Front splits are more complex than many think when first looking at them. Yes, of course, on the surface later it looks quite simple. You have 1 leg that is in front and 1 in the back with the hips and shoulders squared. 

As always things are not quite that simple. With both legs pointing in completely opposite directions we also have to assume that both legs require very different exercises and work. Let’s have a closer look. 

Anatomy of the front leg

The front leg is in flexion at the hips. The muscle group that will hold you back from flexing your front leg is the posterior chain of the leg. To be precise the semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris.  These muscles together create the hamstrings. 

The hamstrings connect with the calve muscle behind the knee and extend all the way around the foot. When training for the front split this entire extended chain needs to be considered. 

Anatomy of the back leg

The back leg is in extension or even hyperextension at the hips. The primary muscles stretched in the back leg are the psoas, iliacus, and rectus femoris. These can be summed up as the hip flexor muscles. 

Why you should train your front split

The front split is a difficult yet fascinating exercise. When training you can’t just relax into the stretch. You always have to be engaged to stay aligned. 

The Middle split for example is in regards to this specific extent significantly easier as nothing can go wrong. 

Improving your front split will allow you to close your shoes in a cooler fashion, take bigger steps and learn advanced skills such as the hollow back handstand or needle whilst also transferring directly to your press to handstand and downward dog. 

Due to the specific demand on your body and the required focus when training for the front split you will be forced to truly level up as an athlete. Your entire body awareness, coordination and understanding for body engagement will change and evolve. If done correctly your front split sessions will be hard work but the benefits that you will receive from doing them will be hard to match with any other workout!

Correct form and alignment

I would not try and argue that getting the hips down to the floor in the front split with poor form is easy but it is definitely significantly easier than making it down with clean form. Front split alignment does not come naturally and will require focus!

Front split checklist 

Square out your hips and shoulders and keep the parallel to the floor. Do not allow your hips to turn out! Do not allow your legs to externally rotate inside the hips. Your front knee needs to point straight up and the back knee straight down towards the floor. This is one of the hardest yet most essential parts of the front split. 

Lock out both of your legs and connect the entire length of your legs on the floor. This should not be a goal initially as it becomes close to impossible to lock out the back knee if the hips are still fairly far from the floor. 

This is a very important one to pay attention to from the very start. Your weight should equally spread between both your front and back leg. Chances are high that by default you will lean your upper body towards the front. Walk your hands back until they are next to your hips and straighten your back. 

Lumbar spine

The goal is not to arch the lumbar spine. In an ideal world your lower back would be perfectly straight. You achieve this by engaging the core to force the hips into a posterior pelvic tilt. 

Unfortunately, in reality it is close to impossible to have a perfectly straight lower back as it has almost never been achieved by any athlete to get a perfect 90 degree extension in the back hip. 

Please do not use this as an excuse to slack off. Your goal at all times must be to straighten out the lower back. Just be aware that a slight arch is absolutely acceptable. 

Limiting Point – Front Knee

Whilst most of the time the back leg hip is holding us back from achieving the front split naturally the front leg can also be the limiting point. 

If the posterior chain of your front leg is tight then you will not be able to extend the knee fully. 

To get over this hurdle stretch your hamstrings and actively work on knee extensions in this specific position. 

When we now start training for the front split the best approach is to completely forget about the final goal and to dissect the front split into the 2 completely different halves that it really is. 

We start by working each leg separately. This will allow you to make goal specific gains, focus on one aspect and technical detail at the time assuring great alignment and you will be able to identify personal weak spots early on.

As always every single workout must start with a warm up. The goal of your warm up is not just to break a sweat and to elevate body temperature by about 2 degrees but also to warm up the specific muscle patterns used during the main workout and to establish mind muscle connection.

Front Leg Training

When it comes to choosing the right exercises for your front leg we have to be hyper aware of what we are actually stretching and where the muscles lay and connect in order to make these stretches as effective as they could possibly be.

To simplify let’s say the posterior chain connects on the top end of your glutes, goes around your hips down your hamstrings, through the knee into the calve and finally around the heel to finish in the abc of the big toe.

It is essential that you target each part of this chain individually before putting it together into a complete front leg stretch.

