Touch Your Toes (Good or Bad?)

Is touching your toes a good exercise because it improves the flexibility or is it bad because it harms your spine? Well there are pros and cons and in this video we will show you if it's worth to do it or not. First of all it's about the execution. Any exercise can be a bad one when you're simply doing it wrong. In addition it also depends on your goals and your momentary physical situation and it actually plays a small role how close you can bring your fingers to your feet. It's only important that you correctly perform the right execution to target what you want or need to target. The toe touch can be done with a rounded or a straight spine and with completely extended or slightly bent knees. For most people who want to improve their hip mobility it makes more sense to keep the knees slightly bent to like about 90 to 95 percent extension. Especially if you want to increase the range of motion of your hip flexion this version gives you a better possibility to stretch the hamstrings. The complete extension locks your knees which gives you a good mechanical stability. But in addition you stretch a small muscle located at the knee joint which is called Publiteus muscle and the sciatic nerve in the first place. This reduces the focus on the hamstrings a bit but has other benefits like an improved feedback to the brain which enhances the control of the muscles and with that the stability and mobility. So if you want to focus on stretching your hamstrings and with that improve your hip mobility we suggest the version with bent knees. To maximize the effect we also suggest to do this version with a straight spine in combination with an anterior pelvic tilt. If you want to improve the perception of joint angles and increase your spine mobility but to some degree also work on your hip mobility we suggest the version with straight knees, a rounded spine and a posterior tilted pelvis. Due to the rounded spine and the posterior tilted pelvis you will be able to reach much further downwards as if you would do it with an anterior tilted pelvis and a straight spine. As already said it's still possible to slightly bend your knees even when you do the version with the rounded spine and the posterior tilted pelvis. We suggest this version especially for people who don't have to work on a specific weak point and want to get a good mix between spine mobility, hamstring flexibility and range of motion. If you can't touch your toes no matter which variation you do the reason could be a poor flexibility in your hamstrings, your spine and also in the complete fascia of your posterior chain. On the constitutional side rather long legs compared to your torso and arms also make you having a hard time to touch your toes as well as a bad or missing warm-up does. But most people should be able to do it with a little practice especially if you do the version with the rounded spine, the slightly bent knees and the posterior tilted pelvis. The last key point is about the spine and the correct movement speed. If you do the exercise with a rounded spine it's not a good idea to just let yourself fall forward or to go down as quickly as you can. Instead start with bending your neck by moving your chin to your chest. Aim for bending your spine vertebrae by vertebrae and move your hands along your legs down to the ground until you reach the lowest position possible without feeling any kind of pain. This ensures spinal stabilization and is essential to benefit from this exercise as a mobility and strengthening exercise. Now let's take a look at the first argument against touching your toes which is touching your toes is bad for your spine. As shown before if you do it too quickly and if you aren't able to stabilize your spine vertebrae by vertebrae it can put too much pressure on the spinal discs. It's also not a good idea to do this exercise if you've already had a lumbar or thoracic disc injury. Here it makes more sense to work with lower impact exercises to improve your spine mobility and stability. The cat cow is a perfect example for that. You should still keep in mind that touching your toes without any kind of additional weight does not put that much pressure on a healthy spine. If you do the jefferson curl which is a very common exercise in gymnastics you need a lot more stability in every segment of your spine to do it safely. But more about that later. Now some people might say it's bad to set the spine under any kind of pressure when it's out of its neutral or naturally curved position. Well it's true that the spine has the most stability in those positions but you also have a higher risk of injury if your spine is not used to stabilize itself in other positions than the neutral one. Your brain is responsible to stabilize every joint in your body by controlling the muscles around it in the right way. The more it's used to different positions the more it's able to protect your joints if you're leaving your usual movement patterns. Now you might say why should I go out of my usual movement patterns? Well this happens all the time in your daily life. A short moment of carelessness is enough and you move your spine out of its neutral position and add load to it. No matter if you lift the groceries out of your car, lift something from the ground or if you do any kind of sports or activities that involve unpredictable movements. Martial arts and any kind of contact sports are a perfect example for that. If the control over your back muscles is underdeveloped and the vertebrae is too unstable to deal with the pressure it can happen that the muscles react with spasms. This causes a lot of pain and you will find yourself on the floor unable to move normally. You should also keep in mind that an immobile thoracic spine can lead to dysfunction and pain. For example if the thoracic spine is immobile the lumbar spine will pick up the slack and compensate for the lack