Kit_L

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!

The not so obvious thing about using parallettes or yoga blocks is that you can start the exercise with your bottom well above the floor. This means you can practice the exercise, with bent knees, even when you're not strong enough to lift your whole body weight off the ground fully. Parallettes or some other support for the hands and wrist make this exercise completely scalable. For example, by bending your knees but leaving your heels on the ground, you can lift your whole body off the floor, then try as hard as you possibly can to bring the knee to the chest – one leg at a time if you have to. You'll get airborne very quickly.

I think someone as fit as you will be perfectly fine doing 10 on each side for your first attempt. Just make all the movements as slow and as smooth as possible and you'll be able to feel just how strengthening this apparently simple exercise is.

Precisely this. As mentioned several times, this is often the way we realise that big change has happened. Me, too!

Don't try 40 reps the first time—you might be able to do it, but the DOMS could be epic! Doing all parts of the movement slowly and smoothly is the key.

Try this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knqCZRIVGp8&t=2s Little balance required; same muscles worked. I do sets of 30–40. Leaning forward and coming slowly out of the bottom position activates the glutes hugely. Slowing everything down increases the strengthening effect, especially the negative part.

With respect to the L-sits, two bricks on their flat (or two yoga blocks) with the fingers pointing down can reduce the wrist stress considerably (this is what parallettes do, too).

@Rik: that sounds quite incredible – I've been teaching these materials for 25+ years now, as you know and to many tens of thousands of students, and we have never encountered that reaction before. Please ask your buddy what arises in his or her body before the experience of discust manifests. As well, you might consider asking what memories from the past are invoked in the practice, before, after, or during the experience of discust. There is definitely a deeper story there, I would say. We do have a number of recordings that do not feature the opening and closing of the hand, so you could volunteer to select a few at random and try them out yourself and eliminate the ones that do feature this particular element. If you look on the list of recordings on our site, you'll see that some of them do have the elements listed and you may be able to find one or two there that don't feature this particular element. In Buddhism, disgust is an aversion response (the three 'poisons' are craving, sometimes called desire, delusion, or ignorance, and aversion, or hatred). It is often possible to get deeper into these responses, to see what is underneath and what might be giving rise to this particular response. If your friend is prepared to explore a bit, there is potential gold to be uncovered if they are prepared to endure the disgust reaction for a moment or two, consciously relax in the face of this response, and stay with the sensation to see what might reveal itself.

Research "Long slow distance". This is the cornerstone of any endurance training, and it doesn't matter what the sport. It takes much longer than you want. When I was a middle decent runner, specialising in 800 and 1500 m, I used to run 160 km a week in the winter training season, about three months long. This is completely standard and I have heard of people running over to 225 km a week in recent times. The biggest downside of this kind of training, in my view, is the risk of injury, because the joints seem to take more of the forces than when you're running faster, and you tend to switch off a bit mentally when running well under best pace. Once my fundamental aerobic conditioning was at the point where my resting pulse rate was 42 beats a minute, I then changed my approach over to a method called fartlek which mixes slow and fast running. It is an easy thing to research and it was very popular in my area when the Finns were the best distance runners in the world.

Yes, I do.

I felt my quad and glute on the working leg tense up while watching your video… You absolutely have that activation down on the right leg. Is the left leg trailing behind a bit? If so, it's exactly the same for me. In fact my right leg (the shorter of the two) is always a bit stronger and also I'm a bit better connected to it neurally than the left leg but both are so much stronger than they have been in the past. This is how it goes. Great work.

I am sure that this is accurate. The position, the precise position, of every bone in the body is governed by the balance of forces acting around that point. Just like the temperomandibular joints, where ribs attach to the sternum has no precise location – there is movement potential there always, and that is to protect the heart and the lungs from impact injuries, most anatomy must believe. All the work you have done in the last little while has changed where the balance point of those forces are, and the bone now sits in what we call its minimum energy configuration. This is very desirable. What we called the "apprehension reflex". It is a real thing. All good; carry on.

If you are talking about the elephant walk, then it all depends how you do it – depending on how you hold parts of the body, all of the effects can be in the hamstrings; can be in the outer hamstring (the attachment under the glute); the lower back; and the hole of the posterior chain from the back of the neck down to the soul of the feet – I'm talking about fascia here. You have to play with it to find out how to do it the way that benefits you the most. All of our exercises are like recipes in that sense – you have to do the exploration and the seeking.