Kit_L

It really shows you how much of our stress we create ourselves—and we're not aware we're doing it. Very insightful, yes. I can't remember his name, the ATG guy, but I'm pretty sure the heel coming up a bit is not a problem for that exercise. It was the stretching aspect of that exercise he credits with his excellent HF length. It is a great dynamic stretch, I feel. If you take away the balance component (finger against a wall), and really tuck the tail, square the hips, sink the hips until the back knee touches the floor, and use the back leg's quad to straighten the back leg, and stay there, you can make it an excellent active stretch out of it.

That is because your ankles are not loose enough and the muscles at the front of the shin have to work hard to pull the knee as far forward as possible against that resistance. Same with the lower back: if your ankles are not loose enough, the only way to maintain your balance is to bend the trunk forward to bring the central gravity forward. Work on all the ankle stretches we have, both on our side and on YouTube. Once you're loose enough in the ankles, you'll be able to drop your body weight down without any muscular effort whatsoever – and the weight of the body will keep you in the bottom position of the squat. This is how most Asians hang around to smoke a cigarette –and we're talking about 80 and 90 year-old men here. It's definitely doable and it will only take time and a bit of effort.

Look up torticollis; literally Latin for "wry neck". This extremely painful condition can be caused by a draught from a window while sleeping! And torticollis is 100% the domain of levator scapulae. This condition has been talked about for centuries. To future proof yourself against these sorts of things, we need to strengthen these muscles, and also make sure that we're not holding excessive tension in the neck area – what most people don't understand is the tension anywhere in the neck is going to cause the muscles which are the tightest – and in everyone that's levator scapulae – to either go into spasm or start signalling pain. This is how the body works in this universe. And don't worry about overdeveloping the neck muscles or anything like that – most people have never done any specific strengthening work for levator scapuale, and as a result they respond very quickly. But increasing the strength of these muscles will not make your neck look like Mike Tyson's or anything like that. As well, and at the same time (and after the strengthening work as a perfect time to do this), we do need to take the head and neck through that full range of movement I described above. In other words, as far forward as possible, and while holding the head forward, cautiously take it to the side as far as possible. That puts levator scapulae under direct stretch. General contractions can then be done (across and back to the starting position) – and don't forget the contractions themselves are strengthening.

@Matt Chung: the location looks like the same spot that literally everyone holds tension in: the lower fibres of levator scapulae. Once the soreness settles down, you can test this by carefully taking the head forwards with a neutral thoracic spine, then taking the head to the side (while maintaining the forwardness). You'll soon know if it's LS. Strengthening the shrugging muscles (there are lots of them; don't overthink it) usually works in time. Once a week will be enough. In my clinical experience, it's unusual to injure the rhomboids. LS is (statistically) much more likely. Rhomboids are strengthened by full protraction/retraction in horizontal pulling movements. For everyone, some strengthening of horizontal pushing and pulling muscles, along with complementary vertical pushing and pulling is necessary in today's sedentary life.

The best thing you can do for your shoulders is learn to hang, eventually (apart from our hands) being fully relaxed, for time. We have some videos on our YouTube channel that talk about this. I would definitely do this before doing the warming up exercises for the shoulders – and you can do a set at the end as well and then chart the sensations in the shoulders over time. When I was making the YouTube video, my then training partner Craig and I learned to hang by one arm for a five full minutes, alternating the arms every 30". This is a bit extreme but nothing will help your shoulders and improve your grip strength more than this. Of course, start with two arms!

If you can afford a decent remedial massage therapist, they can really get into those calves and they can make a truly significant difference to the speed of recovery. I need some work on my own calves after doing some running the other day – I have small muscle tear in my left calf as a result of this. It's a very long-standing injury in my case. And I have found that only doing the kind of bouncing that you do when skipping is the right kind of stress to heal this, at least for a while. No amount of strengthening the calves seems to have any effect on this weakness. The injury is likely fascial, so needs work that targets this material. Light bouncing does (and it's one of the reasons all boxers skip).

