Hi, im gonna be trying my pre-novice in the future, but i am REALLY unflexible. Well, in my spiral only, i can everything else pretty well, but i cant do my spiral. It does go my higher than my head no matter how hard i try! Could someone help me and tell me some exercises or stretches i could do? thanks

Get a pair of light ankle weights that velcro on around your ankles and practice spiral positions at home in front of a mirror (balancing or holding on to a chair/table) while wearing the weights. The weights will mimick the feeling of working on your spirals with skates. Try to hold each position for a few seconds once you get your leg at a desirable level.

The fact that your flexible in everything else, as you say, makes me believe that it's likely not a flexibility issue, but rather a position problem. Often times when your free hip is not open, you can't get your leg as high. Having a closed hip makes raising the leg more difficult. Work on turnout in front of a mirror as well. Think of turning out your free foot and hip (try pointing your big toe to the ceiling).

How often do you practice spirals? If you don't practice them a lot, then you may not have built up the upper glute strength needed to lift that free leg and hold it, especially when there's a heavy skate at the end of it. Do lots of spirals on the ice and hold each one as long as you can. You can also stand at the boards and do leg raises with your skates on, which will help build the same muscles. Hamstring stretches and hip flexor stretches off ice (hold each position 30 seconds) will help with the flexibility.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Get your coach to stretch you at the boards at the end of each lesson, too. That helps. If time is too short for that, get them to show a friend/relation/parent/whoever how to stretch you - that's quite a good thing, too, as then you can be stretched daily.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

For the biellmann spiral, I really like 2 yoga positions:
Camel: http://z.about.com/d/yoga/1/0/l/1/camel.jpg
Cobra: http://www.dkimages.com/discover/pre...754/312509.JPG

Also I stretch for the biellmann with my skates on, I bring the foot up to hip height, turned out so the blade is parallel to the ice and then twist my arm out with the handpalm out and put my fingers from the outside of the blade to the inside of the blade, then pull it up. I know you can cut yourself easily this way but it's actually only until you get some tough skin on your fingers there (or sports tape, or gloves). But it makes it soooo easy to pull (and push, with your arms) the leg up higher and higher each time.

As for the normal spiral, and let me say my legs are everything but flexible (my biellmann's coming out of my back) AND I have very closed hips, I got like 4 inches extra height on that since april, with daily daily stretching... If I forget 1 day, I already notice a negative difference... Actually a lot of that time I've been stretching more than once daily.

Well, i posted a thread before about stretching because my spiral is not good whatsovever, it doesnt go much higher than my head, if im stretching life everyone told me to in the other thread, how long should it take for my leg to get higher

also

it seems that the lower half of my lead want to go up, but the upper half of my leg just wont go higher! help
thanks

Duplicate threads merged.

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