Fix Tight Hamstrings in 22 Days! (GUARANTEED)

If you have tight hamstrings then you are going to want to pay attention. In this video, I’m going to give you a day by day stretching plan for loosening up tight hamstrings. It will take just minutes a day and help even the tightest of hamstring muscles.

If you’ve got tight hamstrings then I promise  you, this can be the most helpful video that you’ve ever watched. I’m going to take those  piano wires of yours that you got running up and down the back of your leg, and we’re going to fix  them and loosen them up in the next 22 days. What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx. com. So today I get to put on my PT hat and do one of the things I like to do the most, and that’s  to help you to fix issues, especially those common issues that plague a lot of us.

And  when it comes to tight hamstrings, a lot of us are dealing with them. So, what if I told you  I can help you to fix them in the next 22 days? That’s right, I’m going to give you a game plan  that’s going to do two things. Number one, it’s going to dramatically loosen your hamstrings and  we re going to have ways to objectively measure that. It’s also going to instill a stretching  habit that you can do and find very easy to fit into your schedule no matter how busy you are.

And we’re going to get the job done. So that said, guys, I want to start breaking down what we’re  going to do day by day to make sure that by the end of this year, hamstrings are feeling a hell  of a lot looser than they are right now. All right, so before we even get started here,  there is one disclaimer that I want to make sure that they make as a physical therapist especially. And that is if you look like this, that you likely have a condition called anterior pelvic tilt. And  you would have tight hamstrings in this condition, but it’s not because the hamstrings are short,  is because your pelvis is pulling your hamstrings into a position where they feel tight.

So, what  I would advise is not to run into doing these stretches to fix that problem. But rather  to go over that video and fix your anterior pelvic tilt the way I show you there. And so with that said, if you feel hamstring tightness and you don’t have that shelf, then  you can rest a glass of water on above your ass, then you’re in the right place. And when we have  to do is we have to start where we always do in our popular 22-day series and that is with a  test. And this test occurs actually before you even start on day zero.

What I want you to do  is get yourself up against a wall like this, lay on the floor and then extend the non-testing  leg until it’s flat against the wall. Now, with the other leg, you’re going to pull  it back to a position of 90 degrees of knee flexion and hip flexion. Not too much and not too  little, you want to get right at about 90 degrees. From here all you’re going to do is straighten  your knee out. And as you’re doing this, make sure that you’re trying to keep  your toes always pointed to the ceiling rather than pulling them back towards you.

Now, from here, I want you to basically visualize a point on the wall that lines up with the  top of your toe. And this is going to give us a chance to remeasure later on on day 22. Now,  it’s a little bit easier if you have a wall that would allow you to have a landmark that you  can actually find a little bit more easily. But either way, all you have to do is stand up,  make that mark on the wall, put a piece of tape, if need be, and you’re going to come back to  that when you do remeasure on the last day. But now we’ve got to get to the action and we’re  to break this down over the course of three, seven day blocks.

So, day one through seven  will be blocked one day, eight through 14 will be blocked, too. In day 15 through 21 will be  block three. Each block is going to consist of ideally two sessions, one in the morning and one  at night. But before you get worried and think I’m not going to have time at all to do this,  I promise you we’re talking about just minutes in the morning and minutes at night. The reason  for the split is that we want to focus separately on our dynamic work and our static work.

Because  we know that each time of the day we can have a better impact if we do it that way. So, we start the day off with our dynamic work and there’s going to be just two stretches. One that keeps the knees straight and one that has the knee bent. And the reason for that is we  want to hit both functions of the hamstrings, they don’t just flex the knee, they help to extend  the hip so they can function to pull the hip back into extension. We want to stretch them at some  point with the hip flexed.

At the same time, we have to focus on the exercise that straighten  the knee out. So that’s we’re going to do each and every day throughout all of these blocks. And at night we’re going to shift our focus once again to the passive stretching. And the reason  for this is that we get a better bang for our buck when we perform our static stretches  right before bed. Especially if we train, our body tends to heal itself a little bit  shorter overnight.

So, by implementing these stretches right before we go to bed, we tend  to get a little bit less of that shortening and tightening and have a better long-term impact. And so, with that said, let’s start breaking down the stretches and exercises that you’re going  to do, starting in block one. Every morning, on days one through seven, you’re going to  do the following two exercises. Number one, a leg swing, two different versions of  this. You’re going to stand against a wall and only go so high as you can that you can  still maintain a relatively straight knee.

Then we turn and face the wall and we do a side  to side. And here we’re going to try to actually turn our toe outward and turn our toe inward. This is good because it helps us to get both medial and lateral hamstrings a little bit more  specifically, but still, in this dynamic way. You can do three sets of eight repetitions in  each direction on each leg. We move on to the second dynamic stretch of the day and as is often  the case, the exercise is oftentimes the test.

What we did on days zero actually now becomes  something we can implement for the first seven days here to try to increase the flexibility of  our hamstrings. This is the active knee extension exercise. Now, you don’t have to do it up against  the wall, you can simply do it down on the floor, but the principle of the movement is the same. In  this case you try to hold that position for about three to five seconds, you release, and you  go back and repeat. You do this for a total of three sets of six reps on each leg and your  work for the morning is done, just like that.

But of course, we have one more session at  night, and that’s where we’re going to focus on, that passive static stretching. As I said, it’s  going to help us to increase those hamstrings, flexibility. And the first exercise we’re  going to do here is simply a standing low hamstring stretch. And the idea here is to make  sure you’re doing this properly. Because a lot of us will simply fold over because we’re  trying to stretch our hamstring, but that’s not actually getting directly at the hamstrings.

It s involving way too much low back. Instead, focus on getting as tall as possible to establish  at least a temporary anterior pelvic tilt. Not one of those structural ones we talked about before,  to increase the engagement of the hamstrings and get them in a prime position for stretch. Now, I simply just want you to reach your hand out until you can feel your hamstrings light  up. You’re just going to simply hold this position for 45 seconds.

You’re going to do  two to three sets of 45 seconds on each leg, maintaining the high chest and that slight arching  your low back for this to be effective. And then we do the last stretch here on the floor  that’s the knee bent position and this one is th