How to Improve Your Leg Holds

Most people think the key to a good leg hold is flexibility. While that is an important aspect there is more to it.  When performing a leg hold you also need to focus on your balance and posture.  If you are only worried about how high your leg is you will most likely end up hopping around before, eventually, dropping your leg.

When working on balance there are three different body sections to focus on. The first segments are your knees. They both need to be as straight as can be. When the supporting leg is straight it keeps you more stable and when the leg that is up in the air is fully extended it makes the leg feel lighter so it can stay up longer.

*Incorrect* with the bottom leg bent

*Correct* with both legs straight

The next is focusing on sending your weight and energy down through your supporting foot. This will keep you firmly planted and will eliminate hopping. The last is your hip placement. It is very common to lift the hip of the working leg to get more height.  In doing that, you pull your center of gravity away from your supporting leg and you end up falling towards the working leg. We want to focus on keeping your hips level so all of your weight is in one place.

Posture is really important in a leg hold for more reasons than it makes it look prettier.  It is important because it will help with your strength and balance. One important area to focus on is your shoulders. You want to work on keeping them rolled back and pushing down. When we let them creep forward and up we create a hunching motion that sends our weight front instead of over our supporting leg. This makes it hard to engage our center. We also want to remember to stand tall in this position. This will help engage the muscles in our back to hold us strong.

An exercise we can do to help with our posture is a partner leg hold while sitting. One person sits on the ground with one leg out straight and the other above their head, emulating a leg hold. The second person stands behind them to pull the leg back. Along with holding the working leg they push up against the back of the first partner. This makes it feel like they are sitting up against a wall and makes them sit straight and not hunch. 

Working on all of these things will improve your leg holds in no time. You should be practicing them and the stretching exercise at least 3 times a week.  Doing your leg holds so frequently will also help your flexibility all around.  So it will also help with your banana splits!