The Japanese yoga teacher Eiko explains in her book how everyone can learn the split in four weeks. Santé tries it out. Are you in?
I am not very flexible at all. I did ballet from the age of seven to twenty-two and I was always able to keep up. But as soon as we started practicing the split, the rest soon sat straddling the floor and I was the brute of the group. Since then I've been telling myself I'm not predisposed to this exercise, which according to Eiko, author of the book Do the Split in 4 Weeks (Kosmos Uitgevers, € 15), brings many advantages. If the muscles around your groin and hips are flexible, you are less likely to suffer from low back pain. By stretching you get, among other things, a better blood circulation and stronger abdominal and leg muscles and, according to Eiko, ultimately also a tighter stomach. I sign up for that and so I say a resounding 'yes' when asked if I want to take up the challenge of learning the split.
Read also: ‘3 exercises to practice the split‘
Secretly, I'm a little scared of what's to come, but as soon as I have the book Do the split in 4 weeks in my hands, I am in good spirits:five minutes of stretching a day should be enough to start in four weeks. to be split. That's doable. My new fixed training schedule consists of two exercises. The third exercise changes every week. The exercises turn out to be just right for me:thanks to my ballet background, I know/recognize most of them and know how to perform them correctly. In the exercise in which you stretch your leg while lying down by wrapping a towel around your foot, Eiko may recommend taking a bath towel if you are not flexible enough. This gives you more space and makes the stretch easier. Guess what:I just manage with a regular towel. Maybe I'm not as stiff as I thought after all. As I hold my left hamstring in a stretch for thirty seconds, I feel a little nauseous. Breath in breath out. I think of Eiko's tip:exhale with a 'haa' sound and not with a 'how' sound. That way you make the most of your breathing while stretching. No idea why, but it seems to work.
A new week means a new third exercise. The idea is that I lie on the floor and practice the split with my legs spread against the wall. Not something I can easily do in my small apartment. I don't have a piece of wall free anywhere that is already big enough to lie against with spread legs, but with a little fitting and measuring, I know how to make something of it.
On day two of week two, there is a small hitch. While I'm in sumo pose, it shoots in. Not even in my groin or hamstrings, but in my neck. Looking left and right is a bit difficult, but I decide to just continue with the exercises. On the bright side:the rest of my muscles are doing surprisingly well. After the exercises my groin and hamstrings feel well stretched, I expect muscle soreness the next day. But let's be honest, sometimes I feel something a day later, but I don't stumble across the editors with aching muscles. I wonder if I'm doing it all well enough. I put that question to Yvonne Charlton, a qualified teacher of classical ballet and Pilates. Yvonne:“The fact that you don't have muscle soreness means that you could go further with stretching than you are going now. For most people, stretching is easier when you have someone to practice with. They can then carefully help you further. It is more difficult on your own:you know that you are going to get pain and as a result you automatically brace your muscles from your subconscious, so that you get less far.”
During my weekly Pilates class I am in the happy baby pose and I notice that this is easier than a few weeks ago, my hamstrings are a lot less swaying. The exercises I do to learn the split are also easier than in week one. I feel the exercises go more smoothly, but strangely enough I don't get an inch further in the split. Yvonne Charlton explains that's because you don't just need flexible hamstrings to do the split. Your quadriceps, or thigh muscles, are also important to be able to do the split. It is a myth that you can make your muscles longer. Muscles can't literally lengthen or shorten, but you can train to make them stronger. With strong muscles you can do more and that also helps to become more flexible for a split.
Slowly the exercises start to bother me a bit. Yes, it's only five minutes a day. But those five minutes mean that when I come home after a busy day, I feel like I still have something to do. The stretching exercises await… There is at least one person who is still enthusiastic about this challenge:my friend. I think he thinks I can do all kinds of exciting Kamasutra positions after these four weeks.
I am haunted by the facts. The last week has arrived and it doesn't look like I will be the new Sanne Wever. I have to step it up a notch. Maybe I can not only do the exercise of the week in addition to the two fixed exercises, but combine all the exercises from the previous weeks. And while I How To Get Away With Murder Look, I can stretch just fine. I keep my extensive training schedule for no less than one day and then I stick to the usual exercises. Eiko recommends doing the exercises after showering, when your muscles are warm. So there I go again, in my pajamas.
In the book it is recommended to do the exercises after showering, so that your muscles are warm. According to Yvonne Charlton, classical ballet and Pilates teacher, this is not the same as a good warm-up for your muscles. After taking a shower, you dry off and your muscles have cooled down again. The average office worker should warm up for about thirty minutes to stretch large muscle groups, such as the hamstrings and thighs. It is also very important that you listen to your body. If you suffer a hamstring or thigh injury, you can suffer from it for months. Eiko also emphasizes that you should not force anything. If you notice that the stretching is getting better and better, your enthusiasm may be going too far.
I secretly hope that this is a method where you can magically split on the last day after four weeks of stretching. Not so. And that while the book promised that everyone can learn the split:young, old, flexible or stiff. Yet I did not succeed. Have I not been strict enough with myself? Did I do something wrong? I leaf through the book diligently, looking for the tip I've overlooked. Suddenly I see it, on page 130. I quote:'Of course it varies from person to person, but most people who go for it can make the split within a month. And with a little more time, everyone can do it eventually.' Aha, so I don't belong with most people, I didn't go for it, or ... is it not possible for everyone to learn the split? Yvonne Charlton is clear about it:"Not everyone can learn the split. The most important factor in determining whether you can learn the split is your bone structure:how is the bone of the thigh in the acetabulum and how deep are the hip sockets? So you can't tell from the outside whether someone can learn the split. If it's possible for you to learn the split, unless you're hypermobile or doing it at an elite level, it would probably take you about a year.”
Unfortunately, I did not manage to learn the split in four weeks. I'll just blame it on my bone structure. I already knew that I don't have the bone structure of a model and in these four weeks I learned that I don't have the bone structure of a gymnast either. Still, I definitely got something out of this challenge.
In the book Do the split in 4 weeks next to the exercises are a number of stories. A story that immediately caught my attention is called "How can you ever achieve anything if you can't even split?" I laughed at this at the start of my challenge. What nonsense. But now I look at it differently. In four weeks I only got more flexible hamstrings (a nice bonus), but I also gained an important insight. If you practice five minutes every day for four weeks, that's one hundred and forty minutes at the end of the ride. one hundred and forty. Now I see what the story is about:discipline, perseverance and time. Those are three ingredients you need to learn something new, to tear yourself out of your regular patterns. Investing five minutes into something every day is a small step, but every little bit helps and you can get one step closer to your goal every day. Learning the split, speaking a new language, writing more, starting your own business. Five minutes a day can already bring you closer to your ultimate goal. And just because I couldn't learn the split doesn't mean you can't. Do you want anything? Go for it!
Source:page 97, Do the split in 4 weeks
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