Kit_L

Pity his anatomy is not a bit clearer (tho' it might be his drawing skills); he shows QL attaching to the anterior surfaces of the transverse processes—I'm pretty sure they attach in the following way: One set of fibres spans the iliac crest and the bottom rib, without attaching to the transfers processes; a separate group attaches from the bottom rib to each of the transverse processes, but the posterior side; and another set go from the iliac crest to each of the transverse processes, also on the posterior side. None attaches to the anterior side as the illustration suggests, AFAIK. And it's a pity that he doesn't show a video version of that straddle press—I would like to see that. Next time we get together we'll have to bring some kettlebells to try this. Cheers from York (snowing today)

Geoffrey wrote: I hope this gives you deeper insight as to the root causes of the problems you have been having. Re. negative deck squats: they reveal two critical things here: one, your ankle flexibility is not sufficient (this is why you feel the effects in the lower back: if the ankles do not allow your mass to stay sufficiently forwards of your balance point, then you must flex strongly at the hips; we see this on a daily basis! To test this assertion, try squatting down with a 1" support under your heels: you will be abel to go deeper under control, as this support tips you forward of the balance point—illustrating the fundamental need for this ROM. And there is zero problem in falling over backwards in the process of learning this movement: have a mat behind you, and simply fall in as controlled a way as possible, and roll back. Get up any way that feels comfortable. Working negatively like this will strengthen all the muscles involved and improve both your coordination and balance further. Did you not read the post immediately above? I wrote: However it is essential to understand that the first half of the squat (from the top position to the halfway mark) actually stresses the knee joint more than the bottom half, because that part of the movement is control almost primarily by quadriceps, and quadriceps decelerates the body weight via the patella. One of the most perniciousness myths in the fitness industry is that full squats are bad for the knees. Nothing could be further from the truth and the fact is among all track and field athletes, Olympic athletes have the lowest incidence of knee problems and they only ever do full squats. The biomechanical facts are it is simply not possible to squat down fully without the knees travelling forward of the toes if you want to keep your heels on the ground. When you can it will be instructive for you to visit an Olympic weightlifting gym: there you will see people who can all do full backs squats and in all cases their knees travel forwards of their toes, as noted above. And I note from a recent workshop run in Hong Kong that the vast majority of Asian people can squat down perfectly and the reason is that their ankles are flexible compared to Westerners. The protocol we are discussing is mine, not BtGB's, just for the record. Refer to the books: hip flexors and quadriceps, and soleus/ankles. Please search the Youtube channel if you do not have the books; solo and partner versions of exercises for these parts of the body will be found there. You have been doing these exercises for two weeks, Geoffrey. And the fact that you are so weak in these exercises, especialy the anti-pronation one above, should tell you at least part of the reasons you have been having the problem that brought you here in the first place. Stick with it, please. The point is you have already seen improvement in this very brief period of time. No one can estimate how long it will take before you have overcome this problem completely. Once you have though, you will know for sure. This is hardly surprising—you have not stretched this area for at least two years and, realistically, probably for a long time before that too. Please continue and go gently. You very definitely do need to stretch muscle, but you have to be extremely mindful of the reaction of applying this new stress to it, and modify the intensity accordingly. Please re-read all the posts above, and make sure you understand what has been written; if anything is unclear, please ask for clarification.

Thanks to Cherie and John Smith, our Rolfing friend, who forwarded this. It is a (for me, knowing the complexities) a surprisingly well made shortish doco. on the emergence of fascia in anatomical research, and some insight as to how this came about. As well, many of the implications of this research are effectively teased out. Watching this video in its entirety is strongly recommend for all stretch therapy practitioners. It's also worth noting that both Robert Schleip and Thomas Meyers said that Stretch Therapy and the Monkey Gym work in combination "ticks all six boxes of fascial fitness" and that this was the first exercise system in their experience that actually does this. Here it is:

