Why Can’t I Do A Wide-legged Forward Bend?

Transcript of: Why can’t I do a wide-legged forward bend?

Hey everybody! Welcome to this month’s question of the month. I’m David Keil. I answer your question if you ask it at: yoganatomy.com/myquestion. This month’s question comes from Danielle. It’s about why she’s struggling to do wide-legged forward bend. I’m going to do a little interpretation of her question here.

The Question:

Basically, she is saying that she has difficulty trying to do a wide-legged forward bend. That is, she has difficulty doing a forward fold when her legs are wide and an easier time doing it when her legs are together in front of her as in paschimottanasana.

The Answer:

Finding the culprit

Now some people are the opposite of that. So here’s the starting point for this. There are a few things to keep in mind, but here’s the starting point. If you have difficulty forward folding when your feet are together in front of you, like paschimottanasana, the hamstrings are typically the main culprit. It’s the first place to start. If, however, a forward fold with feet together, like paschimottanasana is not as difficult, but if it’s more difficult when your legs are wide, then the first culprit to look at is going to be the adductor muscles. In particular, if you feel restricted when you do a wide-legged forward bend, look at the adductor magnus.

Hamstrings versus adductors

Now, how do you look at that specifically? Not so easily. However, typically, if you have tight adductors, and difficulty forward folding when your legs are wide, you will likely also see a little bit of trouble in baddha konasana, or butterfly, or cobbler’s pose, where the knees won’t go down so easily. So, those things do typically go together. And of course, if it’s your hamstrings that are tight, you’re going to see that restriction in every other forward bend as well. Now, what typically opens tissue? Doing more. It’s that simple of course, time on task, repetitions, etc.

Consider bone shape and angle

There is another possibility here. It’s always a possibility underlying anything that you have tried for a long amount of time and not had success with, especially when it comes to the flexibility side of things around the hips and the shoulders. That is bone shape. It is also possible that Danielle has a bone shape that makes it more difficult for her to do a wide-legged forward bend, or forward fold with wide legs. It could be just the way the head of the femur fits inside of the acetabulum. And depending on the length of the neck—which is the next part from the ball down to the shaft—where that kicks in, it could be short. It could be long. These have an impact on when the bone of the pelvis actually touches it. That’s a possibility. I don’t have enough information to say. I don’t know how long Danielle has been trying to do wide-legged forward bend. But if she had been trying for a really long time, years, and it’s never changed, then you start looking at bone shape.

Okay? Danielle, I hope that helped. If you want, you can follow up with me. Send me another email and let me know more details. Everyone else, have a great day! If you have a question that you want to submit, go to yoganatomy.com/myquestion.