How can do the split and does it take long to do the split?

Answer 1

The splits is not an easy pose to achieve, but with a little bit of effort you'll have them in no time. Depending on your level of flexibility it can take from 3-8 weeks to learn. I know, I know it seems like so very long, but its totally worth it and the road to getting there is not at all intense. So go easy on yourself, and have a good time!

The steps to take:

Try having a light cardio for 4-5 minutes. Then go into light, easy stretches such as touching your toes (or going as close as you can) ten times while breathing deeply. Then separate your legs a little take a deep breath, touch the floor (or as close as you can get without ANY pain), then exhale. Repeat five times. Then sit on the floor with legs together and touch your toes once more doing the breathing technique aforementioned. Repeat five times. Then separate your legs and reach for you left leg, the the the floor in front of you then your other leg.

After warming up your legs, begin kneeling lunges. Go as far as you can, stop, take a deep breath and then slow flex and relax the muscle. Then do a reverse lunge (as performed in video I'll link you to). Then repeat your kneeling lunges. This should last around five minutes. Then put your back foot against a couch or chair (know as Lunge with back leg against a wall/box on the site I'm going to link you to). Repeat three times resting between each one. Now go into your split as far as you can without pain (you should just feel tension and/or slight pain or slight discomfort). Then pull up, relax for thirty seconds, stand up and shake your legs, and then repeat your lunges for around a minute, do your split and hold for thirty seconds once more. Then repeat everything with your other leg.

For side splits. You should do frog stretches butterflies, and then v-sit stretches mentioned in the warm-up. Then do side ways lunges and then push up, with hips square and knees pointed to the ceiling, against a wall. Then hold for one minute. Repeat this three times. Then go into a straddle split as you would normally and hold for thirty seconds.

Cool down. Just use the stretches from your warm-up but backwards slowly, and carefully. This transitions your body from exercising mode and reduces chance of injury.

P.S.: You may feel numbness during stretching which is GOOD it means your doing the exercises properly. Also, the next morning you may have slight soreness. This is because your body isn't used to stretch but eventually it will. If this happens don't stretch to intensely. But do stretch. Just do your warm-up and cool-down (the first paragraph is warm up, second is front splits, third is side splits, and fourth is cool down). If you continue to feel discomfort after exercising it means your doing it wrong, too fast/to hard for your body, or your warm-up/cool-down isn't long enough. Just relax for a day, and then start anew with a longer warm-up, less intense stretching, and a longer cool down.