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Technique

  1. From the bottom of a lunge, extend the front leg and push it forward as far as your current flexibility allows.
  2. Once you get close to your lowest position, stand upright by pushing with your hands on the ground or on some supports.
  3. Alternate between relaxing in this position and engaging your legs by pushing them into the ground to strengthen the stretched muscles.

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Form tips

  • Keep the hips “square”: do not let them open to the side (letting the position become a mix of front split and middle split). Keeping them square will intensify the stretch on the back leg’s hip flexors.
  • The back foot can have either toes extended, or toes curled in. Toes curled in might help squaring the hips, as it tends to make misalignments more visible.
Logging: Work each side for the time indicated.

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Muscles

Flexibility

Primary

  • Glutes
  • Hamstrings
  • Pelvis
  • Quadriceps

Secondary

  • Hip adductors
  • Legs

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Equipment

Ground (hands or body)
Ground (hands or body)

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Appears in

Joint movements
Kneeextension
Hipextensionflexion
trains stretches

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Progressions

e0xn

Partial front split

Intermediate
e10a

One-leg dolphin hold

Novice
e16v

Standing front split

Novice
e0xh

Butt balancing one-leg out

Novice
e0v2

Revolved side angle prayer hands

Novice
e0vg

Sitting half lotus forward fold

Novice
Want to log this exercise? Open it in Calistree. Text and images are used under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; the video plays from the original source.