friend that sits on your as S tier.(maintaining proer aligment of course) overall i coincide with oyu tiers :D
Best exercise for the side split is the side split? Wow, shocking stuff 😅 Although now I need a tier-list for best exercises for the pancake since I can't do that either 😂
I hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know in the comments if you agree with this ranking.
+ Flexibility Program here: www.yiannischristoulas.com/side-split-courses
Fantastic video Yiannis!!!🎉💯🙌
@@karakalel1 Thank you!
Μπράβο💕💕💕
🤯 It's amazing the amount of detail, clarity and organization.
As usual on this channel. Brilliant!!
Deeply grateful. 🥰🤩👏👏👏👏
Greetings from Colombia 🇨🇴
Thanks for the support! I appreciate it a lot! 🙏
Amazingly helpful, thank you. Please do one for front splits too!
Noted!
This is probably the best flexibility video that was ever created lol. Good Job man!
I was super stiff from birth. Did years of martial arts, as well as baseball, football, basketball, soccer, and weights and still couldn't do splits... all of my coaches in each had us do the stretching before our workouts and cardio. This was totally backwards and my progress was extremely slow and counterproductive to my performance. I read Complete Baseball Player by Dave Winfield when I was about 14 and as I recall he recommended you should always begin with exercise before doing any stretching and it changed everything for my flexibility. I figured out that if I run 1 to 5 miles with some interval sprints mixed in and then go straight into my stretching I can easily take all types of leg stretches as far as I ever wanted -- immediately after those stretches I could then kick up over my head and drop into various splits while stretching for throws at first base without any kind of pain.
This is very interesting, thanks for sharing. Indeed, it seems like some people need better warmup than others to benefit from flexibility training.
I was the opposite, I did splits on chairs even without any special training
baseball, football, soccer, weights, martial arts and all that before turning 15, you had quite a full life
@@genin69 haha, that, along with a 3 year stint of being a skateboarder, is pretty much 95% of what I did by day...at night I listened to Vin Scully, sorted baseball cards, and played computer games like hardball ii, tv sports football, m.u.l.e., archon, summer games, winter games, and earl weaver baseball (greatest computer game of all time) and on sundays I binge watched NFL or NBA...it was the 80s in california so no streaming or social media distractions, we didn't have cable and couldn't afford to descramble satellite tv...and the most common saying of the time was "there's nothing on [to watch on tv]"
and my parents had 4.5 jobs, so I was home alone most of the time and rode my bicycle to most everything from about 6 years old...different era I guess (my youngest is 6 years old now, homeschools 3rd grade, and still has her training wheels on..I took mine off with a wrench when I was two...she is active in jiu jitsu at least :o)
Throughout my life, I naturally leaned towards all the three exercises on your S+ list. They're definitely the way to go when the goal is the side splits.
Excellent video! Could you do a similar one for the front splits please?
That’s the plan 🫡
I would be very interested in a video for The BEST and Worst Flexibility Exercises For whole body flexibility
Looking forward to your Front Splits series 🙂
clarity and organization.
🙏
Please make a video on a side split routine.
How often to train, for how long, how many sets and do's and don'ts would be amazing.
Unfortunately I can’t do that as I offer a paid program with everything one needs to do the side split. It would be dishonest to all the students of my program to share for free this knowledge here.
@@YiannisChristoulas
You basically have shared with us "the bread and the knife". One can't expect to be served as well...
Thank you so much for this path, it leads to good things.
By the way, why is soreness really bad? don't we still make progress? And similarly doesn't combining strength/stretching exercises make sense in the long run? I mean, what do we need plain flexibility for anyway?
I come from a martial arts background (kung fu in particular), and I'm interested in finding a more "organic" way of working out, meaning not isolating areas for stretching but rather moving forward your flexibility ability by using the skill that requires that ability in the first place : )
Does that make sense?
Thank you again, Γιάννη, I am grateful!