That's some time under tension there. If you want some variation (and I'm working on these myself at the moment), once you've got the initial position do tuck front lever rows – the arm and back effect, assuming you're doing full range of movement from the bottom (so, protract), is very intense. I normally start the rep with the rows, doing as many as I can (10–15, the last being partials), and only then do I untuck the legs and then hold the hardest position I can statically, for at least 10 to 15 seconds, and I hold it until I'm pulled to the ground by gravity and I'm working negatively the whole time, resisting as hard as I can. I normally only do two of these and that is my whole session on that exercise. I have been working like this for a couple of months, and I have found that I've gotten stronger every workout – the last time I did these, which was two days ago, my thighs were vertical in the untucked position with a straight back.

Do you have something you can hang from?

Welcome, @holenother. You've started; that's the big one. You'll get plenty of help here. And read this: https://stretchtherapy.net/relaxation-wiki/ And if you're sore from an earlier workout, skip today's and go for a walk, or a swim, instead. All this takes time.

@aw000: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/374-the-daily-five/ We added the hip flexor stretch because it was needed with all the sitting everyone's doing these days! So it's really the Daily Six now.

Perfect!

Ned, IMO if you are doing the straight-arm plank well, you can drop the elbow one—it's usually the beginner's way in, and is easier than the straight-arm version.

Core teachings from Theravada. Together with the Four Noble Truths, probably the most important teachings of Buddhism. If the prerecorded LRPs do not resonate, or are not experienced as useful, ditch them. Olivia never uses them—she does three rounds of 108 breaths. These numbers depend on how quickly you breathe—108 breaths is enough for one session for me presently. BTW, when you are really tired, a longer practise can be better than sleep and can be substituted for it. And if you wake up around 03:00 thinking about something, re-start the practise then—and tell yourself, "I'm resting." Very likely you'll go back to sleep, and if you don't, you'll be practising, not worrying about not sleeping, and giving the mind something useful to do.

No, this is not accurate. The five hindrances are sensory desire, ill will, sloth and torpor (my favourite; will comment on this later), restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt. Two of the three poisons, in contrast, are attraction (sometimes labelled greed, or craving), and aversion (sometimes cast as hatred or anger). These are driven by the third poison, ignorance or delusion; together these three "unwholesome roots" are the primary causes of all suffering, and why we pay attention to them. While talking to Olivia this morning, she immediately described boredom as aversion, and on brief reflection, she is right, I feel. Leaving aside the theoretical/explanatory roots of this (we are confining ourselves here to the Buddhist perspective; there are many others), her suggestion is to try breath counting, instead of listening to a pre-recorded LRP, or doing one while trying to hold attention on the breath. Breath counting may just do what @Matt Chung needs. It is simplicity itself. In addition to feeling all the movements I described above, after you have breathed in, relax and breathe out, and somewhere in between starting to breathe out, count to yourself, "one". And on the next breath our, increment the count to "two", and so on. Multiples of 27 are considered auspicious. If you lose the count, either go back to "one" (harsh, perhaps, but this will show you your current capacity to hold your awareness on one thing), or go back to the last number you remember clearly. A Zen roshi once told me breath counting was his sole practise for 14 years, so you'll be in good company!

Is boredom an emotion, I wonder? I know it is described this way often. I feel it's the ego wriggling away from being seen—in fact wanting to be anywhere than where it is—here and now. Much human activity is what the psychologists label "displacement activity", usually seen to be the result of two conflicting motivations (wanting to practise, and the ego wanting to stay hidden, perhaps?). If you are really here, and now, there's nowhere to hide and what will be happening is anything but boring, in my experience. As soon as you feel this (the next time you practice, probably), take a breath in, and feel all the movements in the body we label "breathing", and as you breathe out, let every part of your body go soft and melt into the floor. Feel the body get heavier instantly, feel the body moving sideways and down, contacting the floor more closely, and really feel this. A huge number things are happening while you do this, and if you look hard, these are extremely interesting. Being curious is the antithesis of boredom, in my view. Really look and try to see what's there. Thanks for reporting this; it's really helpful in trying to understand what's going on. In my experience, this is completely accurate. And this takes us into new territory, what the Buddha calls "aversion". For next time. Please re-read what I wrote here a few times, and if anything is not clear, please ask me to clarify.