0:00 This is Brent, coming at you with another dynamic stretch. In this video we're 0:03 going to do the biceps femoris. The biceps femoris is one of those muscles 0:06 that has a propensity towards overactivity, some signs of that would be 0:11 feet turn out, knees bow in or knees bow out, and some individuals with 0:16 lumbo-pelvic hip complex dysfunction who have a little bit of SI joint 0:20 involvement will also get an overactive biceps femoris. I'm going to have my friend 0:24 Leanne come out, she's going to help me demonstrate this exercise. First, just 0:27 a little kinesiology. So, the biceps femoris is the lateral hamstring muscle 0:32 here. It connects just pass the fibular head here. It's going to cause that 0:37 tibial external rotation, which is where we see that feet turn out thing, by 0:42 causing tibial external rotation, that's the same as femoral internal rotation, so 0:47 if she does have that propensity to have her feet turn out, it could also bring her 0:51 knees in. Since your biceps femoris can also externally rotate the femur at the 0:57 hip, it could cause knees bowing out, and then it can also cause a posterior 1:02 pelvic tilt, which we basically only see when the SI joint is involved. So what am 1:08 I going to need to watch for as she's doing this exercise? Well, I'm going to 1:11 need to watch for all of those things not happening. I don't want her feet 1:14 turning out, I'm going to make sure her knee stays in a nice neutral position, 1:17 and I might actually force a little bit of internal rotation and adduction at 1:24 the femur, and I'll show you a couple of clever ways how we're going to do that. 1:27 Now, the biceps femoris dynamic stretch is actually a modification of an 1:32 exercise you have already seen, in fact, Leanne was the model in that video. 1:35 That's the single leg deadlift touchdown. The only difference I'm going to do here 1:40 is, if I'm going to work on dynamic flexibility, which is that increase in 1:43 tempo for stretching, I'm going to give Leanne a little bit of a kickstand, so 1:49 she's going to get a little bit of a kick stand so that she can go down with 1:52 a little bit more tempo, get a good stretch, without having to worry about 1:56 stability quite so much. So let's go ahead and see that Leanne. 2:01 Good, and then step up, and then you can actually step that foot back, cool, and 2:06 then step back a little kickstand, reach forward, squeeze your glute, and step back - 2:13 I'm sorry, step back with that foot. Let's try that again. So, little 2:19 kickstand here, squeeze your glute, and back up, that foot forward. Good, and then 2:25 you can go the other side. So as Leanne gets this she can start speeding it up 2:31 slowly but surely. I'm actually going to have Leanne turn forward for you. So let 2:34 me have you back up just a little bit. So you know what I'm looking for from 2:38 kinetic chain checkpoints. So Leanne's going to step back, and then she's going 2:43 to reach with this hand to that toe. Now, stay down there for a second for me Leanne. 2:47 Now, what you will notice is that's actually forcing her pelvis this way, 2:51 which is that internal rotation and adduction I was looking for at this hip. 2:55 I'm going to watch her kinetic chain checkpoints, making sure her knee stays 2:59 over her foot, so I don't want that knee to cave. I also don't want this knee to cave. 3:02 And then she gets back up, I don't want her to use her biceps femoris which 3:08 has been synergistically dominant, I want her to thrust her hips forward and 3:11 use her glute complex. Good. Go ahead and stand back up, use your glute complex. So 3:17 we can kind of kill two birds with one stone here, get a good biceps femoris 3:20 stretch, and then reinforce good glute activation. Now, if I wanted to progress 3:25 this, I could go from this step back progression, to a stepping forward 3:30 progression. So let me have you back up this way, now what you're going 3:34 to do is just repeated touchdowns. Step forward. 3:46 I know this doesn't look like it would be all that much more complicated, 3:49 but it is. It's a little harder to get the distance, it's a little harder to 3:53 make sure you're getting a good stretch with each one. From here, if 3:59 they're really, really good, I could have them just go back to a single leg 4:03 touchdown. Of course, at that point I also might phase this out of the dynamic 4:07 stretching portion, and phase it into another exercise. I want to show you 4:10 a couple more tricks that you can use to increase this dynamic flexibility 4:14 and get a little bit more glute activation. One of my favorite tricks is 4:16 this anterior to posterior pull with a band. So I'm going to have Leanne go ahead and 4:22 wrap this around her waist, she's going to step forward towards me. Now, obviously 4:28 she can't do that repeated forward step as she was doing before, because 4:31 eventually she'll just hit the end of the band. But we can do that little 4:34 step-back variation we started with. This anterior to posterior pull is going to 4:39 force her tibialis anterior to work a little bit harder, and then after she 4:43 comes back up she's going to really have to 4:46 squeeze her glutes and thrust her hips forward against this band to get back up. 4:50 So, once again, now we have two birds with one stone, I'm getting a good biceps 4:55 femoris stretch, and good glute activation. Now, a couple mistakes I 5:00 see that you've got to be really wary of, is notice how Leanne is not locking her knee 5:06 and she does this. She's getting a little bend in her knee, and getting most of the 5:10 stretch of the biceps femoris by going into hip flexion, so let me see a couple more 5:14 of those. If you lock this knee, the only thing you're going to end up doing is 5:21 recruiting that deep longitudinal subsystem, which is the biceps femoris, 5:25 glute is going to shut down, and we're going to actually be reinforcing the 5:28 problem that we're trying to get out of. The other thing is this is not a reverse 5:33 lunge. So we do want it to be a deadlift mechanic, and then from here 5:38 realize that you don't have to continue doing just biceps femoris 5:43 stretching all by itself. You could phase this into other exercises. One 5:48 of the things we have to do is we have to plan ahead. If we just keep adding on 5:53 more and more exercises: static stretch, dynamic stretch, release techniques, 5:57 reactive stabilization, subsystem integration, we end up with these huge 6:01 programs that take forever and we never have enough time. So one thing I would do 6:05 with this exercise, if she can do this really well, she can get into the 6:09 single-leg touchdown, I might go, 'okay well I can make a subsystem integration 6:15 exercise out of this, and instead have her do 6:19 a single leg touchdown with PNF carry away 6:24 as her subsystem exercise, and now I don't have to do it during dynamic 6:27 stretching because it's already getting done'. You guys have probably seen this in 6:32 a previous video we did. So go ahead and let's let's see this one. You can 6:39 see it's the same lower body mechanic that we did before, maybe at a little 6:43 slower tempo honestly, but now I get a lot of posterior oblique subsystem 6:49 recruitment, a little shoulder work, and a good full-body program. Of course, I could 6:54 turn this into a single leg touchdown to posterior kinetic chain toss to balance, 6:58 which would be our reactive stabilization exercise, and I'm sure 7:02 there're many other directions we could go to start killing two birds with one 7:05 stone. I hope you enjoy this progression, I hope you enjoy this 7:09 dynamic stretch and get tons more performance out of it. I'll see you in the 7:13 field.
