Pelvis position when doing leg front stretching and free flow of blood in the vessels

Question

Following the advise of physiotherapist to work towards front split, because I almost cannot raise my legs after sitting 24h behind the desk, I recently started to stretch and for the first weeks felt that, matured, I understand how to do it well, feeling my body. I have got to know that normal muscle relaxation takes ca. 10-20 sec. I have noticed that I can stretch further after that time. I try to feel stretch but not pain so that I can hold my legs stretched for a long time. If there was a pain, I reduced the pressure just to acceptable, non-annoying and not harmful level and noticed that 10 seconds later leg relaxes and stretches itself with no pain that was there 10 sec ago. It was miraculous.

I have also noticed that I need to turn the foot left or right when leg is stretched forward (doctor advised to stretch one leg at a time, raising it on some support and a little bit bowing down) because leg which stretched quite forward may happen unstretched at all under slightly different angle.

This way, I have managed to stretch the back muscles of my legs pretty well and could put a leg on the high tables/supports. However, recently, I have also noticed that it goes so easily at all if I keep my pelvis, if I do not turn it when raising a leg. I feel painful tiredness even at low leg raising.

It is interesting because I cannot use my approach: I do not feel the aforementioned fun when doing this kind of stretch. It is annoying pain even with virtually no pressure. Instead of stretched muscles, I feel tiredness. It is annoying and I want to stop immediately. It is also curious that I feel all that tiredness in along the central run of the leg instead of the bottom muscles, which should be most stretched and do when I feed the pelvis forward. Stretched leg also starts to "ring" pretty quickly in this mode.

I know that feeling of tiredness is and ringing are normally caused when blood vessels cannot deliver enough fresh blood to the organ. Can it be the case and what is pelvis position for stretching legs forward and up?

Answer 1

From the sound of it, you're trying to stretch your hamstrings. The sensation you're describing sounds like a classic case of the leg "falling asleep" due to either restricted blood flow or a pinched nerve. It's not dangerous, just annoying. Poking around a few forums, the consensus I've found seems to be that the most likely case is that the way in which your stretching is probably pinching a nerve, likely from your pelvis pressing into the top of the leg. The recommended fix is to keep doing the stretch until it goes away.

Incidentally, the pelvic position that I've seen described for a front-leg stretch onto a table is "neutral", not tilted forward, back, left, or right.