Hello Chris, We have a really large number of flexion stretches; I am in the UK right now, and do not have either book with me (I had to bring most of my video shooting equipment with me and that limited how much weight I could bring for other stuff, like books!). I am hoping that another teacher may add remarks here, perhaps with exercise numbers from either book and possibly even page numbers. And please ensure that you have looked through all of the 70-odd exercises on the YouTube channel as well in case there is something relevant there. But let me make a few general remarks that may be helpful. Olivia has been chasing a perfect pike (forward bend over straight legs with feet pointed) for many years. In her case, the experience of bending forward was felt in the hamstrings but that was not the true limitation in her body. It was not until she practised what we call the modified plough pose many times and I did some fascial release work over her lumbar spine area that her body managed to complete the position. When you practice the modified plough pose and your feet and not touching the floor you must put them on a box or against the wall to reduce the sense of strain. Any perceived exertion in any pose actually limits the performance of it past a certain point. Resting the soles of the feet against the wall or the legs on the box behind you takes any anxiety (or sense of it) away and all relevant muscles can relax. And talking about the same pose, if you feel that your abdominal muscles are pressing into your ribs (or however you described this) what's happening there is the abdominal muscles are contracting to try and help you get deeper into the pose. And just because they are contracting they will not be soft enough to actually allow the full flexion. The effect that you have described is also very common in spine lateral flexion exercises as well (the muscles on the side that you are contracting to will often cramp or spasm). The secret is to use other limbs to support you to get into the position and in the case of the pike make absolutely certain there is zero tension in the abdominal muscles before you even initiate the forward band. This is the reason why I coined the term apprehension reflex as one of the four reflexes that are necessary to understand and feel and influence to be effective in the work. All remarks made in relation to the pike will be relevant in Pilates roll-up exercise as well, with the additional complication that the abdominal muscles will have to be contracted in this exercise. Accordingly the full flexion pose will have to be achieved in a relaxed state before you can even attempt a reasonable version of this pose with the abdominal muscles contracted. This is one of the reasons why our work has found so much favour in the Pilates community presently—if the fundamental range of movement is not available in the body it is impossible to do this movement properly. Please post any follow-up questions when you get to it. KL

And I shot another solo hip flexor stretch (this latest one uses a heavy band; it is at least twice as effective as the standing solo hip flexor exercise, above; here it is: http://youtu.be/vPBSTE7Yk8w Please report in and let us all know if any of these help, or what you have found.

Hello David, great to see you here. Regarding question one: the degree and nature of the scoliosis is the most important factor by far. As well it is essential to distinguish between induced scoliosis caused by a leg length difference or some other skeletal/muscular factor and developmental scoliosis where the lateral curves are fixed in the spine itself. There is a seated test that we did not do on the HK workshop called the slump test. It is simplicity itself: ask your patient to sit on a chair facing the chair back and ask them to slump slowly and gently as far as they can. In this slumping action, the hips roll backwards towards you and the shoulders forward away from you. If the person's scoliosis is induced it is very likely that the shape of the spine will not change during the slumping action, and the spine will look straight while sitting, even with an LLD. On the other hand, if the scoliosis is developmental, then one side of the rib cage will move towards you and side of the rib cage will flatten and this is very obvious to see. Stretch therapy is most effective in the induced scoliosis version. For people who have genuine developmental scoliosis and in whom the lateral induced curves are extreme, then our system is not the most effective one to use I feel. Please google the Schroth Method; I have linked this here. I have run out of time now and as you may know I leave for York in the UK on Monday. I will come back to this post and add to it later; thank you.

