Mechanics of Touching Your Toes (with hands or head)

when you fold forwards to touch your toes a signal is sent from your hamstring muscles to your spinal cord and brain once you cannot go any further it's because you've reached the limit of what your brain can handle or more technically the maximum tolerable perception of stretch the sensory part of your brain can't tolerate any more stretching signal and so it makes you tighten up and stops you from going any further but there's a problem fing forwards does not just stretch your hamstring there are multiple other components that contribute towards your stretch tolerance fixing these

is often the key to an amazing and usable forward fold when you fold forwards stretching signals are also sent to your brain by muscles like your adductive Magnus and gastrus your hip and spine flexors have to contract and be strong to pull you into position the static nerve gets tensioned and more each of these components like Lego building blocks stack up and take room in your available perception of stretch the more room these take up the less space there is for tolerating the stretching of your hamstrings there is a limit for how much the sensory

part of your brain will let you handle once that limit is reached you won't go further together we need to look at each of these components to truly understand how it's possible that I went from miles away from reaching my head to my toe to reaching my head to my toe I did this journey as an adult and have replicated it with many of my students who can now touch their head to their toes when we bend over to touch our toes or pick something up the hips should tilt forwards when the hip is too

tight and can't tilt the spine Then compensates Who Would You Rather Be by 30 years old most people's flexibility will look like this then between the ages of 30 to 70 the average person will lose another 20 to 30% of their flexibility flexibility declines down from birth so how did my dad do this at 58 years old he touched his toes for the first time in over three decades or our student Rob who at 66 years of age and for the very first time in his life reached his nose to his toe with a straight

leg at shoulder height to answer this question we first need to understand what has to happen in order to show a high level of forward folding ability a common mistake is to think about bringing the head down towards the knees which makes us round our spine to fold forward once we reach our head down we're effectively stuck the correct technique is primarily to travel forwards in reality this will be more of a diagonal but the intention is to reach forwards towards our feet and not just down regardless of your orientation the intention should be to

travel towards your feet this small change shifts the focus from just the spine rounding over and instead emphasizes that forward tilting of the hips it's the movement of the hip that makes something like head to toe anatomically possible as The Hip Flex is enough it brings the base of the spine spine over and forwards which allows the spine to then straighten out combine this with dorsy flexing the ankle by pulling it towards us and together they allow a position like head to toe to become much more realistic than most people would realize for context five

of my team members from our coaches to video editors have learned to head to toe and many more of my students all using the approach I'm going to show you statistically that would be very unlikely if it was completely down to body proportions as you can see it is totally possible for the vast majority of people understanding the extremes like head to toe means understanding each component properly even as a beginner understanding the full Journey allows you to make more effective training decisions which muscles need stretching what exercises to use and how often to train

are questions that can be answered with much more certainty when they're from A system that takes into account the whole journey from beginner to advance my obsession with flexibility came from the fact that I was not naturally flexible at all so my inner nerd decided to embark on a mission to figure it out long story short I learned how to become flexible once my athletes have won Olympic gold medals becoming the fastest in the world 503 final this is for Olympic gold they're the fastest men in the pool it is Meo our journey to touch

our toes begins with this component the strength of mans if you lack the strength to go with your flexibility it can stop you from progressing further the problem is that if you're not strong enough to pull yourself into an end-range position your body has to try harder and therefore exert more effort this signal from the central motor command in your brain to make you stronger creates a bigger Block in your perception of stretch which leaves less space for tolerating the other components like stretching your muscles take a look at these two forward fold or pipe

positions the surprisingly similar first we have a standing fold and then if we flip at 180° it becomes a hanging leg rate immediately you might notice that the one on the left looks more like a stretch whilst the one on the right looks more like strength training yet they're the same shape left shows passive flexibility we're being pulled by something external in this case gravity into position whilst right shows active flexibility we're having to use our strength to pull ourselves into position in this case against gravity a more passive exercise will feel like stretch for

the muscles on the back of our legs whilst the more active exercise will feel like strength training and Contracting the muscles in the front of our leg now imagine how it would feel if we added the same weight to each of these positions the weight on the left would assist us and make it easier to get deeper into the stretch whilst the weight on the right would resist us and make it harder to achieve the same range since we can increase or decrease the weight we use we have different levels of assisted to resisted it

was this realization that completely transformed the way I looked at flexibility and strength training you see most people think of passive and active flexibility as opposites like two sides of a coin when in reality they're two ends of the same Spectrum a spectrum between passive and active flexibility after many versions and a ridiculous amount of testing and experimentation here's version 11 of my assisted to resisted Spectrum which used to be known as the passive to active Spectrum it's a powerful tool for knowing which exercises you need to focus on first is heavily assisted using gravity

