KEY AREAS: Hamstrings and Calves
START POSITION: Stand up straight, knees locked, with the palms of your hands placed in front of you and resting flat against the upper part of your thighs (hip area). Tilt your head forwards to look down at the floor in front of your toes.
NOTES: This is another ancient old-school stretch exercise which is a fundamental requirement for any serious athlete or just those people who wish to improve on their flexibility and stance.
This exercise complements nicely the Standing Quad Stretch described in the previous section. Both stretches hit important muscle groups on opposite sides of the legs (front and back), leading to much better athletic performance combined with much less risk of injury.
Both these exercises are fundamental essentials for runners and footballers (along with many other sports).
They are both part of the Mojoh100 Pilates1 Group (Group1), and if short of warmup time before training or competition, athletes should ensure that they make time to squeeze in as many of these exercises as possible (and in the order of the exercises within the Pilates1 group). But please always remember NEVER to overstretch cold muscles as this will lead to muscle pulls and tears instead of helping to prevent injuries.