of movement in the thoracic spine. This can lead to lower back pain and fatigue. On the opposite end of the thoracic spine are the shoulders and the neck. A lack of mobility in the thoracic spine can cause problems in this area. Some researchers also support the theory that thoracic spine movement dysfunction is linked to pathologies and pain in the neck, shoulder and elbow. Lastly we take a look at the spinal discs. It's often claimed that spinal flexion can lead to disc problems and injuries. Here we found an interesting study which compared two groups. Half of the specimens were wedged to simulate sitting with the lumbar spine flexed. The other half were wedged to simulate sitting or standing erect. The results showed that flexed discs lost more fluid than the erect discs did especially from the nucleus pulposus. It's concluded that fluid flow in flexed postures can aid the nutrition of the lumbar discs. Of course this always depends on the load you put on your spine and if you are able to stabilize these positions. Now we move on to the next argument which is touching your toes is bad for your posture. The root of this argument is that touching your toes forces you into the typical posture of a You know thoracic kyphosis and rounded shoulders. Well it's true that we are already forced too much into this position but there are two points to consider. First you don't touch your toes for several hours of the day. Bad posture mainly exists because people are forced into this position hour by hour, day by day, year by year. It starts with school and continues in adulthood. In addition they do nearly nothing to work against it. If you touch your toes for a few seconds or minutes each day it does nothing bad to your posture as long as you keep the right balance between spinal flexion and extension and the training of your anterior and posterior muscle chain. Second touching your toes is an active movement with a stability component. The goal of this exercise is not only to stretch your muscles but to stabilize and strengthen the muscles around your spine. In addition this gives you a very high neuronal input to your brain which is the controlling part of stability and mobility. Without proper control it doesn't matter how strong your muscles are because you can't use them in the right way. A slouching posture on the other hand is a passive movement in which you do not aim for any kind of mobility or stability. Of course this brings us back to the execution. It's a huge difference if you just let yourself fall forward to touch your toes or if you do it actively with full control. The last argument is touching your toes is not necessary and a bad exercise in general. Well, if you already got back pain or disc injuries or if you only want to stretch specific muscles touching your toes might not be the best option. For example if you want to focus on stretching your hamstrings other exercises could do the job as well if not better. But touching your toes combines spinal mobility and stability while stretching your hamstrings and the fascia of your posterior chain. The combination of these elements makes this exercise very effective as long as you're doing it right. Another important point you have to consider is sports performance. Touching your toes is a very useful exercise to improve compression strength. This is very important not only in gymnastics or for calisthenics skills but also in many other sports like martial arts, parkour, yoga and any kind of artistic sports. In gymnastics it's also very common to do the Jefferson Curl which in this case makes sense to be done with completely straight knees. This is because the training for that is pretty much focused on the neuronal part and aims for improving mobility, control and stability. On higher levels you do this exercise even with additional weights. This can be a bit risky if you've never done it before and we don't recommend any beginner to try this without preparation. On the other hand we think it's worth the risk-reward ratio if you have no spine or disc injuries, if you are already used to the non-weighted version, if you are able to stabilize your spine in every part of the movement, if you don't feel any back pain and if you do it slowly with proper form. So what's the conclusion? Summarized you should know that touching your toes is not a bad exercise in general. If it's good or not depends on your circumstances, individual goals and if you are able to do the exercise with proper form. If you got no spine or disc problems you should still take your time and let your body adapt to it. Don't force it too much and increase your range of motion step by step. Also make sure that you got the right balance between spinal flexion and extension and of course don't forget rotation and lateral flexion. A healthy spine is mobile and stable in all those positions. Please keep in mind that touching your toes is not the only exercise with that you can work on your hamstring flexibility and spine mobility. There are lots of other exercises that might be better if you have one specific weak point or already deal with some injuries. If you now want to know how a complete mobility and flexibility workout could look like you should head over to kellymove.com and check our mobility program. The program is designed as a step-by-step online course and comes in three levels. Each level is designed as a mobility flow and includes a wide variety of exercises to improve your posture, work against imbalances and increase the mobility and flexibility of your whole body. As a beginner you start with easier exercises and improve yourself step by step. The program can be used as a warm-up before or a cool-down after your regular workout. Of course it's also possible to do it as a quick stand-alone session in the morning or in the evening. If you have any further questions just leave a comment. I'm Alex and I see you in the next video.