Standing Active Adductor Stretch

The Standing Active Adductor Stretch is an effective stretching exercise that helps to open up tight and stiff hip muscles, especially around the inner thigh. The adductor muscles work to bring the legs together and can often be left tight and stiff, resulting in postural and gait problems. This move is dynamic, meaning the movement coming from the individual instead of the stretcher, allowing them to gain a better range of motion with less risk of injury. This exercise can be done on its

Transcript

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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness,
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and in this video we're doing anterior
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or our short adductor complex, active stretch. So, if we're doing active
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stretching I'm going to assume that you've already done your release techniques, as
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well as your static stretching, to return a short overactive muscle back to it's
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optimal length. Active stretching, now we're working on returning optimal
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reciprocal inhibition, as well as working on end range strength, or the end range
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strength for our functional antagonist, which in this case is going to be our glute
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complex. I'm going to have Leanne come out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Now, often
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active stretches are no different than our static stretching techniques, we're
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just using a contraction of our functional antagonist. This technique is
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a perfect example. She's going to adopt the same position that we used for a
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static anterior adductor stretch. She's going to go to this sumo stance,
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she's then, for whatever side she's going to stretch, she's going to take a little
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step back with that leg, our adductors are a little bit of hip flexors, so we
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want to go to into hip extension just a little bit. This foot is lined up with that
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heel. Now, we're going to get her glute complex involved to make this an active
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stretch by having Leanne posteriorly pelvic tilt, and then shift away from the
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side that she's stretching, contracting her glute complex as hard as she possibly
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can. As you can see, Leanne here has what I like to call the gluteus
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medius position. A lot of people will put their hands on their hips, if you have
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them just shift down a little bit so that their thumb palpates their
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gluteus medius, it will help them feel that contraction of that muscle that we need them to
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contract. So Leanne's going to posteriorly tilt, shift away, squeeze her glute complex as
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hard as she can. You can use, like, resistance sidestepping, the
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same mechanics, same muscles should be working, you can use that dollar bill queue
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that I've used before, "squeeze your cheeks together like you're holding a dollar bill
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between your cheeks," whatever it takes to get them squeezing their glutes, and, of
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course, they should feel a nice increase, a nice stretch in those anterior
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adductors. You feel that Leanne? -I feel it! Good. Now, she's going to do 10 to 15 repetitions,
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holding each repetition for 2 to 5 seconds. I'm going to have Leanne do a side
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view for you, so you can see another angle here. So once again, she adopts
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a sumo leg position, she then moves one foot back, the side that she's stretching,
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our adductors are hip flexors so we're going to go into slight hip extension, I'm going to
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have her turn her feet so they're both facing forward. Draw in,
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posterior tilt, and shift away from the side she's stretching. So shift, squeezing her glute, good.
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Once again, holding 2 to 5 seconds for 10 to 15 repetitions. She should feel
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some sort of increase in extensibility by the end of those 10 to 15 repetitions,
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and you guys should see some sort of change in the quality of their movement
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if you've assessed, chosen this exercise appropriately, and of course, done so with