Have a look HERE; this is the article you mention above on limbering, mobility and flexibility, too. Please post any questions not answered; and others may get involved too. As an aside, Thor, the limit to the scientific method was one of the core question in the PhD research I did at the ANU (that, and relations between causes in complex systems). Much of what it means/feels to be human does not yield well to the scientific method. Cheers, KL

I am following up on this post; I had a colleague email me today; and this is our exchange: Hi Kit, just saw this and thought you might be interested: http://well.blogs.ny...e-injuries-too/ I just scanned it; major problems with the experimental design, in my view: They were told to wear the minimalist shoes for one mile during the first week of the study, two miles the second, three the third, and then as much as they liked, which is what the Vibram Web site recommended at the time of the 2011 study. This is, in my view, exactly the wrong way to approach minimalist running (and just one of the many problems with the "debate" about possible benefits of going barefoot): it takes years for a body used to running in shoes (a substantially different gait pattern, and entirely different shock absorbing strategies—in shoes, that is taken care of by the shoe design). It has taken me over five years to re-learn this most fundamental of movements. In my view, anyone who is interested in re-learning this needs to walk for significant distances first, and over rough surfaces (to stimulate the proprioceptors in the soles of the feet) and to strengthen the intrinsic foot muscles. And then there's the whole question of tendons and ligaments in the feet and lower leg; as you know these structures have about 1/10 of the direct blood supply of muscles and they are much slower to adapt than muscles and nerves. There's more of course; but that's the basic idea and you've given me a very good idea for a post on forums, so thank you very much! And here's the followup, by the author of Born to Run: http://www.nytimes.c...gewanted=1&_r=0 If your attention span is short (or you're short of time), then skip to the last page to get the two exercises.

Hello Chris, For me that tragedy is that no one ever does think to check this and yet the person with the problem is standing right in front of the practitioner. I consider an actual leg length difference with or without asymmetric hip flexor tension to be the number one cause of recurring low back pain. Precisely: the adaptation of these muscles requires time and the right kind of stress. The use of the heel insert is much more about redistributing stress and hence making the weaker muscles stronger than it is about anything else. Try not to rush this process. Regarding re-evaluation of the insert thickness: I believe that the comfort and sensation of ease in the body is the best guide of all. Some people never need to increase the heel insert amount beyond the recommended beginning amount (which is always something less than half of the suspected difference). Others become more acutely aware of the actual difference and feel more comfortable with a thicker insert. Re-visit this aspect from time to time is my recommendation. My final suggestions for heel inserts is to try to wear minimalist footwear as much as possible. In my own body, as an example, I have about 17 mm leg length difference but I wear the Five Fingers all the time, and so I use no insert at all these days. I think the comfort and ease in one's own body is the best guide in this respect.

Hello Phoebe, This is definitely not reinventing the wheel; it is a great addition to the standard stretch. One of the reasons I strongly recommend tucking the tail before lowering the hips towards the floor is precisely to avoid the anterior pelvic tilt caused by the hip flexors (tension on the anterior side of the lumbar spine causes the extensors on the posterior side to contract). If you get a chance why don't you take a photograph of yourself in their position or even think about shooting a quick video. Thanks for this! KL

Hello Thor, I will answer these in turn, following your order above. 1. Olivia and I both wear the Vibram five fingers summer and winter. She feels the cold in winter so she uses toe socks inside her five fingers. As long as I am moving I don't feel the cold in my feet so I don't wear the toe socks. Now, I know where you live it gets much much colder than where we are and also you have the additional aspect of snow on the ground and ice too perhaps. In these conditions I would use the five fingers that are explicitly designed for cold/wet weather wear. I cannot remember the model name right now but somebody else may chime in and provide this information. What I can say is that the uppers are made of a thin neoprene which actually allows some water in and the shoe ends up behaving like a wet suit, and one's feet are kept very warm. 2. Regarding the solo hip flexor stretch: don't go down anywhere near as deep on the problem side. Above you wrote "when I lower my leg to the floor" but I recommend not going anyway near as deep as that if the knee hurts. As well, make sure that you have the weight across the whole of the front of the back foot when doing this exercise: it is very common for people who pronate to have the majority of the body's weight on the ball of the back foot only and this can definitely cause knee pain in some people. 3. Regarding the front splits: in my view ,for beginners, it is better to do the lunge hamstring stretch first and then the lunge hip flexor stretch second before trying to put the elements together in an exercise we call "modified front splits". I have not done a YouTube video on this latter exercise, but you will find it described in detail in the book Stretching & Flexibility. A significant element of modified front splits is that the back of the front leg is supported on a bolster which allows a deep stretch but also supports a fraction of the body's weight. This allows all sorts of micro movements to be done in the position firstly (and a much deeper relaxation to be achieved), and allows the final position to be held for much longer than would otherwise be the case, secondly. And once supported you can lean forward with a straight back which emphasises the hamstring dimension and then lean back and emphasise the hip flexor dimension. 4. In my opinion the best solo gastrocnemius stretch is the one shown in the book Stretching & Flexibility where I'm standing on a step with my heel hanging down below the level of the step. Basically you let the body's weight stretch gastrocnemius and you can do small contractions in the bottom position and then just simply try to press the heel down further—for me personally this is one of the most intense gastrocnemius stretches and is only bettered by the single leg dog pose. hth, KL

