Supporting
the weight
of the Body

Stretching the hamstrings are like having a baby holding on to your leg that won't let go. You can't shake the baby off unless it's someone else's kid and your really don't like it. You have to gently peel the baby off your leg and sneak away when they aren't looking.

Tight hamstrings are muscles that won't let go. You might be doing a forward bend and you reach a certain point and they put on the brakes as if to say

"That is it, that is enough, you aren't going any further (what are you crazy, what the hell do you want to touch your toes for in the first place? If you want to touch them bend your knees, or get someone else to touch them, like your manicurist... i mean pedicurist)"

Relaxing
the Hamstrings

Just in case you don't know, the hamstrings are a group of three muscles whose belly lies along the back of the thighs. They cross the back of the hip joint and the back of the knee and can be used to bend the knee and/or pull the thigh bone backwards.

They can also be used to stop the pelvis from tilting forwards.

Doing a forward bend with the knees straight, the main goal is to tilt the pelvis forwards so that we lengthen these muscles. However, in order to lengthen them, in order to stretch them, they need to be relaxed.

By the way, in the picture, the hamstrings are the orange colored things!

Bending Forwards
is Uncomfortable

So why might the hamstrings be tense in the first place?

I know for myself that I am afraid of the pain. Bending forwards is uncomfortable. And maybe in the back of my mind I still have deep seated notions that I am still "inflexible."

And perhaps I'm also of the deep seated belief that my hamstrings aren't strong enough to support the weight of my body.

What do I mean by that?

Tilting the
Upper Body
Forwards

In a forward bend, whether seated or standing, we tilt the pelvis forwards. If we aren't using our hands to support our upper body then basically the hamstrings are slowly lowering the weight of our upper body downwards.

The closer our upper body gets to our legs, the more we stretch our hamstrings but also the more difficult it is for them to control the descent of our upper body. And so they tighten up before we get to the stage where they are in danger of "busting."

Giving the
Hamstrings
a Helping Hand

While stretching the hamstrings we can help make them comfortable with the idea of letting go by giving them a hand with supporting the weight of our ribcage.

Doing a standing forward bend we can place our hands on blocks or on a chair, and rather than resting our hands there we can use our arms to lift our ribcage just enough so that our hamstrings aren't bearing the weight.

If you'd done a pushup you know that in a push up our arms bear the weight of our upper body.

Doing a standing forward bend we can use our arms in the same way-position them on blocks, a chair or the floor so that we can use them to support the weight of our body. Supporting the weight of our upper body with our hands we can then wait for our hamstrings to relax, and then we lower our ribcage just a little using our arms.

We bend our elbows slightly while still pushing our hands down.

Then we bend our elbows a little bit more, each time just lowering enough to stay shy of our hamstrings "tightening" up.

When we are sure that our hamstrings can stay "reasonably" relaxed we can then slowly lift our hands off of the floor while continuing to allow our ribcage to sink down.

Now we can use the weight of our body to stretch our hamstrings. However if we find we've gone to far to fast we can put our hands back down on the floor or on the blocks and go back to a position where our hamstrings can relax.

Seated
Front Bends

What about if we are doing a seated forward bend? We use our hands in the same way. But first of all, if your hamstrings are so tight you can't sit with your spine vertical then you need to sit on blocks or a chair. You don't "neeeeed" to but I'd recommend it for now. You can also use blocks to support your hands.

Whether on blocks or not (sounds like we're servicing a car!) we can pull our hands in close to our pelvis (ie backwards) so that we can use our arms to help lift our ribcage.

Actually, we use our shoulders to press our arms down into the floor while at the same time lifting our ribcage up. We can then gradually lower our ribcage by bending our elbows but still using our shoulders to keep pressing our ribcage up. We may then reach a point where we feel comfortable relaxing our arms completeley at which point we can take them off of the floor.

Keeping our actions smooth we can then slowly reach our arms forwards so that now we use the weight of our ribcage and arms combined to stretch our ribcage.

Options!

So what's the difference between reaching our arms forwards after having used the arms to keep the ribcage lifted as opposed to keeping them lifted in the first place?

For some of us we can lift our arms and allow the weight of our ribcage to lengthen our hamstrings. However some days (and some people) need to focus on relaxing their hamstrings first. If we go straight into "hanging" with our hands off of the ground then our hamstrings won't relax or will take a long time to do so- if anything all we are doing is waiting for our hamstrings to tire out.

Supporting the ribcage first can help the hamstrings to relax sooner. Plus it can feel nicer.

Do you need to do it this way all of the time? Probably not. If you can feel your body you'll notice when you need to use this technique and when you don't have to.

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