PNF Side Glute Stretch Video
I want to show you guys how to do some different kinds of stretches. These are PNF stretches, also known as dynamic stretches. PNF stands for proprioceptive neuro facilitation, that’s why we call them PNF stretches. They’re stretches followed by short contractions and then going back into the stretch. On this stretch, what we’re going to do, is a variation of a glute stretch. We showed you how to do the big glutes, the glute max. Now, these are the glutes that are on the sides of the hips and these really bothered a lot of people. A lot of times you can get pain referral patterns that will go down a leg, that will feel a lot like sciatica, but they’re actually just because you have these really tight hip extensors and abductors. And so this is a really, really good adjunct stretch to what I’ve been showing people and it’s actually super simple.
What we’re going to do is we start out by just having Mary Faith, drop her legs to the side and just allowing the weight of her legs to just stretch. And then she’s going to feel a stretch in her hip here. She may feel a little bit of stretch in her back, back in here, and in the QL. And then she’s just going to let that stretch for about 30 seconds and then we’ll have her flip to the other side and do the same thing. All right. And again, she’ll feel it, she could feel stretched as far as down here in her the glute minimus and the glute medius, and then up in her QL a little bit. And then we’re going to have her come back to center and we’ll have her do that a couple of times as a warm-up and then what we’re going to do, Mary Faith what I’m going to have you do is lean your legs back towards me, just like that, make sure you’re breathing. Okay. And then we’re going to take the bottom ankle and we’re going to rest it on top of the top knee.
We might want to reposition the foot just a little bit to allow that outside leg to fall a little bit more. And so she’s not pulling her leg down, she’s just letting the weight of this top leg-pull the bottom leg, bottom knee down towards the ground. And again, it’s going to be an increased stretch through here and up into her back. Do you remember how long you’re supposed to stretch?
10 seconds. So she’s going after that 10 seconds. She’s going to contract this muscle group in here and when she contracts it, it’ll pull her knee to the ceiling just a little bit, just like that. And then after that three seconds, you relax it and let the weight of the top leg fall onto the lower leg and it’ll just pull it back into that stretch. Again, we’re going to stretch for a nice 10 seconds, good tank out.
Then go ahead and contract those lateral buns of steel. All right, and she’s got to do that again for about a three count. And then she’s going to relax one more time, just let everything relax and let that top leg fall. Make sure you don’t get in a rush on the length of stretch or the length of the contraction. You can do them longer if you want to, but the minimum really is a three-second contraction and 10-second stretch. And then at the end of that, go ahead and drop that leg and bring your legs back to the center. And then you would do the same thing going the opposite direction. And so that’s a really cool stretch, it has helped a lot of people, especially when people are having pain when they lay on their side. It’s a really important stretch. Again, Dr. Jeff at Whole Body Health and look for more of our stretching, our PNF stretching on our links.
PNF Calf Stretch Video: https://youtu.be/ZT17wFGdaZw
PNF Glute Stretch Video: https://youtu.be/F9txMyzvdvc
PNF Hamstring Stretch Video: https://youtu.be/N8Y7K9BY0XQ
PNF Hip Flexor Stretch Video: https://youtu.be/ZEJKYyoDjSE
PNF Side Glute Stretch Video: https://youtu.be/xPxA43A3-3k