A Better Stretch for Dancers: Try This Butterfly

This video is a real-time tutorial on a butterfly stretch that uses the Functional Range Conditioning principles PAILs and RAILs.

Honestly, don't worry so much about the terminology, but I'm gonna include it in the description in case you're interested in the rabbit hole.

Progressive Angular Isometric Loading (PAIL)Regressive Angular Isometric Loading (RAIL)

The process starts with a 2:00 minute passive stretch--dancers, be sure you're sitting with good posture and that you're not getting into an arabesque-like spinal extension.

At the end of that 2:00 minute passive stretch, I'm going to lift my knees but resist that force with my elbows, so my knees shouldn't move. Note: I don't just suddenly press my knees against my elbows! I slowly build up this pressure, and once I get to 90-95 percent of my muscle contraction, my entire body should feel like it's involved. This causes an ISOMETRIC contraction, meaning the tissue involved (adductors!) is neither lengthening or shortening. (This is the PAILs).

Then I recover for a beat or two, and then I try to actively move my knees toward the floor. (This is the RAILs).

After a bit more recovery, I ramp up slowly and do another PAILs contraction, and then another RAILs contraction.

I'm using 15-second PAILs and RAILs contractions, but you can choose a time that works best for your goals.

For dancers, we know that passive flexibility is critical to getting into extraordinary shapes. But we want the gap between passive flexibility and active mobility to be as small as possible. That's what great about PAILs and RAILs: we can work both passive range of motion AND active mobility/strength.