In order to be able to hit each part of this chain your foot has to be in dorsiflexion, your knee must be fully locked and your hips in an anterior pelvic tilt. Neglect one of these technical aspects and your training won’t be as effective anymore. 

Make sure to include into your training at least 1 of each:

1. Calf stretch
2. Dynamic hamstring stretch 
3. Static hamstring stretch with anterior pelvic tilt & without dorsiflexion 
4. Static hamstring stretch with anterior pelvic tilt & with dorsiflexion
5. Active Knee Extension in a light hamstring stretch 

Back Leg Training

Stretching the back leg is often harder as we are not used to working on our hip flexors in this way. Whilst the quads are a part of the anterior chain of the leg the focus here truly has to be in the hip flexors.

A great option here is the half split or low lunge stretch. As discussed earlier it is essential that the hips are in a posterior pelvic tilt in order to place pressure on the hip flexors.

In order to further enhance effectiveness of the stretch you can bend the back knee to end up in a stretch similar to the commonly known couch stretch. Adapt this stretch by coming slightly further away from the couch so the back leg is approximately at a 45 degree angle, by rotating the hips into a posterior pelvic tilt and by driving the hips down towards the heel of the front foot. Make sure your front shin remains vertical.

Start by working mainly on static stretches here to assure perfect form and to get used to specific muscle engagement before incorporating PNF stretches to maximize your results.

Front Split with Elevated Hands

Whenever you train your split I want you to elevate your hands on yoga blocks or something similar. I want you to walk your hands back so they are right next or very slightly in front of your hips. This will assure that you are able to line yourself up perfectly. Unless you are extremely close to the floor or you have very long arms it is impossible to support your body without leaning towards the front as your arms simply can not reach the floor. This is another reason why so many athletes lean towards the front in their front splits and then never end up opening the hip flexors properly.

Line yourself up perfectly and elevate your hands as high as needed. It is always better to elevate them too high and to bend the elbows compared to having to lean towards the front.

Support your body weight enough so you can get comfortable and stay in the stretch for a longer period of time with minimal discomfort. If you can not talk during the stretch you are pushing too hard!

Supported Front Split

Getting good at front splits will take time. In order for your body to open up you will have to spend some time. There are no shortcuts that can make this easier or go faster.

An excellent exercise to spend time in and to truly get better at the front split is the Supported Front Split.

Place yoga blocks or pillows underneath your hips. Just like in the version above, get comfortable and spend time with perfect alignment and minimal pain. Placing an object underneath you allowing you to sit will free up your arms. You will be able to stay in the stretch longer without fatiguing as quickly.

Front Split Reps

This final Front Split exercise will truly help you get flat. This is the drill to truly maximize your efforts and squeeze out whatever is left.

We are basically doing the drill form early, the half split reps, but in a full front split.

Elevate your hands on yoga blocks next to your hips. With perfect form and your back knee relaxed on the floor push your hips down as far as you can. Now without moving the hips begin to engage the back leg. Lock the knee as much as you can. Only when you can not lock the knee any further begin to push your hands into the blocks and lift the hips up slightly to fully lock out the knee. Now with a fully locked knee push the hips down as much as you can and once again, only at the very end allow for the knee to bend.

Tackling the biggest problem last. By now you know and understand a lot so we can start talking about significantly more complex issues such as the earth being flat, the moon landing being fake and staying squared in your front split.

Why your hips have to be squared in the front split

There are multiple reasons as to why form is so important in your front split. A first and very obvious reason is that it simply separates you from the masses. Getting the hips down in the front split is cool but not too difficult. Getting the hips down whilst keeping the abc straight and hips squared is a massive accomplishment. You will feel and look significantly different than anyone else in the room.

Your turned out front split is going to be a little bit different every time that you train it as you can not purposely turn out by 17.3 degrees every time. This means progress tracking becomes close to impossible. You can not know if you are improving or not and you can not know if you need to be doing more or less. 

Additionally, a turned out front split in general is difficult to improve as you don’t really know what is holding you back. It is difficult to pinpoint where your weak spots are if your front split is not well aligned. If your hips are squared on the other hand this is rather simple. Your lower back is either arching a lot and you are lacking hip flexor mobility. Or your front knee is bending and you are lacking hamstring mobility.

Lastly, the turned out front split will not be useful for any of the advanced drills. Only a well aligned front split will help you advance with your downward dog, needle or hollow back handstand.