Hey Geoffrey, I have to teach this morning so need to be leaving here very shortly and so I can only make a brief reply now. The article I wrote was for a magazine called The Retiree, and hence we were expecting an audience of 60 years of age or older. The exercises that I focused on were more concerned with balance than with strength; accordingly we only use a modest depth in the single leg squat exercise. However it is essential to understand that the first half of the squat (from the top position to the halfway mark) actually stresses the knee joint more than the bottom half, because that part of the movement is control almost primarily by quadriceps, and quadriceps decelerates the body weight via the patella. One of the most perniciousness myths in the fitness industry is that full squats are bad for the knees. Nothing could be further from the truth and the fact is among all track and field athletes, Olympic athletes have the lowest incidence of the problems and they only ever do full squats. The secret is that to do a full squat effectively, you must have active and strong glutes. Most people's knee arthritis comes from a combination of two factors: quadriceps dominance coupled pronation. Accordingly I recommend strongly that you practice the Building the Gymnastic Body (BtGB) single leg squat protocol, making sure that you do not miss any of the preparatory elements. This protocol is the most in-depth one that I have seen so far. Notice to that these are bodyweight exercises and can be scaled infinitely. And the secret to the squat, without any doubt, is mastering the negative element to the full depth position, and this is a very low stress activity as far as the knee joint is concerned. As an aside, a knee replacement surgeon friend of mine told me that he has never replaced a knee due to lateral condyle wear: it is always wear on the medial side and pronation is the main reason for that. I have to go off and teach now so must leave you here with this thought: I believe that the single leg squat, taking account of balance and knee tracking (you simply cannot balance if the ankle is pronating) is simply the number one rehab exercise on the planet.

Thanks Dave; excellent advice as always. I should have added that as a 'mature age athlete' myself (middle distance, competing when around age 30) I have experienced most of what you are experiencing—my body was in pain most of the time, and many athletes' bodies are. The most important question to ask yourself is, 'what do I want my training to do for me'? In my own case, I wanted grace and ease in the body, and to be able to do whatever I feel like doing, physically. Only now can I do this, some 30 years later! It's a long, but interesting, journey.

