Why are we interested in strengthening the quadriceps? It must be borne in mind that we are facing the most voluminous and powerful muscle of our body, falling on it not only withstand the full weight of the body, but also walking, walking, running, jumping, swimming, dancing, and all that movement that requires the action of the legs.
This muscle is located on the anterior face of the femur and has four muscle heads. If we feel a certain weakness in the legs or that we have difficulty climbing stairs, simple quadriceps stretching exercises will be enough to prevent pains and injuries, in addition to strengthening them and stimulating the knee joint through extensions of the knee, the joint of the hip, the relationship between the pelvis and the spine, walking and maintaining the posture.
The 7 quadriceps stretches that will help you stay active are the ones we discovered in this article. Care of your body.
Foot Stretches
We started this series of footy stretches, requiring some balance, something that’s important to do the exercise is near a foothold in case we have a hard time keeping it.
Once located, we flex one of the knees and we carry the heel to the buttock, holding the foot with your hand at the same time. We endure the stretch for a few seconds, go back to the initial posture, and repeat with the other leg.
Hip Extension on the Ground
For the next stretch, we’ll have to lie face down by extending both legs. From this posture, we will stretch the quadriceps flexing the knee, and try to hold his hand with his hand the foot of his side. Once he picked up his foot, we pressed slightly down to relax the quadriceps.
Quadruple hip extension
You can also exercise the quadriceps doing the same exercise, but in a quadruped position, that is, on your knees and resting your hands on the ground. From this position, we will try to grab the opposite leg with your hand, keep the position for a few seconds, and do the stretch with the other leg.
Stretching of the knees
We get on our knees on the ground or a mat and, without arching our backs, stretch back, stretch our arms, and lean on the palms of our hands. The knees must be glued to the ground. While you’re stretching you can raise your hip slightly to feel even more with the quadriceps stretch.
Stretching of the hip flexor
In this exercise, in addition to the quadriceps, we will also stretch the hip flexor. To do this we will have to place in a string position with one leg flexed at 90 degrees and another knee on the ground.
We put a hand on the hip and, starting from this position, we contrast the buttocks and move our weight forward while we keep the trunk straight. We have to stretch and try to grab the foot with a free hand so that the stretch is more complete.
Quadriceps with foam roller
For this exercise, we need a foam roller. We lie on the ground and stretch our legs, leaning the trunk on their forearms. We put a foam roller in the thigh area, just below.
We let one leg rest on the roller, while we roll the roll back and forth doing strength with the leg. We repeated the series with one leg and another.
Leg swing back and forth
We closed this series of quadriceps stretches by standing up, putting our hands on our hips, or looking for a foothold with one of our hands to keep our balance.
From this posture, we lift a leg and swing it forward and backward, like a pendulum. We return to the starting position and do the same with the other leg. It is important not to stretch the lumbar area back abruptly and keep the abdomen contracted.