How to check if you are squared

There are 2 very simple, easy to use and brutally honest ways to check if you are well aligned. 

Find a broomstick or anything similar, hold it to your hips and check the position of the broom stick in relation to your legs. If they are at a 90 degree angle then you are golden. If the angle is anything else you know your hips are already tuned out. 

Alternatively, and I honestly prefer this method a lot, you can also simply bend the back knee. If your foot is pointing straight up towards the ceiling the leg is in parallel and your hips squared. If the foot is not pointing straight up but actually out towards the side then your leg is externally rotated and so are your hips. 

Bending the back knee is but just a great way of checking that your hips are squared. Bending the back knee is also a great way to adjust exercises to make sure your hips can not turn out as you slide deeper. If you are struggling to keep your hips and shoulders squared back up into a corner of 2 walls, place the back knee as close to the corner as possible and place the foot into the corner. Now slide down into your front split whilst pushing your hips into the posterior pelvic tilt. It becomes impossible for the hips to turn out!

Lack of lateral hamstring mobility

If your lateral hamstring is tight it will prevent you from keeping your hips squared as the side of the hip where the leg is in front will get pulled towards the front together with the leg. Focus especially on lateral hamstring stretches to overcome this.

Lack of correct engagements

No matter how flexible you are. If you are not engaging your muscles constantly to fix your front split position you will never be squared. You can never simply relax into the stretch. You have to actively work on your position at all times.

Training Middle Splits Before Front Spits

This one has always been a major problem for me. It makes sense to train front and middle splits in one session as both rely heavily on the hamstrings. Yet, the middle split requires externally rotated legs and stretch the adductors open. If you train your front splits right after your middle splits you will have a very hard time staying squared. If you want to combine both into 1 session always make sure you train your front splits first.

The last question that remains is what do we do in order to get squared. How do we actually train to assure that our hips and shoulders stay fully squared? 

Main problem – misconception

One of the main reasons for the constant turn out of the hips in almost all athletes is misconception. Yes, we call it sliding into the front split but at some point your feet have to stop sliding. If you continue to slide down until your hips touch the floor the distance between your feet will increase until the very end and with that your hips will always turn out. 

It is essential that when you get close to the floor you stop sliding your feet and simply push the hips downwards.

To achieve this you can either draw 2 marks on the floor or train barefoot on a floor where your feet do not slide.

Engage – Pull your legs towards each other

If your feet truly do not slide theoretically you will not need to engage to stay squared as you are locked in. It is the same for when you are training with the back knee bent in a corner. But if you are training in a regular set up where your feet have the possibility to slide then you have to engage hard to stay squared. Your legs have to pull towards each other. You basically have to engage with your own muscles to prevent the feet from sliding away from each other.

In your front leg the hip flexor has to engage. The hip flexor reduces the distance between your rib cage and the leg. If you are engaging the front leg hip flexor in your split you are actively pulling the front leg towards yourself helping you square out.

For the back leg you have to engage your glute muscle. Personally, I found this quite counter intuitive but think about it: The main reason why you can not square out is because your back knee is pushing into the floor preventing the back hip from moving towards the front. Engaging the glute of the back leg will basically lift the back knee away from the floor creating space to pull the hips more towards the front.

Isolation work

Train both of these engagements separately in a none front split set up.

Work on your hip flexors with standing or kneeling leg lifts. Focus not just on the performance output here but especially focus on how your hip flexor feels when you engage it to pusle the leg up. Use every single moment to further increase your mind muscle connection!

Train the back leg activation with simple glute lifts. Make sure the work actually comes from your glutes and not your hamstrings or back muscles.

Complete pattern work

Last and most importantly we have to combine the 2 isolated exercises into compound pattern work. The goal here is to rotate the legs inside of the hips to practice this precise engagement the way you will be doing it in the full front split. The only difference is that we use progressions where we are not in a full front split so a lack of mobility most likely will not be a limiting point. This will allow us to truly focus on the movement and build mind muscle connection.

You want ro train the compound pattern exercises a lot. This specific muscle engagement has to become complete second nature so that when you are doing your complete front split you can allow your body to go into complete auto pilot. You should not have to try and figure out how to square your hips when you are already in your front split.