Geoffrey, welcome to the forum. You wrote: In my view, there's nothing humble about a 6 to 7 day/week two-hours per day training program: speaking realistically, I have coached Olympic athletes on significantly lower volumes than that (I am speaking about rowers, here). The context here is your request for advice in an open forum, so that others can benefit—so the first note I want to make is that diagnosing and offering treatment-specific suggestions is not possible to do by email or in a forum with any accuracy; by necessity, comments will have to be general. My first comment back to you is that BJJ seems to have been the cause of both the shoulder separation and knee problems, through direct trauma. My advice to any athlete is to strongly recommend against training while in pain, unless those aspects of the training that caused two of the three problems are put aside until you have fully recovered, and until knee and and shoulder not only have returned to 'normal function', but have been bullet-proofed against likely future stresses of the kind that caused the injuries in the first place. In rehabilitation, 'recovery' or successful treatment is defined as 'return to a pre-injury' state of fitness—this is simply inadequate, because it was this state of fitness that proved inadequate. To return to the demands of your normal daily life, you will need a specific high-level fitness that the evidence suggests you did not have. Let's look at your specific questions: What is thought to be the cause of this osteo-arthritis? How has your hip instability been diagnosed? And precisely what exercises have stabilised your hips? You mention "mild scoliosis": is this developmental (where the vertebrae are slightly wedge-shaped, thus fixing a curvature in the spine, or is it adaptive/functional (as in when one leg is physically shorter than the other, as in my own case, or does pronation in one foot contribute to the overall picture? One pronation ankle may have set the scene for that knee injury, and continued pronation might be preventing its healing. A solid shoulder rehabilitation program can help this, but will not be able to achieve the necessary ligament tightening (which will slowly come with a decent strength program; more below) if other activities like BJJ are working to increase the separation. The emphasis in your training needs to be rehabilitation (by this I mean ridding the body of pain), then whole-body strengthening (in your case multiple reasons, not the least of which is reducing the shoulder separation, realigning the shoulder girdle on the affected side, because this is the most common pre-disposing cause of supraspinatus tendon tears), and mobilisation, to relearn dysfunctional movement patterns, and to reduce the likelihood of more injuries and to teach you how to apply your strength with reduced risk of injury. There are very few coaches that recognise this approach, in my view. The big-picture perspective is that you are engaged in these activities to be healthy and functional, I assume. In the state you are in now, my advice is to stop, take a long hard look at what you have been doing, and ask yourself how effective has this strategy been? If the answer is, 'not so much', then a new trajectory needs to be sought. The material in Overcome neck & back pain will be an excellent starting place (if you will forgive a partisan point of view!). The last point is addressed to other readers, especially rehab. providers. These questions and comments I have written back to Geoffrey are the minimum set required to even to begin to have real dialogue about his problems. Happy to discuss.

I would like very much for the particular student I spoke about to Craig to write an account of his own experiences; I will send him this link and let's see. In the meantime, this is really good news—keep going!

