Kit_L

I have never heard of latissimus dorsi cramping while under stretch—in my experience, and the experience of the thousands of students we have worked with over the years, hanging always relieves a cramp—this is fundamental to how the body works. Contractions, whether part of something else, or the first part of the pull of a chin up, can cause the muscles to cramp, but letting the body relax in that position and letting the body's weight stretch the same muscles and always relieves the cramp. Cramping is an involuntary contraction of the majority of the muscle fibres of a muscle involved, and only lengthening that muscle can relieve a cramp. It may be that the sensation you're feeling in your body are not a cramp. I'm going to outline the exercise I am recommending once more. Get a good grip of the bar, with your feet still on the ground, and then slowly bend your knees so more and more of your weight comes on your arms and hands gently, so you can adjust to the sensation. Before the full weight of your body comes on (so while your feet are still lightly touching the ground), and with your elbows pressed completely straight using your triceps, gently pull up just an inch or two – hold that for a few seconds then take a breath in and let your body's weight stretch your lats so your shoulders come up closer to your ears. Repeat this three or four times, concentrating on letting yourself go down lower after each small contraction. The elbows must stay straight during this to ensure that only latissimus dorsi works in the small pulling part. That is all I would do for the first week or so. And then, as a separate action on another occasion, after you do the small contraction, and let yourself hang down experiencing your full body's weight, that's when you think about pressing the bar up away from you. This activates trapezius – and the activation of trapezius in this position inhibits latissimus dorsi. Inhibit here means that the nervous system sends a message to latissimus dorsi to relax so that trapezius can activate – this happens at the same time. This is called the reciprocal inhibition reflex – you can look it up. Trapezius elevates the shoulder girdle; latissimus dorsi depresses it; they do the opposite movements. All muscles in the body are paired in this way except the tongue. When one of the pair activates, the other is inhibited and we have used this fact of how the body is organised as a very powerful method of stretching – it is one of the three reflexes we work with all the time. And when you do make the time to do the hanging side bend, I think you will find out just how tight your latissimus dorsi are—and loosening these will have a major beneficial effect on your swing. Both exercises are essential for you. Stop doing the piano stool stretch for now; Olivia will be chiming in with a gentler suggestion.

And have you started the hanging practice yet? This too stretches latissimus dorsi. Combined with the exercise linked to immediately above, the piano stool exercises will be able to be done, in time.

Do please report back with what the dentist suggests. And now your symptoms are suggesting Thoracic Outlet Compression Syndrome (TOCS). Try this: https://stretchtherapy.net/shoulder-pull-down/ If that is too intense, there's a floor version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ko2hjOo_4& These two have helped many people.

Most definitely. Running definitely made me less flexible (and why I started what I do now!). Keep going.

Without see you try to do this, I cannot. Too many variables. Before trying the same exercise the next time, do this one immediately before: https://stretchtherapy.net/hanging-side-bend-variations-for-trunk-pain-relief/ And I request that you try any new exercises for at least two weeks before asking for assistance again—trying anything for the first time is likely to produce anomalies. Please experiment with angles and load, and see if you can work out a way through, that makes the exercise doable. You are trying to remake a lifetime of existing patterns, and this does not happen with one, or twenty, attempts.

Yes, definitely. Once you get used to doing it (and do it a few times each session, with contractions every second session), you can add a tail tuck (roll the top of the pelvis back to first flatten, then in time flex the lumbar spine), and this will enhance this effect. In time, you'll be able to rotate the shoulders about 90° in relation to the pelvis, and you'll be a lot more flexible than most people. Your swing will improve, for sure.

Patrick, I checked with a number of authoritative sites before writing this, but the golf swing does not require extreme lateral flexion—what it does require is good thoracic rotation (without over-rotating the lumbar spine) and good thoracic extension, which most aging males have lost years ago. Start here, where the most important cue is to lift the chest (the start of thoracic extension) before you try to rotate the shoulders. If you do not, all the rotation will be in the lumbar spine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwpSMCenE4Q Do you mean Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), or something else? Not uncommon—none of us is symmetrical. The secret here is to bend away from the R side two or three times before trying to bend to the right and (this is important) breathe in deeply and lift your ribs up in the process before you've bend to the right – some people's ribs actually jam against the top of the pelvis in this movement and lifting the chest up can allow the ribs to clear the top of the ischial tuberosity, as it's called. And if it is not that but something else, bending away from that side before you try to bend to that side will stretch it out and relax whatever muscles are cramping. For a golfer, one of the critical parts of this exercise is to genuinely try to reach your fingers as far away up end of the ceiling and away from the hip as you can once you've gone as far as you can to the side – in this additional movement, the trapezius muscles are actually stretching latissimus dorsi, and this provides an effective stretch. Tight latissimus dorsi is the number one reason people do not have good thoracic extension. Another effective way of stretching the same muscles (and something that is good for the whole body and tends to straighten it) is to simply hang from a bar as relaxedly as you can – and once you think you've relaxed fully then think about "how do I press the bar up away from me even higher?" – that engages the trapezius muscles in the same way and you'll get a much stronger stretch in the lats as a result. And the best way to improve thoracic extension (in addition to hanging as mentioned above) is to use an exercise that targets everyone's stiffest part of the thoracic spine. This is easy to find: all you have to do is try this exercise: https://stretchtherapy.net/piano-stool-back-bend/ You may not have a piano stool handy, but if you have access to a gym, then all you do is duplicate the same movement over any padded bench, putting the edge of the bench on the stiffest part of the thoracic spine – and bringing the stretch on by lowering the hips. Most people will try to bend in their lumbar spine, which you don't want – that edge of the bench has to be placed on the stiffest part of the back and you need to use a little tail tucking movement – flexing the lumbar spine slightly, – to keep the stretch out of the lumbar spine. That way the weight of the legs will bend the thoracic spine backward rather than the lumbar spine. And in the process, you simply position the bench away from something that you can hang onto so that you can duplicate what Olivia is doing. If you cannot duplicate that movement with the equipment you have access to, please comment and I will come up with something else.

