Bryan,
Do your plants look like these:
Or these?
My take on these is that the emerging leaves have grown faster than the existing leaves. And depending on the cold hardiness of the variety, the hardier varieties tend to continue to grow, only go to half-dormancy, while less hardy varieties will almost stop growing.
The upper photos are the Dwarf Lady Fingers. While they stayed green inside the house during the winter, they didn't grow much, if any at all. Then the two in the first upper photo were placed in the greenhouse in full sun. The existing stalk and leaves didn't grow much but the inner stem re-pupped and grew at a greater rate than the existing stalks, causing the outer stalks to pop out as they are being pushed by the new emerging stems.
In the lower photos, due to the cold hardiness of the plants, the existing leaves continued to grow during the winter, although slower than normal. When weather warmed up the corms pushed out new leaves at a greater pace than the existing outer leaves, causing the outer leaves/stalk split.