Kit_L

All excellent insights. That makes complete sense. What you describe is exactly how the body changes—and once that feeling has been experienced, everything changes. Excellent. Carry on! Great strength workout, too.

https://www.ironcompany.com/blog/once-a-week-strength-training-minimalism

@Ned, when I was in my powerlifting phase, I made my greatest ever strength gains over an eight week period before a competition doing one long training session a week, supervised by coach. The sessions lasted about two hours. The science does not support this – it claims that detraining effects start 48 hours after a training session – but this is simply completely inaccurate. Once a week is enough to make significant strength gains and once every two weeks is enough to hold onto whatever strength you've got. Your other insights were a pleasure to read. Keep going (in a leisurely way!).

Determine which part you are most comfortable with (or put this another way, what level is the right one for you, parts 1, 2, or 3) and use those programs until you can actually do the poses they contain. Twice a week, after weight training is good, because the body is fully warmed up. After weight training is better than cycling; many reasons. The less flexible you are, the less often you should stretch—I know this is a paradox. Recovery is the important part. Do the relaxation practises that the course recommends, too; it is an integral part of the system (as you learn how to relax deeply you will become more flexible and the stretching exercises simply enhance that) Read this: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1570-the-secrets-of-stretching/ And many others have struggled with the same questions, but the fact is only you working on your own body can answer your questions—everyone's body is different so no one can give you advice that will be useful to you, apart from making general suggestions. And you may care to scan this: I'm driving a boat back to my home port at present, so can't answer in any more detail, but I am sure others will have suggestions too. Keep going!

That guy's legs are crazy strong, and beautifully coordinated. I do a lot of exercising in the duck walk (or just up from the bottom of the duck walk) position – and it is absolutely sensational for leg strength, and glute strength as well. And because you have to take all of your weight on alternate legs one at a time, these are like being in the bottom position of a pistol. Noice.

Yes.

Hahahahahahahaha! I love hearing this (and I am laughing with you!). No doubt a little fascial adhesion.

Definitely needs to be paired with whichever course you're doing presently. The reason is if there's no plan you're stretching will be free of goals! If you have not done deadlifts for a while, then I would say this level of DOMS is entirely to be expected. Only time will fix this. Do whatever mobility work you can in the meantime until it all settles down, and then start stretching again, after the next strength training workout.

This. Experience has shown that the best results are obtained by separating the practices – even if you set an alarm to wake yourself up from your sleep the next day, if you go to bed in a genuinely relaxed state, you should have better sleep.

Not so much as it will build practical strength. Hypertrophy and whole-body strength are related, but not closely. I can elaborate. Just try the BodyLine material, and feel what's sore over the next few days, and you will know how it will work for you.

Resistance training of any kind is the absolute best possible warming up for stretching – try to stretch the muscles you've used in the session as the last thing you do. 15 or 20 minutes should be enough. Perhaps surprisingly, if you get this mixture right, your flexibility training will accelerate and you'll notice the acceleration.

When you write this, do you mean that in a normal night sleep, you wake up before you want to? Because you're thinking about things – or you wake up and then you find yourself thinking about things? This is extremely common these days and the three things that you mention are three things that you need to address – in other words stop doing them! It is better to do the practice at the same time every day but that exact time is not significant, it seems. Some people find it very helpful to do it as the last thing they do before they go to sleep – but if you do that, do the practice on the floor rather than on your bed. And one lunar cycle is excellent and three lunar cycles is even better! Of course, start with one.

It's everything, I feel—there's little point in trying to analyse which of those many things you point to above are responsible (or, better yet, the attempt to analyse is actually a different set of questions). The main thing, from my perspective, and perhaps from yours as well, is that this pain phenomenon has changed. The fact is that if you change your body sufficiently, on any number of axes, then all sorts of pain phenomena which supervene on the original organisations of your structures, also changes. Your dance journey is perfect evidence of this. This (supervenience theory) was a significant part of my PhD research many years ago. The supervenient relationship can be described simply: if a global property of a complex system changes, then something of the properties of, or the relations between, the subvening parts must also have changed. My insight was that it's actually not necessary to know those (many) causal relationships to know that the larger relationship obtains, and always will. What you've just described is a perfect example of this. What we have done with full awareness in Stretch Therapy is to look at the optimal global properties of a human being's body and mind, and ask ourselves, 'how do we get from our own personal current state to that optimal state?' That is really what the system is about. And what we find is that as the system, in this case your body and mind, move to a more optimal state, many other things also change without you concentrating specifically on that particular outcome, or understanding how that outcome was achieved. Noice.

I will get onto this as soon as I can – as you've noted, we are on sabbatical, and I am rebuilding a boat which is a full-time job. However, it is coming to an end and I will look over the YouTube channel and make some suggestions to keep you going until the store opens again in December. The Starter Course is the way forward for you, as it is for everyone – and that includes flexible people too, you might be surprised to hear. This is because the start of course will actually teach you the whole system from the beginning and once you get to the part three level, which is intermediate, you may well find that you are as flexible as you need to be. In the meantime, I will look over all the videos on the YouTube channel and make a list of what I considered to be the fundamental ones.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. If the exercises that you are talking about use the same muscles and are more difficult to do than the first two you mentioned, then yes. Resistance training is all about increasing the difficulty of what you're doing over time.

