Muscle Control Routine

The routine that follows is designed to help you learn to control your muscles, particularly the ones that can help you forward bend and backbend the hips. To that end, it helps if you put your awareness on the muscles, in particular while the muscles are actually working. As so that you can learn to feel these muscles easier some of the exercises involve movements that activate and relax the target muscle.

Now the goal isn’t just to activate a particular muscle.
It is to activate it with a particular movement intent.

When forward bending the hips the goal isn’t just to activate the hip flexors and quads. It is to activate them while either moving the leg towards the chest or while moving the pelvis in such a way that the chest moves towards the leg. And so for using muscle control to improve flexibility, there are two things to focus on.

• One is being able to consciously activate the target muscle. To that end focus on feeling the muscles that activate in the following exercises.
• The other is to have a specific movement intent. That means moving one set of bones relative to the other. To that end focus on feeling the bones (or limbs) that you are trying to move.