Name: Dynamic Biceps Femoris (Lateral Hamstring) Stretch
Uploaded: 2023-04-26T01:02:18.000Z
Duration: 7 min 16 s
Description: This video offers a simple explanation of how to do the Dynamic Biceps Femoris stretch to help relax your lateral hamstring muscles. Follow along to our step-by-step instructions to help relieve pain and improve your overall range of motion.

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https://stream.mux.com/KarlxnERmvheWRxGvfRV64kEx01Gps9shAjC6N02MUdtU.m3u8

This video offers a simple explanation of how to do the Dynamic Biceps Femoris stretch to help relax your lateral hamstring muscles. Follow along to our step-by-step instructions to help relieve pain and improve your overall range of motion.

Understanding the Biceps Femoris and Its Overactivity

Dynamic Stretching Technique for the Biceps Femoris

Progressing Dynamic Flexibility with Step Variations

Utilizing Bands for Enhanced Stretch and Glute Activation

Integrating Subsystem Exercises for Efficient Training

Dynamic Biceps Femoris (Lateral Hamstring) Stretch

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

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Tibial external rotator muscle mobility. Tensor fascia latae (TFL),  vastus lateralis, and biceps femoris foam rolling and stretching. Release, lengthening, and manual stretching techniques for the tibial external rotators, TFL, quadriceps/quads, and hamstrings, plus a sample mobility program.

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The biceps femoris is the two-headed, lateral hamstring muscle within the posterior compartment of the thigh. It is the prime mover of knee flexion and also contributes to hip extension. 

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