Recumbent Knee Flexor Stretch

Knee and Thigh Stretches:

Method:
Lie flat on your back in a doorway with the hips placed in front of the doorframe. Raise the right leg and rest it on the doorframe. Keep the right knee straight and the left leg flat on the floor. Place the hands palms down on either side of the buttocks. Keeping the right leg straight, use the hands to slowly move the buttocks through the doorframe until you feel a stretch in the back of the leg.

Affected Body Part:
Most-stretched muscles: Right gluteus maximus, right semitendinosus, right semimembranosus, right biceps femoris, right gastrocnemius.
Lesser-stretched muscles: Right soleus, right popliteus, right plantaris, right flexor digitorum longus, right flexor hallucis longus, right posterior tibialis, left sartorius, left rectus femoris.

To maximize the stretch of the knee flexors, do not bend the knees, tilt the pelvis forward, or curve the back. Adjust the distance between the buttocks and the doorframe to increase or decrease the stretch. The closer the buttocks are to the doorframe, the greater the stretch. Once the buttocks cannot be positioned any closer to the doorframe, bending the leg at the hip and moving the leg toward the head can increase the stretch.