Stretching is very important for muscle flexibility and muscle development. Learn how to stretch the quads properly from a professional trainer in this workout video.
Lay on stomach
Hand to foot
Pull up & twist shoulder
Use variations
Michael Rosengart is a professional fitness trainer in Santa Monica, California.
Off-season training for football: Cool-down, the quad stretch. Since we're just stretching the glutes and the hamstrings and the hips, we now want to work on also stretching the quadriceps so that there's a balance in your body, which is really important for muscle development and also motor mechanics. So we're going to come down, we're going to lay on our stomach and real simple, we're just going to take the hand to the same side foot and just hold on to the ankle. I'm going to twist the shoulder down, keep the hips flat down and then just try to lift your knee off the ground. [DEMONSTRATION] And then once you're able to do that, then we can change the grip of the hand on your foot and lift a little bit more. Each time, try to keep the hip flat on the ground while the knee is moving away from the ground. Then a little more advanced would be to use the opposite hand to help lift the knee up off the ground. Again, while you're in this stretch, really just focus on taking deep breaths in, exhaling out. Allow the stretch to deepen with each breath but don't force the stretch to deepen, meaning you don't want to pull on the stretch, you want to go to what your body is allowing you to do, relax, breathe in. If then on the next exhale your body will deepen into the stretch, by all means take the stretch a little deeper.
