maratoolOn Your Side Quad Stretch
How to do the on your side quad stretch
- Start off by lying on your right side, with your right knee bent at a 90-degree angle resting on the floor in front of you (this stabilizes the torso).
- Bend your left knee behind you and hold your left foot with your left hand. To stretch your hip flexor, press your left hip forward as you push your left foot back into your hand. Switch sides.
Muscles worked
The muscles under tension are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.
A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Every exercise for:Quadriceps
How this movement works
You get into position and hold. One joint sets the angle and one muscle group takes the tension, so the load stays exactly where you put it. Hold for time, breathe normally, and come out the moment the position drifts: a shape that has quietly shifted is no longer training what you set it up to train.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- One Arm Side Deadlift with Barbellbarbell
- One-Arm Overhead Kettlebell Squatskettlebell
- Pile Squat with Dumbbelldumbbell
- Quadriceps-SMRfoam roll
- Rear Leg Raisesbody only
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 70 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.