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Lower Leg Dynamic Stretching Series

This Lower Leg Dynamic Stretching Series will give you the most effective stretches for preventing injury and improving flexibility in your lower leg muscles. Learn how to move efficiently and increase range of motion with these easy-to-follow stretches.

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Transcript

00:00 - 00:04This is Brent, coming at you with a dynamic stretching series. In this video
00:04 - 00:08we're going to go over four exercises that we can do back-to-back in a circuit,
00:08 - 00:14that just happen to correlate to the most overactive structures in lower leg
00:14 - 00:17dysfunction. So if you have been carefully progressing your exercise,
00:17 - 00:20you've done all your release and stretching, first starting with static
00:20 - 00:23stretching, then active stretching, and now you are getting ready to go on
00:23 - 00:27to more high intensity activity in your resistance training, you're going to want
00:27 - 00:30to move on to dynamic stretches. One of the most commonly asked questions I get
00:30 - 00:35is how do I fit all of this stuff into one routine. So little circuits like the
00:35 - 00:40one Leanne and I are about to do save a whole lot of time, and get us through a
00:40 - 00:44lot of exercise very quickly. My friend Leanne's going to come out and help me
00:44 - 00:51demonstrate this exercise, or these exercises. So, what this is going to take
00:51 - 00:55is a bit of a band around your waist. Now, we have just a resistive band that we've
00:55 - 00:59hooked to a hook. We threw a towel around it so that it doesn't rub her skin or
00:59 - 01:03pull into her waistline. You could use a super band, one of those thick
01:03 - 01:08black bands, or you could use even a belt with a cable attached to it, what we
01:08 - 01:12need though is just a little bit of anterior to posterior pull. First muscle
01:12 - 01:16we're going to look at is the TFL. So if I want Leanne to stretch her TFL, we
01:16 - 01:20know that muscle does abduction and flexion. I'm going to have her go into a
01:20 - 01:27little bit of adduction and extension by pushing off, and stepping in line with
01:27 - 01:30the other foot. You can see little markers here on the floor we've got. So
01:30 - 01:34she's going to step in line, really working on the posterior tilt of her
01:34 - 01:40pelvis to ensure she's getting good extension on that back leg, really trying
01:40 - 01:45to get her to feel this TFL getting stretched, and then as she gets better at
01:45 - 01:49this movement pattern, of course she can speed it up. She can even take a little
01:49 - 01:55bit bigger step if she feels she can, and get a good stretch. Once we've done 10
01:55 - 01:59on each side, and we're going to speed Leanne up just a little bit, once we do 10 on
01:59 - 02:03each side we're going to go ahead and switch to a different exercise, switch to
02:03 - 02:07a different group of muscles. So the next muscles we're going to look at for lower
02:07 - 02:11leg dysfunction is the biceps femoris. Now, the biceps femoris stretch, or
02:11 - 02:15dynamic stretch rather, is just the single-leg touchdown
02:15 - 02:21with a kickstand. Of course if she has this anterior to posterior pull, I'm also
02:21 - 02:24getting great glute activation and she comes back up and drives her hips
02:24 - 02:32forward. How's that feeling Leanne? -Good. Now, just like any dynamic stretch she can
02:32 - 02:36start off nice and slow, make sure she's feeling it, make sure we have good form, I
02:36 - 02:40got through all our queues, and then as she gets better she can start
02:40 - 02:44speeding up. The next group of muscles we're going to look at that are very
02:44 - 02:48commonly tight in lower leg dysfunction are the adductors. So now she's going to
02:48 - 02:53twist that band so it's sideways, and all we need to do to go into an adductor
02:53 - 02:59stretch is go ahead and step sideways and a little bit forward, really working
02:59 - 03:04on activating the glute medius. So Leanne's got her left thumb there, just
03:04 - 03:09over the top of her glute medius, and she's really trying to push out and a
03:09 - 03:14little bit forward on that band. She'll give me 10 good reps, once again she can
03:14 - 03:20speed this up as she goes, and then she's going to go ahead and switch sides.
03:23 - 03:28Do a couple reps on this and I'll have you go ahead and move on. Good. So make
03:28 - 03:33sure that you're not going into an anterior pelvic tilt. There we go.
03:33 - 03:37Watch as people do these exercises, especially with lower leg dysfunction,
03:37 - 03:39the 2 queues that you're going to have to
03:39 - 03:42use over and over again as their feet are going to want to turn out, you're
03:42 - 03:45going to have to keep queuing them back to feet neutral, and the other thing
03:45 - 03:48they're going to want to do is that anterior pelvic tilt because of the
03:48 - 03:52tightness and their anterior adductors as well as their TFL, so you're probably
03:52 - 03:56going to have to keep queuing that tuck under. Now, once we've gone through these
03:56 - 04:01three dynamic stretches, we can go ahead and end with our calf stretch. Now our
04:01 - 04:04calf stretch just also happens to be the biggest movement pattern, which
04:04 - 04:08is why I saved it for the end. She's going to go into prisoner
04:08 - 04:13squat here, so hands behind head, that band is going to force her tibialis
04:13 - 04:19anterior to activate really hard to pull her mass forward, which is going to give
04:19 - 04:25us a little bit better calf stretch than we get on just a normal prisoner squat.
04:25 - 04:29So you're going to want to work really hard to get them sitting straight down,
04:29 - 04:33and then once she's done a few of these we can even progress this as we did in
04:33 - 04:39our dynamic calf stretching video by doing the step forward. Now, one big queue
04:39 - 04:42with this is, notice how she's not straightening out her torso as she steps
04:42 - 04:46forward, that's purposeful. If she straightens out her torso this becomes a
04:46 - 04:49hip flexor stretch and she probably won't be able to step far enough forward
04:49 - 04:53to get a good calf stretch. So there you go, I don't even think that took
04:53 - 04:57five minutes, we've done dynamic stretching for all of the commonly
04:57 - 05:00overactive muscles for lower leg dysfunction. Do you feel nice and warm ready
05:00 - 05:05to go? -I feel great! Awesome. I'll talk to you soon!

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