It can simply be a habit, too; no problem, once you realise this. One of my teachers said to me, the illusion of having control is one of the most destructive delusions – in reality we have very little control over the big events that occur to us in our lives (being born, where you're born, the language you speak, your partner, your daughter, your work, your passion for dance), but we have every capacity to control how we react to what happens. This is a much more subtle skill and a lifetime skill as well. You have made a massive contribution to this forum – let me say that publicly. And we use that little film that you made about your progress in dance as the first thing that people see if they're visiting the Stretch Therapy homepage in YouTube for the first time. It is brilliant. And your contributions here have been truly excellent, and your contributions were the springboard for many of my comments, too. Sincere thanks.

Possibly. Piriformis, I have found, is almost always involved, as a contributing cause, which can aggregate with any other cause present in the system. Make sure you siege the advanced p. pose (which you are loose enough to do well) in combination with that pose you demonstrate above (which, in addition to being a mild hamstring stretch for you, is also a direct stretch for piriformis – you are internally rotating your thigh in the hip joint, and at this angle piriformis is an external rotator). Combining the two stretches in a session might just be what you need. There are, of course, more extenuating factors – whether piriformis traps, completely or partially, one of the two trunks of the sciatic nerve can happen on one or both sides of the body—this is a developmental trait. It's perfectly common for piriformis syndrome to only occur on one side. This may or may not be related to the pronation – there are many factors that contribute to pronation, chief among them being a lack of stimulation from the soles of the feet. Most people who have pronating ankles can deliberately align their ankles by lifting up the toes and simply pressing a bit more weight on the outside of the foot, something that you have seen people do deliberately on many workshops. Once the brain is made aware of a more desirable placement of weight, this can become a new habit, if practised. Nonetheless, if there is a lack of sufficient external rotation, pronation can follow and this can be the only cause of it in some instances. In most instances though, there are many causes in play in addition. Sincere thanks for your thoughtful and detailed reply. If there's anything else you want to explore in this thread, please comment further.

Is this the leg of the foot with the tendon injury? Unless you are doing unilateral strength training for the legs (which I recommend for everyone, even if there's no obvious L–R difference), you cannot know which is the stronger quadriceps, or whether they are doing the same work, or whether there is any other compensation. As well, you have a significant L–R difference in function, due to that old injury. So, possible compensation on top of compensation—very hard to work out cause and effect, here. For legs, unilateral is the preferred method. A knot in a muscle is not an injury, if it can be changed by rolling or pressure point therapy. And the external rotator difference is what I would expect with that old injury. Please have a think about what I wrote here, and respond. And re-present your questions following this, please. And can you take a picture of the exercise you describe? And as for whether I think this is a good exercise, only you can be the judge of that. If it feels good/works for you, how can it not be good?

The TMJ (temporomandibular) joint is just in front of the ear, so not surprising. And big, sometimes massive L–R differences are to be expected; the TMJ is the body's last option for balancing unbalanced forces around the spine. Yes, please monitor and report any findings—after a few weeks! It takes time for any of these techniques to be properly embodied.

Partly to get the maximum range of movement for the exercises (leads to greatest strength and awareness of the movement) but mainly to get the maximum ROM in the pronation to supination movement, and hence maximum strength (and awareness) gains. This is a strong stretch, too. Pronation is a desirable movement, if it is controlled, and there is the strength and the timing/coordination for the body to use it. If you are a heel striker, then your ankles pronate as part of the shock absorbing mechanism. Get someone to video your feet as you are running towards them – and put it on slow motion and you will see it clearly.

It's too early to make that determination—it's been two weeks? Add this and report back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtH7lQrPoxU

Perhaps especially with easy things; internally, this is like hearing yourself say, 'I know that'. All excellent.

