Standing single pike SE 18-19 understanding

Hello!

When doing this stretch, where should my feet be? How much close to the wall should it be? This stretch is targeting the hamstring right? Because there is also quadricep stretch which looks very similiar to this and I am a bit confused..

I have the same query as you Itamar - how close should the standing leg's heel be to the wall?  In one of the pictures Orench's heel is an inch or so from the wall, but mine is something like 1 foot away from the wall.

Is this working strength by standing on one leg?  It's quite intense.

I was wondering about that one too! Coach told me at the seminar that it's a more intense version of the regular standing pike because you are doing it on one leg only. But to be honest for me it feels actually easier on one leg so I really have not gotten the point of that stretch yet. But I'm also about 1 foot away from the wall, that might be the thing that I'm doing wrong.

When you do a regular standing pike you have your trunk weigth pulling against the  hamstring resistance of two legs.

When you take one leg of the ground you have all that weight to stretch just one leg and that makes the stretch much more intense.

When doing the stretch, placing my feet as close as I can to the wall is suppose to be harder then placing it a few inches from the wall?

You want the leg as close to the wall as possible without toppling over. It's taken me months to get the hang of. But as a pike stretch, I gather that it's about compression. So: get straight leg as close to wall/upright as possible, then bring torso as close to that upright leg as you can manage without overstraining, hurting yourself, or toppling over.

I notice when I do this stretch that my hip if my non-stretching leg drops down. Any thoughts on whether we should be trying to keep the hips level?

Most likely you want the hips level. Keeping the hips uneven moves the tension away from squarely behind the leg. 

So from reading this, my understanding is that the bent leg is to take support away and make it an intense single leg stretch. right?

The standing quad stretch that people are asking here is just by looks only,  right? as there is no way to put adequate force into the wall to stretch the quad.
This leads to the position of the foot, being as close to the wall as possible, which would then close the angle of the ankle since your hips aren't directly over your ankle because your big fat leg is pushing you away from the wall. right?

Luzian said:

I was wondering about that one too! Coach told me at the seminar that it's a more intense version of the regular standing pike because you are doing it on one leg only. But to be honest for me it feels actually easier on one leg so I really have not gotten the point of that stretch yet. But I'm also about 1 foot away from the wall, that might be the thing that I'm doing wrong.

This simply means that you are resting your weight on your hands rather than keeping the weight on the standing leg.  

Ideally the hands are only there to help maintain balance or to reduce load if needed if full bodyweight is too intense.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

This simply means that you are resting your weight on your hands rather than keeping the weight on the standing leg.  

 

Ideally the hands are only there to help maintain balance or to reduce load if needed if full bodyweight is too intense.

 

Very helpful, thanks for that hint! I am indeed feeling a lot of weight on the hands. Luckily the FSS is on my schedule for today, so I'm really looking forward to give it a try

Luzian said:

Very helpful, thanks for that hint! I am indeed feeling a lot of weight on the hands. Luckily the FSS is on my schedule for today, so I'm really looking forward to give it a try

Let us know how it goes. I'm in the same situation. Lot of weight on my hands, to the extent that my shoulders hurt at the end of the set, but very mild to no stretching. Any cues to get into a more productive position would be very helpful. The back of my foot is already touching the wall.

My guess is to somehow intersect this problem. Bring your standing foot out far enough away from the wall that a) not all/much of your body weight is resting on your hands and b) you are still getting a formidable compression of the torso and, thus, stretch on that vertical hamstring (I say formidable because this stretch can't really be described any other way, when you hit that sweet intersection, you know...oh, do you know.)

As a general rule, if something feels too easy, ask yourself if you are doing it the same way Kira is doing it.  If not, you need to adjust