I have had a large number of enquiries coincidently last week and this week to do with these three topics. Accordingly I have decided to post a few thoughts here and I'm hoping that other people who know more will jump in and add to this. The interesting thing to me is that I have written about the distinction between limbering and stretching in all of my books yet there seems to be more confusion on this topic than any other so I want to elaborate here. It could just mean of course I don't write very well! And mobility is not something that I have seriously considered before the last year or two simply because it wasn't relevant directly in any of the activities that I am currently pursuing or was a built-in part that was not distinguished. However since I met Coach Sommer and Steve Maxwell and worked with both of them I realise that I need to rethink my position on mobility and try to make this aspect among the three terms clearer. Limbering is simply taking joints muscles and fascia through yesterday's ordinary ranges of movement. Limbering can be formal or informal. Formal: I went to "limbering" classes held in a dance studio before work for a couple of years when I was an athlete and of course I was the stiffest person there by far. I learned something very important in those classes: what is stretching for one person can be limbering for someone else. Limbering doesn't hurt; it simply gets your ordinary or your normal movement back following sleep, or some other physical activity, or preparation for another. And in our system (ST) the critical distinction between limbering and stretching is that the latter involves the Contract-Relax approach. So now let me talk about stretching briefly and perhaps this fundamental distinction will become a bit clearer. In Stretch Therapy, I have defined stretching in as an activity that takes a limb and its associated muscles, nerves, and fascia into new ranges of movement. I think that much of the confusion about stretching hinges on this critical point. When most people think that they're stretching they are really limbering, on this definition. When you are stretching in this sense the sensations in your body will range from mild to strong. The more flexible you are on any absolute scale, the less strong the sensations from stretching will be, generally. And the fact that successful stretching takes a limb into a new range of movement means that there will be soreness in the days following. You actually want that soreness, perhaps surprisingly: if it is not there in the days following stretching, then you know that you can push a bit harder the next time. More: if there is no soreness at all, it is unlikely that you will become more flexible. Of course, there are always exceptions. Once that soreness is experienced, that is the time to do some gentle limbering. You will find that your range of movement is reduced simply because the structures involved are sore. "Sore" in this muscular sense always means that the part that you have work has simply not yet recovered fully. To make sense of this discussion it is absolutely essential to understand where you are on some notional flexibility scale. The closer your existing range of movement to the demands that you try placing yourself in everyday life the better, assuming you have the strength to support the end positions. What I am trying to say here is that if all of your required ranges of movement are able to be explored without effort then you have no need to become more flexible, so no stretching will be necessary. Limbering and mobility will be quite sufficient. The key point here is that stretching is designed to take you into new ranges of movement. It is an intense activity that requires considerable recovery. So if you are like many athletes and lower on the flexibility scale but want to become more flexible for some reason, then you have to engage in activities to move you more to the looser end. This will involve a mixture of both stretching, possibly mobilising, and limbering. Now a crucial new piece of information, almost impossible to quantify, is required: Whether you decide to stretch hard or to limber (or do some other activity) depends completely on how you feel that day. A further consideration is how long ago did you do a hard stretching session? Experience has shown that following the acquisition of a new range of movement (even if only momentarily) full recovery takes at least four days. Now what about mobility? This may not be a standard definition, but recently I wrote that mobility is strength and flexibility in action. Part of understanding why this is depends crucially on understanding that there are two separate types of proprioceptors in the muscles, ligaments, tendons, joint receptors, and skin. One of these types of proprioceptors is position dependent; the other is time and position dependent. The significance is that both have to be trained. I have seen people who can sit in perfect side splits but who do side kicks very poorly. What would be considered warming up and ordinary martial arts drills are a perfect example of mobility work: in these drills you are exploring balance, action, movement, flexibility, strength, and even power. Usually the drill begins slowly with an emphasis on the pattern or skill being practised and then its speed increases. You can become sufficiently flexible for any activity by doing the activity itself—if you are gifted physically. I have seen it with my own eyes. But for most people, restrictions will be located in the body as you progress (and in the case of many sports, created by the activities themselves); when this happens, stretching can be very useful (as can specific neural re-patterning and strengthening techniques). And in the last five years, mobility drills by themselves have become more popular and an analysis of the material shows that they are, exactly, strength and flexibility in action. Control of any position is emphasised. Very rarely is any position held in statically; instead the requirement for flexibility is momentary and moved through, dynamically. This approach especially targets adaptation of the time and position dependent proprioceptors. Some of this spills over to the position dependent ones. So what does this all mean? It depends on where you are on that flexibility map I mentioned above, and what kind of flexibility you need (fast, or slow/static). If you want to get closer to the loose end, that goal best be served by doing one, or possibly two, strong stretching sessions a week, concentrating on your tightest parts which, of course, no one wants to work on! But if you can overcome the ego's massive resistance to working on your tight parts and your less able functions, you can transform yourself remarkably in a six month period. In a year, you can be a different person. Returning to an earlier thought: if when you get up and had a coffee and have woken up fully, but you feel too sore to do any stretching, then make your limbering very gentle and consider it to be part of your active recovery. Personally I have done very little stretching first thing in the morning (except on meditation retreats; I can explain if anyone's interested) because my body doesn't feel like doing that kind of thing when I first get up. But, again, there are no hard and fast rules here: plenty of people have made stretching a part of their morning routine very effectively. Just be completely clear in your mind as to whether you're are limbering or stretching, and follow the protocols accordingly. Mobility drills can be fitted in on a daily basis as well, or as required (lower frequency). It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that doing mobility drills trumps doing limbering drills. I would select between mobility and limbering according to how my body was feeling on any given day: if more towards the sore end, then I would do just limbering which is holding very gentle end stretch positions and using no contractions. If not so sore, I will try mobility drills and see how they feel in the body and remember that even though mobility drills are usually done dynamically they can be paused at any point, and thus become limbering drills instead. I hope this starts the discussion; please weigh in.

