3 Reasons you can’t Touch your Toes

1. Your posture: Yes, it can be as simple as how you hold yourself when you are standing before bending forward. If you stand slouched, you may be rotating your pelvis forward, or anteriorly. This pulls the bone where the hamstrings connect upwards, lengthening your hamstrings before you even start bending forward! How many people have stretched their hamstrings to no success?!

Solution? Tuck your pelvis under, like you are tucking a tail between your legs before bending forward. If posture is the culprit, you should notice a significant improvement in how far you can bend.

2. Your motor control: My what? What does that even mean?! Most people understand muscles and bones, but forget that there is this pesky thing called our nervous system which helps control our movements. It acts like a super computer. Sometimes, the body just doesn’t KNOW how to bend over and touch the toes without fearing that we will fall on our face!

Solution?  Stick a pillow in between your legs and squeeze before bending forward. If motor control is the culprit, you should notice a significant improvement in how far you can bend. Squeezing the pillow between the knees helps provide important feedback to the brain and forces your adductors to help stabilize during the movement.

3. Tight muscles: Hamstrings, hamstrings, hamstrings! For some people, it feels like they’re ripping out of the body when they bend forward. If you’re one of those people who stretch those hamstrings though and get nowhere, another muscle group may be the problem. Your hip flexors may be pulling your pelvis forward, or anteriorly. Like posture, tight hip flexors will pull the bone where the hamstrings connect upwards, lengthening your hamstrings before you even start bending forward!

Solution? Stop with the hamstrings already! Stretch out the hip flexors then try the postural strategy as detailed above to see if this helps improve your ability to touch your toes!

Originally written by Bailey Gresham, RPT