spirals after injury..I'd love to have some advices :)

[florence]

Hi!
I'm searching for some advices on spirals :D

I always wished to have beautiful high spirals like great skaters have but unluckily I'm not naturally flexible.

some years ago I passed a summer trying to be more flexible and I was able to achieve a nice split.

Unluckily a couple of months after at the end of a skating program I made a split and I ripped my groin muscle, it was very painful but after a few months it went ok and I was able to skate again.

I'm aware that it will never heal completely, and I'm afraid to push too much when I try to stretch that muscle and to injure myself.

But would love to improve my spirals so much!!! I have a whole 2 months in which I won't be able to skate and I would like to use this time to train off-ice to achieve better spirals.

Do you have any advices about it?! Any tips about improving spirals that doesn't means stetch too much the groin muscle?

p.s. sorry for my english :oops:

[doubletoe]

You can do it; you just need to stretch very slowly and only stretch when your muscles have been warmed up. I also pulled a muscle once (my left gluteus, where it attaches to the top of the hamstring) so I also have to be careful. I skate around until my muscles are warm, then I do outside spirals very gradually, repeating the spiral until I feel that my muscles are relaxing and allowing me to achieve enough extension. If you do active stretching like this instead of passive stretching, you have less risk of over-stretching and pulling a muscle (passive stretching means splits, or other stretches where you aren't using your own muscles to split your legs). Also, this will help you will develop the strength necessary to hold your free leg higher in the air. I can't do the splits on the floor but my foot is at least as high as my head on my spirals because I have developed the strength to hold the leg up.

[doubletoe]

Oops! I just saw the last line in your post about not having ice time. Okay, the same thing holds for doing this on the floor. Instead of doing spirals on the ice, jog around or jump rope or something else that warms up your muscles, then do spiral positions on the floor. You can even use a 5-pound ankle weight on your free leg to simulate your skate. You can also do leg swings, where you gently swing one leg forward, then back in a scissor motion, gradually bringing the leg higher in front and higher in back with each swing. Again, do this gently and in a controlled way so you don't jerk the leg.

Only after you do these active stretches should you do passive stretching. Instead of just trying to do the splits, first stretch each muscle group separately, in this order:
1) calves
2) quads & hip flexors (do the lunge position for the hip flexors)
3) hamstrings (slowly bring chest toward knee and hold for 30 seconds at the point where you feel resistance but not discomfort. Don't push it.)
4) splits - Don't push it.

[florence]

Thank you so much Doubletoe!!!
Your comment cheered me up so much!!
I'll definitely follow your advices ;)