Physiotherapist Erika Mayall answers three questions teachers ask all the time: why dancers struggle with square hip splits, what a well-designed mobility program actually needs to include, and how the nervous system can quietly limit range of motion even when muscle length isn't the problem. Science-based, practical, and worth sharing with your whole team.

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About Erika
Erika Mayall Physiotherapist MPT, HBSc(Kin), CAFCI, FCAMPT

Erika is a registered physiotherapist and the owner of Allegro Performance + Wellness, a boutique physiotherapy clinic in North Vancouver that specializes in treating dancers and other artistic athletes. As a former elite dancer, Erika’s passion lies not just in treating injuries, but also in injury prevention and maximizing performance potential.  Erika has a passion for education within the dance community, and is the host of The Dance Physio Podcast where she aims to bridge the gap between dance science and the studio. Erika has completed specialized training in the field of dance medicine in Australia, Canada and the United States. She is a frequent invited guest speaker on the topic of dance medicine and science locally, nationally and internationally and teaches workshops on the same topics to dancers and dance educators.

If you're interested in learning more about the nervous system’s involvement in flexibility training, visit https://www.allegroperformance.com/flexibility-foundations for more information.
 

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Loren  0:01  
Hey everyone, welcome to the Acrobatic Arts Podcast.

Loren  0:05  
I'm Loren, and I will be interviewing some of the top leaders and innovators from the dance and acrobatic industry. If you are a teacher, performer, student, or a lifelong learner like myself, you are sure to find these episodes intriguing and full of inspiration.

Loren  0:22  
Acrobatic Arts is passionate about providing current and relevant information for everyone, so please sit back and enjoy as we share our passion with you and the world.

Loren  0:36  
Today's episode is part of our Spotlight series where we revisit conversations that continue to resonate across the dance community.

Loren  0:47  
Today, we're taking it back to Episode 14 with Erika Mayall. Erika is a registered physiotherapist and the owner of Allegro performance and wellness, a boutique physiotherapy clinic that specializes in treating dancers and other artistic athletes. As a former elite dancer, Erika's passion lies not in just treating injuries, but also in injury prevention and maximizing performance potential. Erika has a passion for education within the dance community, and is the host of the dance physio podcast, where she aims to bridge the gap between dance science and the studio. 

Loren  1:20  
In this episode, Erika answers three questions, all centered around flexibility. The first question, and one so many teachers and dancers are working through, is, how can we help our dancers with square hip splits? I know this can be a struggle, but Erika provides clear explanations and gives you strategies that you can start using right away in your training. Now it's time to shine the spotlight on today's guest.

Erika  1:52  
Hi. My name is Erika Mayall. I am a physiotherapist that specializes in working with dancers and other artistic athletes, and I own Allegro performance and wellness in Vancouver, Canada. 

Erika  2:01  
Today we are going to talk about square splits and hip flexor involvement when working on square splits or trying to keep hip square in activities that involve hip extension. So in a lot of dancers or students, you'll often see that they struggle to maintain square splits, or they struggle to actually get hip extension if they're tight in their hip flexors, and oftentimes they'll end up compensating through their low back, so through their lumbar spine. And so you'll get a lot of over extension through the lumbar spine, and not a lot of hip extension in those positions. And so that can make it really difficult for a student to then be able to work on a position such as square splits that actually requires a fair amount of hip extension in that position. 

Erika  2:43  
So it's really important if you're working on any sort of hip mobility stuff, that you're really working on actual true hip flexor length. So making sure if you're working on stretching for hip flexors, or just that mobility and kids that might be tight, that you're really working with their spine in a neutral position, or even a little bit of kind of a flat back position. So sometimes we'll actually let them almost tuck their pelvis underneath the tiny bit when going into like a hip flexor stretch to maintain that sort of neutral, or even a little bit of a kind of tucked position in the low back, to make sure that they're actually getting sort of a stretch through that hip flexor in that position. And that's really going to help them be able to access more length in their hip flexors, which will enable them to be able to achieve things like a square split or a bridge or things that require a lot of hip extension in that position.

Loren  3:33  
Second question, what exactly should we focus on when designing our mobility programs?

Erika  3:41  
So there's been controversy in the literature in terms of research for a long, long time about how people improve their flexibility. And so there's been studies that have shown different mechanical effects of stretching and the potential that we're actually adding more sort of fibers to muscle. There's other properties, the sort of viscoelastic property of the muscle that we think that that's where flexibility comes from. There's also studies that are showing that there's a much more sort of prominent nervous system input to flexibility, and so more of a sensory input. There's studies that show that simply stretching, we increase our tolerance to stretching, so we get used to that stretching feeling, and then can be able to push a little bit further into those stretches, and that's how people gain flexibility. 