Κώστας
@@kotiskotanis6014 Thanks man I appreciate the kind words. Yes you should train both at the same time. However, strength is a long lasting project while flexibility is not. Some need only a few months to reach their full range. In contrast, strength is an ongoing process for everyone. The problem with soreness is that it limits your range delaying and many times completely stopping, flexibility progress. I’ve explained in detail why this happens on my loaded stretching video. For this reason during the relatively short period of flexibility development (not maintenance) it is very important to avoid soreness on the target muscles. My last videos topic was how do you make sure your strength program doesn’t mess up you flexibility progress. You might want to check it out.
Thank you for such a prompt and to the point answer, I am amazed!
I liked the implied "my student told me about this exercise. It's absolutely trash". They'll never recover from this if they see the video
Thank you! This was excellent! 👏🙏 I'm currently applying and selecting stretch exercises to reduce the distance from the heel to the glutes (and also expand the flexibility of the foot in both directions) for having more mobility and for different positions like sitting over your heels, improving your squatting, sitting with crossing legs or for Tai Chi positions where I need the heel closer to the butt... It would be great to hear your opinion on this (as a suggestion for a topic 😅) I notice that this kind of leg flexibility has an important impact on your range of motion. Cheers!
Very informative. Thank you
@@esamalaslmy Glad you found it helpful 🙏
Great video, I agree 100% on the pancake stretch. I do think direct side split work is a bit more fatiguing though.
You've covered every posture problem, can you please make one video about Pelvic tilt fixing true method? It's a huge problem for many, it's fine even if it is a Shorts video of a minute or so but please cover that topic.Thanks alot.
Super interesting and well explained! I try to stretch a lot for my highkicks in kickboxing but everytime I progress a bit at a certain point I get a sharp pain in the side of my hips (especially during the frog split) and it stops the movement. Any tips for this?
What is the brand model of the knee pads you have supporting your knees, please? Anything similar for under back of heels as well?
I’ve no idea. One good brand that I know however is SKLZ. Check out sklz sliders
Does strenght in the end range of motion help to maintain the obtained flexibility?
Yes! 100%
Firstly, great video. Love your channel. Secondly, at 10:09, you say plyometric. I understood this to be an error and understand that to be the eccentric, so maybe it was just a mistake. But then I thought that @YiannisChristoulas may understand a lot more than me. Was it a mistake or is there something I need to educate myself on? Please do this ranking for front splits and shoulders! Would love to hear your thoughts
Well now that mention it I’m not sure if I should use this term that way 😂. But let me explain. The word ‘plyometric’ comes from the Greek word ‘plyometria’ which means ’eccentric’ . It’s a word taken straight from Greek to characterize exercise which rely heavily on the eccentric (plyometric in Greek) phase of an exercise. In recent years the word plyometric is more commonly used in strength and conditioning to describe exercises that emphasize the eccentric activity of a muscle but more often involve the facilitation of the stretch shortening cycle. So, I’m not sure if the term ‘plyometric’ should exclusively used for those exercises or for all exercises that emphasize eccentric work.
@@YiannisChristoulas I think differentiating the two is important, soviets call what most people refer to as plyometrics- shock training.
Greatfull for your videos!
Question: isn't it possible to use an exercise like the cossacks squat peformed with the contract passive range method you have presented?
Getting the best of both worlds, stretching/strengthening at the same time?
@@kotiskotanis6014 Thanks for the support man 🙏 Sadly no. The Cossacks can be performed only with the Active Dynamic or the Contraction Active Range. That's another reason I don't use this exercise for flexibility development
Thanks again for your quick response!
I look forward to your shoulders program!
Cool, Jeff Nippard uses the same tier model! :3
please make a vid for front split as well
Can you do the same video with slide split please, And by the way it's a direct sub even if I disagree with you about the weighted stretch the Jefferson curl (not moving just keeping the down pose) helped me a lot to get a better stand slip while I was totally stiff, and the soreness is inexistant
More painful truths. Thanks as always.