and added weights a partner or even a cable machine to really help us get deeper if we take the weight away we're still assisted just not as much as before because it's only gravity helping now if we change our angle so that gravity no longer helps pull us towards our feet as much here we are neutral or we transition folding forwards with the legs elevated or while seated means that Gra gravity pulls us down but not forwards we're now between assisted and resisted as gravity is no longer helping us as much in the direction we

want remember we want to reach towards our feet now if we try to lift the leg instead the movement will be resisted we have to fight against gravity add weight to this and it's now heavily resisted you're now strength training through your existing range of motion these five zones form the main stages of the passive to active Spectrum technically I include more zones in the full model but these are for the rare cases when people are using more Advanced Techniques or simply using too much weight so we can ignore those for now as you move

from left to right across the Spectrum you go from being pulled by something else into the stretch to using your own strength to pull yourself into the stretch so flexibility and strength training are not opposites but two ends of the same Spectrum let's run through it the first step of spectrum is heavily assisted as both the weight and gravity are helping pull us deeper into position if we remove the weight we're still assisted but now just by gravity from here we can change the body position slightly so the wearing more of a gravity neutral type

of position as we transition from assisted to resisted as we fight against gravity add weight to this and we're now heavily resisted and have to be really active in our range every exercise can be placed this Spectrum which means we now have many many ways of targeting our training assisted training allows you to stretch deeper whilst resisted training makes that range stronger and more usable whilst the middle develops a little bit of both improving your flexibility is a game of knowing when to push the ceiling of your total flexibility by training more assisted versus when

you need to focus on getting stronger into your existing range of motion and training more resistive here's the magic by testing where you are on this spectrum how large of a gap there is between your total passive range and your active strength to use it you can now determine which exercises you will likely respond best to if you need to work on increasing your passive total range motion use more assisted exercises that will focus on stretching your muscles like your hamstrings ductor Magnus and gastronomias or if you need to improve your strength through your existing

range of motion use more resist exercises that focus on strengthening the hip and spine flexes along the front of your body muscles like your rectus forus and ilio soat the assisted to resisted Spectrum allows you to individualize your training for the best results we use it in almost all the flexibility skills we're looking to improve for example when our students join the mobility and flexibility tool kit it begins with an assessment one of the key tests in the Pike and head-to toe module is comparing your ability assist Ed versus resisted the difference in angle between

these positions allows us to see where you are on the assisted to resisted spectrum and therefore which exercises are likely to be best for you right now a larger difference means you should focus on the resisted end of the spectrum and work on strength whilst a smaller Gap suggests focusing on more passive approaches this is why people progress with assisted passive stretching whilst others progress with resisted active stret training holding pive stretches might work for some time but then why does progress suddenly stop often it's because the gap between your passive total range and your

active strength to use it has become too big and it's time to switch to more strengthening active exercises once this Gap closes it's then time to switch to pushing the range with more passive assisted exercises mobility and flexibility training is a game of knowing when to push the ceiling and when to strengthen into that range this is a mental model that I like to use and also explains why most people's bodies do not want to be flexible without the safety of being strong enough to control it when this doesn't happen as can be seen in

hypermobile people injuries become more common those with hypermobility who keep pushing their range create problems like joint instability they need to deliberately focus on active strengthening more so the Gap does not become too big a lack of strength can mean a plateau in progress in contrast you might be someone who is stronger and Tighter where it's easy to gain the strength so more time should be focused on increasing your passive range as your strength will typically come with it this individualization means faster and more consistent progress or whilst training less because you focus on what

is needed and don't waste time on things your body does not currently require more efficient training means you can achieve more in less time such as becoming both very strong and very flexible I can Nord it curl which requires very strong hamstrings and also head to toe which requires very flexible hamstrings it is possible to have both at the same time and I was not naturally gifted either I was weak and tight when I started as an adult there is a long way for my head to reach my toe developing my flexibility and strength here

allowed me to access other skills much more easily such as achieving an I sit without any direct training for it having a good forward fold means I can stay compact in acrobatics compress impress handstands and have literally zero issues moving in day-to-day life to develop a good forward fold we need to know if our current training is working which is why being able to accurately measure progress is crucial to effective training to measure progress in this pipe position we use a really easy method with touch points fold forwards while sliding your hands down your legs

and keeping your knees straight make a note of any Landmark that you can reach to for example just below the knee segments of the shin top of the foot and so forth once you can reach the floor of your fingers it's finger Knuckles Knuckles then Palms to floor if you have access to standardized weight plates or yoga blocks they can work well to continue measuring your ability with both legs together alternatively once you've got Palms flat to floor you can measure elbow to toe Place one leg out in front with the foot propped up the

