So you're telling me I can't do a split?!

I was thinking of ordering the stretching scientifically book, but before that I reread some of the articles on the reading room on stretching, and I guess I may have missed the "Test" picture where you do a "half-split" using a chair, turns out I can barely do it, and even then I'm leaning all over the place, but I feel alot of pain.
Now what? Yeah yeah I know about the dynamic stretching and all but I would still like to be able to do them. Are you supposed to feel any kind of pain? I'm not sure what the exact name of where I feel pain is but it's on the inside of my thighs(close to groin), and its not a muscle pain. I have trouble doing the dynamic stretches as well, I've seen videos(sorry Kurz, but those stick figures just don't cut it) of how to do them from tricks tutorials and other sites, and its been about 3 weeks with no progress on the side lifts whatsoever. This has really frustrated me lately, and now I feel I can probably never throw high roundhouse kicks with proper form. Sorry for the flood of questions and the long post, but I'm yanking my hair here..

376 views and not a single reply..ouch

You mean you can't lift your legs perpendicular to your waist to the front and the side? I thought that Kurz was just showing people that anyone can do the splits with that 'test'.

Try two things:

Do the test on something lower than a chair, so that your hips are less than ninety degrees apart. See how high an object you can place your leg on until you feel a stretch in the adductor. If this happens before ninety degrees, then your hip joint probably will allow for a sidesplit, but the test failed because your adductors aren't flexible to even assume the half-split position.

While doing the test, either tilt your pelvis forward (i.e. lean forward from the hips, rather than from the waist) or else rotate your leg so that the knee points to the sky. If you don't do one of these things, the greater trochanter will jam into the hip bone and stop you from extending the stretch further. If you still can't assume the position, and don't feel a stretch in the adductor from trying, then, yes, your hips are the wrong shape and you'll never be able to do the sidesplit.

Saw the doctor recently, told me to take a break from stretching for a while, since I may have stretched too much. I'll try again in about 2 weeks.

I was reading down the post and was going to suggest a doctor!

Also - what is your strenth routine? What is your squat & deadlift like?

Update: I tried the tests again, and can do them! Took a long time to get things back to normal lol.

http://www.fightingarts.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/15852334/an/0/page/0#15852334

^Well if you're still interested thats my workout routine. No deadlifts though, don't have the resources, although the local PAL has a decent gym I might sign up for.

Congrats on being able to do the tests. Now you just have to work at it.
Good luck