Erika  4:25  
There's no consensus in the research at this point that shows that this is the exact mechanism that improvements in muscle flexibility occur by. And I think that that probably speaks to the fact that there's probably a complex interplay between the mechanical system and the sort of sensory or nervous system component, and that they're interacting with each other. And so in order for us to maximize flexibility, or really get the most out of a flexibility program, I think we need to address all components of that. So we're going to have a mechanical aspect of that, but we also need to address the nervous system aspect. So when I'm approaching. And flexibility training, the components that I include in a mobility or a flexibility program, I often start with some sort of sort of soft tissue preparation type activity. Often that's foam rolling, ball rolling, those types of things, just to get the muscles a little bit loosened up, get blood flow. We get what we call neuro sensory modulation happening during that so there's sensory input that feeds into the nervous system to sort of prepare our muscles and our tissues for what we're going to be doing. So that can be a big, big influence on your flexibility or your mobility program. 

Erika  5:31  
We'll also include nerve mobilization type exercises, so making sure that we're mobilizing the nervous system, not just in people who are really restricted through the nervous system in terms of maybe having a little bit of neurotension or that sort of thing. But also we know that with nerve mobilizations, we actually have physiological processes that happen where there's increased blood flow to the nerves and sort of nutrients and stuff that are delivered through that. So they can be important even in people where that's maybe not the main limiting factor in their flexibility. 

Erika  6:02  
We also want to make sure we're incorporating some end range activation type exercises, so coming into our end of the range that we can safely control, and then activating those muscles in that end range to stabilize joints, to make sure that the nervous system knows that the body is stable and strong in those positions. And then we can add our sort of typical passive stretching that maybe has more of a mechanical effect, if we're thinking about those kind of viscoelastic properties of the muscle coming in and doing our traditional static stretches, where we might go into the stretch and hold it for 30 seconds and then come out and do the other side. So making sure that your mobility program incorporates things that are going to address both the mechanical aspect of it as well as the sensory or the nervous system input to flexibility.

Loren  6:46  
Third and last question, how does the nervous system affect mobility and flexibility?

Erika  6:53  
Another potential limitation from the nervous system that can affect people's mobility or flexibility, that isn't actually to do with stretching, necessarily. So in some people, what we'll find is, especially if they're a little bit more on the hypermobile side, or they don't have good control of their joints in their end ranges of motion, the nervous system can actually get a little bit sort of ramped up or over protective if it feels unsafe in those positions. Our nervous system's job is basically to protect our body. It's kind of like an alert system in our body. It wants body. It wants to protect our body at all costs. 

Erika  7:25  
So if we're going into, for example, the splits, because that's an easy example, you may find that somebody sort of lacking mobility and limited in their splits, not because they have decreased mobility in their hamstring or in their hip flexor. If you individually test both those muscles that you may find that they actually have what seems like adequate length, like they should be able to get into the splits based on how much mobility they have in their hamstring, how much mobility they have in their hip flexor, but they're just really restricted and can't get into the splits. That could be the nervous system guarding their body so trying to protect it, if they're potentially unstable through their hip joints, potentially their SI joint, even low back sometimes. So in some cases, when we want to work on increasing flexibility, what we actually need to think about doing is increasing strength or stability through certain joints. And so one of the most effective ways to do that, if we also want to increase flexibility at the same time, is to really work on specific end of range activation type exercises. So what I mean by that is you can take the joint into where, sort of the end of the range that they can control. So whether it's for hamstring or hip flexor or whatever muscle you're working on, and then from that position, work on a kind of activation exercise. 

Erika  8:36  
So if it's a hamstring position, we take that person into a hamstring stretch to the end of sort of their limit, and then I'm going to ask the hamstring to do some sort of resisted work. And one of the easiest ways to do that is sort of just use a theraband, wrap it around their leg, and have them just do little tiny presses into the theraband to activate the hamstring. If the body feels that the or if the nervous system feels that the body is more stable in that position, you'll often find that you can gain mobility through those ranges. So the nervous system now thinks, Okay, great, this hamstring is strong enough to be able to protect my joints. In this position, I'm actually going to be able to go further into that range of motion. 

Erika  9:14  
So sometimes a student's flexibility is not actually limited by the muscles length. They may have adequate muscle length, but it may be limited by their sort of control or strength around that joint. And if we can increase their active stability around that joint, the nervous system is going to feel safe and allow them to move into those more extreme ranges of motion and know that their joints are protected and that their body's protected in those ranges.

Loren  9:42  
If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode. And if you know a dance teacher, student or parent who would love to hear this discussion, send it the. Our way sharing the show is one of the best ways to support the podcast. 

Loren  10:04  
Until next time, find power in your strength, freedom in your flexibility, and know that we are here to support you on your acro journey. 

Loren  10:14  
Thanks for listening, everyone, and have a great day!