💪
Do you think a routine composed of just warmups and the A and S tier stretches will do the trick?
@@doodelay Mostly yes. The key is not in the exercise selection however but in the combination and proper orchestration of a large variety of methods in these exercises. There a currently more than 11 methods you can apply in each of these position resulting in more than 30 different drills.
Hey. Can you make one about pike flexibility?
In my experience, the tailor pose does not transfer well to the side split. I can easily touch my knees and head to the floor in tailor pose, but feel very stiff when stretching out my legs and trying for the pancake, so certainly no S-tier for me.
@@moxley914 that's because you have very flexible short adductors but tight long ones. Yes, for people like you the tailor pose will not contribute a lot to achieving the aide split. You need to focus on straight leg exercises. However, this is not the case with most people. If you have tight adductors overall the tailor pose is a great way to isolate some part of them before working on them all together. It’s also convenient for all the other reasons I mentioned in the video.
🐐🐐🐐🐐 video subscribed ✅
Thank you so much!
🙏
Here i thought cossack squat was absolutely perfect for adductors and hamstrings 😭
Same. Cossacks are pretty standard for athletic pursuits, but yoga maximalists have other goals.
But this video is about gaining flexibility, not gaining strength.
It's good to do strength training, but a strength exercize doesn't give you much flexibility.
Just like doing cardio and strength training: you do those things separately, with different exercizes, and that's fine. Doing cardio and strength simultaneously is counterproductive.
It is.
He just doesn't have any muscle so he doesn't need a lot of weight to gain flexibility.
Just to make it clear to y'all i use it for warmups before my main adductor and hamstring stretches, so it's not necessarily one of my main exercises.
@@wertyuiopasd6281 What? Needing weight to gain flexibility? Are you promoting weighted stretching????
Okay, this is amazing. But what if I tell you that I was recently scanned and they found out my leg bone doesn´t attach properly to the hip because the socket is misaligned and so I have a much shorter range of internalk and external roation on my right leg? How can I do the slpoit if this causes continuous tension on my legs where it actually stops me from doing the splits. Dk what your opinion would be for a case lke mine. And yes, I have tried your methods for a few months but this limitation is constant
I’m sorry to hear this. I can’t fully understand your issue from here but if you have an anatomical limitation that is actually blocking your movement then you probably won’t be able to go beyond that point. However, I’m not sure if this entirely true for you as I’ve coached people with supposed anatomical limitations and they were able to reach their goals. If I where you, I would make sure to do so all the right things consistently for reasonable amount of time and test progress. If you can measure progress then you’re getting better. It’s simple as that. Also doing one method doesn’t work for many people. Many people need a combination of methods and techniques to make progress. That’s why we build programs like the one I offer. I hope this helps
@@YiannisChristoulas thanks for that. I guess I could complexify my approach to this sort of flexibility. I will give that a shot.
The S tier side split. I don’t see it checked all methods. I can only imagine passive and contraction relax. I think active is not possible or you lift with your arms. Is that the solution ?
i was like:" pancake is S tier!!" and it went to s so i thumbed up the video. floor frog,when you slide extended knees and then plie to 90 is A tier and with a friend that sits on your as S tier.(maintaining proer aligment of course) overall i coincide with oyu tiers :D
😁
Best exercise for the side split is the side split? Wow, shocking stuff 😅 Although now I need a tier-list for best exercises for the pancake since I can't do that either 😂
When is side split 2.0 coming...? :)
The program was finally published today. If you own the first version you should already got an email with instructions. Enjoy your training 💪
Yes i got the mail yesterday, thank you so much :-)
@@3skalle Let's go!
@@YiannisChristoulas Yes i already bought the program! so far im statisfied :)
@ I’m happy to hear this! Send word on our support email for anything you might need
splits on chairs are good
Chris
Ok❤❤
Am I early here?
Come on man, show us how to achieve the pancake.
side split is a low fatigue exercise? No way
I’m talking about systemic fatigue. I didn’t say it’s easy though