Do you guys/girls have good stretches to stretch your outer hips and quads to be able to do a split. Whenever I get down in a strattle I feel 2 bones converging into eachother, I think thats what they are doing. It hurts and is the main thing stopping me from going all the way down. Do you guys have any good advice, thanks?

Hey WhiteDragon,

Have you had any success in overcoming the outer hip pain? I have the exact same problem. It's frustrating because if my outer hips didn't stop me, I could probably drop right down. I have tried to really stretch out my Glutes and Piriformis muscles which has given some increase in flexibility, but I have quickly plateued.

I've got the same problem as you guys - I can't get low enough into side splits for it to even start stretching my inner thigh muscles before my hips start hurting. I've read Kurz's Stretching Scientifically and the hip rotation helps a little, but it's still fairly painful. If anyone could offer any advice that'd be great.

I've been seeing a physio to try to address this problem. He has isolated a number of possible causes. After a thorough examination, he identified some muscle imbalances. I have weak glutes, and extremely tight muscles in the front of my hips (hip flexors,sartorius). Over the past few weeks, I have been doing squats and leg abductor exercises to strengthen the weak muscles and getting my physio guy to release the tight muscles. After a few months of getting nowhere with my splits, I am finally starting to make some progress (3 inches lower in about month). It might be worthwhile to go to a physio guy. Be careful though, while my current guy is really good, the first guy I went to was a joke. I'll keep you guys posted on any new progress.

Good luck.

S

just keep at it. The hip pain is normal. I know it feels like bone on bone.... and maybe it is, I don't really know why it feels like that. All I know is that if you keep at it..... keep stretching, it'll eventually go away and you'll be able to stretch further.

after reading kurz book , i found that having weak abbdutor muscles has a huge impact on being able to do the side slipts. As a result i have started to perform a wide horse stance keeping my thighs parralle to the floor for as long as i can.. in doing so i feel the pain in my outer hips, but it is strenthening the muscles... i also have started to do weight training .. adductor cable pulls.