Allessandro, because a few other people asked similar questions, I am going to post on "Limbering, mobility, and stretching: what do these terms mean?" I will put it in Stretch Therapy, but could be put anywhere.

Hello Thor, Very good question, indeed. To get a deeper understanding of the whole system, read THIS. Now: to your question (I am sure I have written about this here before, but cannot find it; if someone else recalls, please add link). I see I need to write an article that distinguishes between limbering, mobility, and stretching and try to make these distinction as clear as possible. The answer to your question is, "it all depends..." which is not very helpful, I realise! How about this for a start: Foot sequence: once a week. Jaw sequence whenever you feel tight there (no contractions, therefore can be done as a limbering, mobility or stretching routine) And I do the wrist ones twice a week, always before any serious handstand or pushing/pulling ***and have a look HERE; some clarity there, I hope***

And another piece of the puzzle and that will be it for now; I have decided to make a downloadable product on this problem—it seems so common. Someone emailed me today wondering if a pronating ankle and tight hip flexors on one side could cause knee pain? Absolutely; in fact if this person was my patient, this would be the first thing that would come to mind. Please let me know how any of this works, or does not work, for you.

Very likely, Adam. But be aware too that as you work this area, the sensation in the hip especially will change (I am going to shoot a short YT clip soon showing a simple partner assist for this, too). And after you stretch your hip flexors go back to the pose with this sensation, and try it again. If the sensation changes at all that's a clue that you're on the right track. In a few individuals the joint itself and the labrum (tissue around the edge of the joint) is limiting the movement and that will change in time too. Lastly be aware that in the strongly flexed hip position the adductors are extensors of the hip joint and you won't read it anywhere in any anatomy text (but anyone who has done a max. back squat session can tell you that immediately!). The point here is that in many people when the hip joint is strongly flexed you feel a very powerful stretch in the adductors themselves. This too will change in time and as your legs apart flexibility improves. Actually some people who have perfect side splits still experienced this adductor stretch sensation in this position so it's probably a matter of the adductors or the inner hamstrings adapting to the demands of this position. If I were a betting man though, I would be putting my money on the hip flexors: very often they are simply not soft enough/relaxed enough to get out of the way.

Well, my friend, when you say "effective" do you mean pointing the toes gets you closer to the legs? Or do you mean that the overall sensation is more intense? Let me explain: in our classes we often get newbies to try a pike (forward bend over both legs) with and without a toe point. The vast majority of people find that bending forward at the hips is easier and gets the body closer to the legs if the toes are pointed. Your experience of a greater intensity in forward bends with the toes pointed might simply be that pointing the toes adds a strong calf contraction to the overall sensation—I know that in my own body pointing the toes definitely adds significant additional sensations to the sensations being experienced in the hamstrings. But if you look closely you will find that your chest is closer to the legs when the toes are pointed. Test this assertion another way. In your best forward bend with the toes pointed, without changing anything, try pulling the balls of the feet back toward your face using your hands. The vast majority find that this increases the stretch sensation in the back of the legs hugely. There are two reasons for this we believe: one is fascial and one is neural. All of the posterior chain of fascia is stretched more when the toes are brought back towards the head. The same effect (but for a different reason) is experienced in the sciatic nerve because the sciatic nerve ends in the toes: adding dorsiflexion simply stretches the sciatic nerve over a greater distance and for most people this increases the sensational forward bending a tremendous amount. Recall that Kapandji claims (in his book the Physiology of the Joints) any forward bend of more than 60° at the hips requires the segmental nerves to be withdrawn from intervertebral foramina 12 to 15 mm in the average size person. These are not trivial amounts, and most physiologist believe that nerves do not stretch so they have to be able to glide and slide to achieve this movement. Last point. If your calf muscles are tight (speaking generally now) when you do perform a forward bend, you will find that naturally your feet are somewhat pointed in your best position. In fact, in classes, this is one of the visual tips that we use to stream attendees in the direction of one pose or another. I have mentioned elsewhere a number of times tight calf muscles are a major limitation of flexion for many people (nerve tethering in gastrocnemius and the tibial plateau). The other big one is piriformis and if piriformis is holding you back you will feel the major sensation just under the glute and on the outer part of the hips. Please report back after trying all this!