This will take as long as it takes – and there's nothing wrong with snoozing or sleeping when you're doing lying meditation practice – and that's what will happen if you're fundamentally tired over a long period of time. That's probably the phase that you're in now. I know people have done yoga nidra practice for two or three years before they suddenly realise that they're listening to half of the recording that they haven't ever heard before because fell asleep. If you need to sleep it's very good for the body to sleep. You are noticing it though – that is the key point most non-meditators are simply not aware that they're being distracted by their own thoughts all the time. This is all part of the process and there is no such thing as a bad meditation session – if you're paying attention to what is actually happening. I cannot speak for you. The depth that you reach is constrained by many factors. In my view, there is a danger in trying to calibrate your practice—the spectres of "progress" and "improvement" are close by! Better, in my view, to simply pay attention to what's happening now, and make your 'now' window as narrow as possible. Most people are thinking about now, but now is actually a physical experience – it is pure presence and nothing else can be found there. If you're thinking about now, you are definitely not present (you have moved from the experiential realm to the conceptual one). I do not believe that trying to sit for longer will yield any "better" meditation; I have mentioned this to you before, IIRC. If a sit (or whatever position you are using naturally extends), that's one thing. Trying to sit for longer is something else, I believe. Most definitely. Keep going.

It means you felt tightness in the groin, on that occasion; nothing more. See what the next session brings. There are N different possibilities as to the 'why', but unless it is severe tightness, there are usually no point in delving into this. See what happens next.

Keep on stretching! The stretching itself is making you aware of the differences I mentioned in a post above. This is normal, and to be expected. It will take a while to change a lifetime's habits.

Search the YT channel for pec. minor, pec. major, lying back bend, and do the long head of biceps stretch while you're in the position to do the pec. stretches. All good!

Someone who uses her body professionally (dancer, for example) knows, at a deep level, how hard to push anything, and the good ones are constantly listening to what their body is telling them. I will never argue for sets and reps! Male and female gymnasts have been doing a huge amount of low intensity conditioning work for many many years before they start to do the extremely difficult stuff. For example, while I was watching a young gymnast in coach Sommer's facility in Arizona, he revealed he had been working with that boy for 12,000 hours or so by the time I met him – from the age of about four. They do an endless amount of repetitive, relatively low stress work, and this plays into the remark that I made to Matt the other day – tendons and ligaments need a large amount of that really low level work because they have poor nutrient supply and, also if the coaches any good, absolutely critical movement patterns and body positions are being grooved into the young gymnasts during that work. And now returning to dancers: many of them start very young as well and they attend limbering classes and gentle dance classes for years and years and years before they are encouraged to do the more difficult and demanding movements – exactly the same conditioning in other words. The reason I started out with my dance for example in the first paragraph above is that I work with many elite dancers and their understanding of their own bodies and what their bodies need and what the limitations to what they can do are are very well and consciously known by this is why in all the advice that I give people here it is to listen to what Body is saying and at some point you'll be able to hear it. This is also the reason why so many adults who try to pick up gymnastics or calisthenics skills as adults so often hurt themselves – they simply do not have the line in the body that this kind of repetitive training gives, and they do not have the tendon and ligament strength. When we are getting stronger, we must be very mindful, and we must not proceed as fast as the body says that we can.

Very likely, @Matt Chung. This is the deep reason why all gymnasts and dancers spend so much time conditioning.

Yes: that is the recommended approach. The underlying rationale here is that tendons and ligaments have only about 1/10 of the blood/nutrient supply of muscles – so we have to proceed at a rate which accommodate these tissues rather than get as strong as we can as quickly as we can. Getting stronger is as much a neural phenomenon as a physical one. It is definitely possible that the muscles get stronger to a point where the tendons and ligaments that are involved in the chain of force production are not strong enough to support that new strength – and this is the reason why the recommendations of how to proceed look so conservative from the outside. This is also why developing the capacity to feel what's actually happening in your body rather than following a rigid sets-and-reps approach is so important.

As humans, we look in the mirror and see symmetry. We expect to experience symmetry, and we do not. In a perfectly balanced human being, we do find symmetry of function, but this is rare. In everyone else, asymmetry. The whole basis of this method is to use stretches to identify the tighter and/or weaker of any pair of functions, and use stretching and strengthening exercises to redress these. You are on your way.

Which exercise are you talking about, please? And when you write Where were you expecting the feeling to manifest? You have a lifetime of past patterns and movements behind you, so don't expect anything to change quickly. Perhaps we could re-explore this in a month time when you've redone the exercise, let's say, half a dozen times. It is absolutely normal to have significant left–right differences as an adult. Doing these exercises will reduce these in time.

Yes: hang for time. Both those major muscles are stretch in this activity. Hanging (actively in the beginning, then actively and passively, then in time hanging completely relaxedly), is far and away the best way to stretch these muscles. I have a video on hanging on YT.

The durations of how long exercises are to be held in the videos are guidelines. They are the minimum recommended holding times (if you can't hold them for as long as the person demonstrating, then you are using too strong a form of the exercise). You certainly can hold any exercise longer though.