back leg is then bent out of the way measure elbow to Shaka which is your thumb and Little Finger extended if a you'll know then thumbs up bent thumbs up fist four fingers 3 2 one and elbow to toe then repeat these touch points for head to toe and if you're as determined as our student rob you can achieve your first leg elevated nose to toe at 66 these touch points means you can now track your program down to the width of a single finger a quick 5-second check means you now know if You' progressed

compared to last session which means you can quantify if your training is working or if you need to make some changes to your program you're no longer guessing plus you can now make smarter choices in your training because you can now work out what is working and what is not so far we know the technique of reaching forwards towards our toes whether we need to focus on more passive stretching exercise or more active strengthening exercises and can precisely measure our progress to be confident it's working the next step in order to pick the best exercises

is to understand their Anatomy unfortunately most people think falling forwards just stretches the hamstrings in reality there's a whole lot more to start there are four parts that make up your hamstrings then there's your lower back your hip rotators glutes adductive Magnus gastro anemia in the calves and more they get stretched and the forward F remember a tight muscle can limit your ability to touch your toes even if it's not maximally stretched in the position it can still contribute to the maximum tolerable perception of stretch we talked about earlier the sensory part of your brain

can only tolerate so much perception of stretch before it starts to limit you it's therefore important to isolate out the problematic areas work on them and then integrate them back into our forward fold position we should be deliberate with which exercises we choose in in order to get the best results when done right we can improve each component's relative contribution make changes to the muscles themselves and ultimately if you train properly even increase our maximum tolerable perception of stretch with the forward fold a common problem is that often people only stretch their hamstrings in one

way let's break this down it might sound complex at first but we can make it simple three of the hamstring muscles are biarticulate meaning they cross two joints there also the short head of the biceps for morus which only crosses the knee and I'll include the posterior division of adductor Magnus here as it functions much like a hamstring but only crosses at the hip this means that focusing the stretch by primarily moving from either the knee or the hip will not only target different ends of the hamstrings but even stretch completely different muscles now if

you were to stretch of your legs away or across your body you'll emphasize as a stretch on the medial inside muscles like the semimembranosus in a pancake or the lateral outside muscles this goes even further when the leg is across and the knee is also bent as it would Target the stretch on the three glutes Min me and Max alongside four of the six deep hip rotators Pur forus obturator internis and the two GIS quadratus forus is similar but stretches with internal rotation whilst in this position instead inter rotation is particularly interesting here as it

has a kinematic coupling with the forward fold Bagwell tow found that on average for every 5° of anterior pelvic tilt there is around 1 and A2 de of internal FEMA rotation lacking internal rotation can therefore limit your forward fold then the more the ankle is stretched the more involve muscles like the gastrus and a rounded back brings in muscles further up the posterior chain so we can stretch by moving from the hip or knee to Target the top or bottom of the hamstring group have the leg go across or away from our body to Target

the inside or outside muscles change the rotation of the leg to stretch more of the glutes and most of the hip rotators and add involvement at the ankles and spine for more of the calf and lower back regions it's important to take advantage of this Precision I see a lot of people following generic routines that never really address the weak link that's holding them back I hope you can see that just stretching in a forward fold is not the only way to improve a forward fold isolate the problematic area then integrate it back into the

skill you want to achieve as you advance the stretch of the muscles around the spine and lower back will become less and less relevant so much so head to toe actually uses a straight back position where they aren't really stretched at all and by the way in 98% of cases if you've ever been told you have short hamstrings it's probably the biggest load of rubbish in reality a more likely silent killer of people ability to touch the toes is one of the least expected try this while seated dorsy Flex to pull your feet towards you

now while keeping this foot position reach forward once you find your limit point your toes and see how much further you can go by changing our position of the ankle we've affected our range at the hip but there's no muscle that crosses from our ankle to our hip so how is this possible you see a tight cuff can limit your hip mobility despite not crossing your hip you'll be amazed at how many people can dramatically improve their ability to forward fold through calve stretching and there's three main reasons for why this can happen first the

carves added an additional block of stimulus to the sensory part of the brain which then reached its maximum perception of stretch sooner second is the myofascial connection along the back of the leg and third is tension compression and entament of the sciatic nerve the sciatic nerve runs from your toes all the way up the back of your leg alongside or even through the performers in some people up your spinal cord to your head when we fold forwards we tension this nerve but nerves have a limited ability to stretch for the sciatic nerve it's only about