Fascinating, really; thanks for this.

I should have added: if you do use the hot-bath method to kick-start your stretching, rug up (track-suit pants and T-shirt minimum): you want to keep the heat in the body (or, following the language above) slow its loss from the body. This approach has worked very well for many people and it may just get a tight part moving.

DW beat me to it, but IIRC, the research shows that in a sauna, the body is doing whatever it can to keep the core at homeostasis, which is about 37 degrees C, and that the core temps. in the muscles hardly increase at all (the body is working hard to shed the heat). Being in a sauna certainly feels lovely though. On the other hand, if you wear tights and tracksuit pants and exercise, the core temperature in muscles can increase by 1, or even up to 2 degrees Centigrade during a workout. In this scenario, the upper body might be sweating like crazy, but the tights/trakkie pants are slowing down the body's attempts to shed heat via the skin. This increase in temperature, not coincidentally, is the window of fascia remodelling (this amazing substance exhibits thixotropy; moving from a more solid state, gel, to a more liquid state, sol, with the addition of heat). One more complication: heat gets into or leaves the body a number of different ways (convection, conduction, radiation). As everyone knows, air is a very good insulator—and the paradox is that you can feel cold in a room with 25 degree C air temperatures if the walls/ceiling is cold: your body experiences the differences in temperature not of the it and the air, but of it and the walls/ceiling. I recall my brother telling me that air is transparent to long-wave radiation, and maybe he will chip in here; the point is we experience the difference between our body's temperature and the temp. of the walls and ceiling, and not the air. So, in the sauna, the body is really feeling the walls and ceiling, which (being wood, usually) are the same, or similar temperature to the air. This is the reason that adding water to the heating element in a sauna makes you feel the temperature has gone up substantially: the water conducts that heat to you very much more efficiently. (And the steam can be heated above 100 degrees C, too, not that you'd be alive to experience this). The steam moving off the element in the instants of the water being converted to this gas can be very much hotter than the air is too, momentarily (like all heat sources, equilibrium is sought rapidly). The upshot of all this is that taking a hot bath affects the core temperature of the muscles way more efficiently and way quicker then taking a long sauna. The temperature in the hottest bath in a Japanese bath house is around 44°C. Some authorities claim it's between 42 and 43°C but as a matter of long personal experience, 44 degrees is closer to the mark in most public establishments where the Yakusa like to bathe. Tough guys hang out in the hot end. We know that 44 degrees is likely to be accurate because most Japanese baths have a floating thermometer in the hottest bath. (For those who have not been to a Japanese bath, there are always three or four of them in addition to the washing area; each bath is a degree or so hotter than the one before. The hottest one is always furthest from the entrance.) Psychologically and physically the truly interesting aspect of any bath is that a 39 or 40° bath feels lukewarm and 44° one is scalding hot. A very narrow window, and of course it's related to our own temperature. Another reason why a bath is so much more effective at heating up the muscles' core temperature is simply that you are immersing the entire body in water, one of the best conductors of heat on the planet, and your body is mostly water too. In time, whatever temperature the water is, that is what your body will become. So in my view if you want to use heat an agent for improving flexibility the bath is the way to go, rather than a sauna. As well, in my past I used to do my most difficult exercises (which are front and side splits) after doing heavy weight training (back squats) while wearing tights and ordinary cotton tracksuit pants. For many reasons I still regard this as the best and most efficient way to obtain the heat of the body needs to be truly supple.

Update: Liv tells me that there were only two negatives; could'a fooled me (felt like five, or fifty!).