This was my reply to the email you sent us via the Contact form: I’ve just finished 3 months of the overcome back pain course. I’ve managed about 45 days of doing the follow alongs (out of 90 on the course) and have loved it. Excellent. I have found the course and the forums to be very inspiring and the best I have come across. It is the first time I have actually stuck to doing any stretching. I really like the simple format of the follow along videos. That’s what we like to hear! I haven’t had a full blown flare up with my back (where I get the lumbar shift) since I started - and have played some squash again. However, I went on holiday last week and didn’t do the stretches - which made me feel tight in the back again and makes me feel as though I’m starting from scratch again. It might feel like that, but it will come back very quickly. Don't worry about that. I also haven’t really seen any improvement in my range of movement from the stretches. I’m still training hard in the gym to get stronger as part of the road back to playing squash with the same intensity/frequency as before and I also haven’t consistently been doing the relaxation exercises - so that might be why. Yes, the relaxation part is essential, too. I want to improve my flexibility and I’m not sure what to do next (whether to keep doing the overcome back pain course - as I naturally find myself wanting to do some of the stretches) or to try the master the squat course. That will be too advanced for you at this point, I would say. The Mastery Course assumes that you are at Intermediate standard already. I also find myself wondering if I need to be doing something more intense that uses weights to make some sort of breakthrough. Have you seen our YouTube channel? There are large number of videos there, and they're all free. They are not organised but if you like I can put together a list of a dozen or so that should get you going to the next stage. We are on a sabbatical at the moment and we've closed down the shop until mid-December so we can have that break. If you'd like me to put you together a list of where I think you could benefit from starting, with the next level of videos, just let me know and I'll reply as soon as I can. Regards, Kit

Perfect. Resistance training is the best warmup for stretching. Keep going like this. No, but they overlap. Definitely, especially the ab. wheel, but the rotations resistance exercises combine muscular effort from all parts of the trunk (and many of the major muscle groups, too, in addition). Don't get too hung up on dividing these things too cleanly – sometimes it's worth doing a combination movement on its own just for itself and don't worry too much about balancing it with the appropriate stretching exercise. The same thing also goes for particular stretching exercises – they can also be worth doing for their own sake and don't try to relate them to specifically to flexion extension or rotation. The short story is that any resistance training is a perfect warmup for any stretching – and this is because the whole of the body is involved in any whole body resistance movement. Thus the warming up effect tends to be global rather than specific, once enough effort has been extended in a training session.

:)

Don't over-prepare. @Gareth O Connor. Definitely no need to do more calf raises if last night's were effective – you have to recover from a workout before taxing the same muscles especially in the 10k race you got coming up in a day's time.

You only need to feel one specific part of the outside of the foot – that part just behind the little toe. You could try putting something very small but sharp underneath that area – not too sharp of course! Or even put that part of your foot on a wet towel so that you feel the wetness – anything you can do to feel that part. You might even think about scratching it with your fingernails before you do the exercise so that you know exactly where that part of the foot is in the brain.

No; lifting the knee away from the floor stretches the instep (the top surface of the foot) and the increase in foot point (extension) is what stretches anterior tibialis. To stretch the arch you need to move the ankle in exactly the opposite direction – so all calf muscle stretches also stretch the arch.

No. https://youtu.be/KvAto6yIGLY?t=667 When you lift the knee away from the floor, as shown, you are stretching anterior tibialis. If you are a heel striker, then this muscle can get very tight and painful. If it goes on for long enough, shin splits can results. The strengthening element can be done in the same position—try to drag your toes, as if through the floor, to the knee. This is an isometric strengthening exercise for the same muscle. There are others, if you search the net.

That is wisdom, @Gareth O Connor. Many people have found it by strengthening the anterior shin muscle, anterior tibialis, and lengthening it as well (which is done by sitting in the same floor position that you stretch the quads in, but lifting the knee away from the floor), can help with that shin pain considerably.

Yes: pressing the feet away slightly will activate the quads, and inhibit the hamstrings. Try doing the exercise in a more relaxed way the next time you try it – the straight leg version of that exercise is going to activate the hamstrings no matter what you do. But if you push the feet away from you very slightly to activate the quads, and then squeeze the glutes together to feel where they are again, and then press the heels onto the ground you may be able to activate the glutes more. If you can activate the glutes more that will definitely reduce the hamstring requirement. But in any case, activating the hamstrings in that exercise is not necessarily a problem because the hamstrings can act to do that task—in this way, the exercise become a hamstring, strengthening movement. Try the next attempt with the least amount of tension that you need in order to create the shape that you want and then simply add the additional activations as we've discussed and see whether that changes the hamstring dominance.

The way to de-emphasise the hamstrings is to gently tuck the tail once in position—and when you are thinking about the next step, press the floor away from you, emphasising the heels. The "press floor away" cue works way better than "lift the hips". The reason, I suspect, is that 'lifting the hips' is a much more common daily life type of cue which plays into your existing patterns, whereas "pressing the floor away by pressing on the heels" is novel and seems to activate the glutes strongly. Let us know!