8 to 10% more than its resting length so instead they slide up and down their sheath while we move if an area gets compressed the nerve can get stuck and unable to glide through this is known as a nerve entrapment which can cause excruciating pain in some people create an electric type feeling in others or simply stop you from being able to move any further without any pain at all meaning a nerve entrapment can stop your flexibility progress without you even knowing it could cause a large Block in your brain's perception of stretch without you

even realizing this is why I developed a 10 level sciatic nerve test to help you identify a nerve issue once you feel an electric nervy sensation stop and make a note of your level each level is going to build on the previous level one is I'm going to place my foot up on an object between knee and hip height next level two I straighten the knee three I pull the foot and the toes towards me four I'm going to bring my leg and my hip across each other five I internally rotate the leg six I

fold the hip hips forward seven lower back forward eight upper back nine I tuck the chin and 10 I grab the foot and pull everything together something to keep in mind because of the nature of nerves when it is painful it could be referred pain meaning you feel it in one area like your lower back but the problem is actually coming from somewhere completely different compression from areas like the cars and piriformis are surprisingly common causes of sciatic nerve ATT tratments even among people who do not have any pain there are other causes of sciatica

like slip discs or even viral infections so obviously get it checked with your healthcare provider with that in mind it's worth noting that an encouraging amount of cases can be treated even on your own proper stretching of these areas deliberate use of nerve Glides and tensioners and soft tissue treatments are all effective ways of improving your nerve's ability to slide through its sheath how it should which can open up your flexibility furthermore the hip joint is wrapped by your joint capture sometimes people think they've reached a bone block and the limit of their hip mobility

I've seen people only ever be able to bring one leg in fully to their chest they assumed it was a bone limit but upon closer inspection we found it was actually an issue with the hip capsule by working the capsule space was freed up restoring four range of the hip similarly the hamstrings don't just attach to a hipbone they fuse into the sacr tuberous ligament along the back of your hip these connective tissue structures are different to stretching muscle and are often the cause when people say they've reached their anatomical bone limit which is rarely

the case if you think or have ever been told you've reached your anatomical limit you can't go any further despite not really feeling a stretch it's worth taking a look at these structures more often than not I found that people can in fact go further these muscles soft tissue structures like our fascia ligaments and hip capsule and the nerves along the back of our body are what has to lengthen when we fought forwards to continue to build our knowledge we need to look at the muscles on the other side the ones which contract and pull

us into position the quads straighten out the knee whilst our hip flexors such as rectus foror of the quads ilos SARS and even muscles like a ductor longus work together to flex our hip forward when they contract your hip will fold forwards if your leg is fixed or your leg will lift when your body remains in place these actions are paired with the spine flexors such as your abs like your obliques and rectus abdominus muscles to compress and pull us into position together they take our range of motion and help make it usable in a

wide range of sports in context anytime we need to fold with power they're the ones making it happen being able to pull the hips forward is a combination of everything we've talked about it's one of the most fundamental and basic movements in general so much so this type of training is actually one of the best ways of starting your full body mobility and flexibility Journey the simple test of can you touch your palms to the floor is actually a great starting place for opening up more advanced flexibility skills and is basically a prerequisite to all

splits you want a pancake well it's the same forward hip flexion movement but now done with the legs apart you want to sides split or the hip jams unless you forward flex the hips enough what about front split well the front leg is literally in a forward fold position so forward fold training is essentially working half of a front split when Liv achieved the first front split it happened sooner than most people cuz she'd already developed great flexibility in the front leg with her Pike training this meant her back leg had to stretch relatively less

for her to touch down and she could focus her front split training on just the back leg to quickly achieve her front split improving your ability to touch your toes open opens up a whole world of hit Mobility gains it's the foundation the process we use in the mobility and flexibility toolkit is by first testing the difference between your passive and active flexibility we then assess to identify your individual limitations this is used to create a fully individualized program exercises are chosen that assist and build range or resist and build strength whilst targeting your limiting

areas this can include stretching specific muscles and even various nerve hip capture or simar limitations we can't promise how long it will take you to get something like head to toe as it depends on what is your limitation and your dedication of course but most people make impressive progress by dedicating one or two hours per week to a few targeted exercises for some inspiration each of these results happen in 30 days or less and for those students who dedicate longer than 1 month remarkable gains are possible now you know some of the main principles for

touching your toes however you still need to understand how often to stretch different stretching methods and how stretching should feel which is why my team and I have put together a free master class that will answer these fundamental questions and many more at the end of the free Master Class we'll also show you different ways you can train with us with a special incentive for those of you wanting to join the mobility and flexibility tool kit to truly take your flexibility training to the next level so simply click the link in the description enter your

email and in less than 60 seconds from now you can start transforming the way you look at stretching see you there [Music]