Matt Chung

> ended up catching a cold (started about 6 hours after my last post) not a terrible one Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Day 537 of stretching and flexibility journey In short: saw a physical therapist, received an ultrasound, and learned that I tore the bicep femoris tendon After 4 weeks of this injury, while recovery has occurred (just glacially), I decided to see a (well respected in the local London dance community) PT and turns out, I tore the bicep femoris tendon. Here's the ultra sound clip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-fV3fUK-fcU Honestly, I cannot recall which exercise — or exercises – that could've caused the tear 4 weeks ago but I recall I had only felt the pain come on 24 hours later; apparently, this is normal, since it takes about 24 hours (or so) for the fluid to rush to the location in the body (from what he shared with me). Nonetheless, I'm happy I got a diagnosis and silver lining is that I learned that I should be including eccentric loading exercises for my hamstring to strengthen the ligaments and tendons surrounding the muscle, not just all the plyometric exercises that I've been doing increasing. Lack of knowledge on my side and never considered working the ligaments and tendons so now I know. With this new understanding, I now regret (useful emotion) dancing for 4 hours the day following the tear (4 weeks ago). I likely exacerbated the issue. Finally, this injury has solidified my understanding of where the bicep femoris is located and feels like in my body

Day 531 of stretching and flexibility journey A bit radio silence from me for last week or so. The sciatic pain abated and then most recently increased in pain significantly; the uptick in pain — concentrated recently behind the knees and preventing me from getting into a squat position as well as a prayer / seiza position – has to do with physical movement practices. At the forefront of my mind is "the body whispers before it screams" as well as "pay now or pay later." Though I now typically (partially due to my involvement with ST community) choose to pay now, in this particular instance (of my sciatic pain) I am choosing to pay later; this past weekend I danced (despite my body whispering loudly) since this is a once a year event that I was very excited for (communal gathering). Also, I am further delaying the much needed rest since I have a planned trip to Lithuania for a dance workshop and competition. Following next weekend, I will wind down my dance practice and training for several weeks and strictly focus on rehabbing my sciatic pain in my right leg I am more or less been limping for the past 2 weeks, on and off.

> Try working on piriformis anyway, and get as deep as you can going towards the foot of the affected leg with a back as straight as you can hold it (the advanced piriformis exercise). You might need to get into it in some depth before you can work out whether or not p. is involved. Piriformis syndrome mimics disc-induced sciatica perfectly – and the exercise I'm describing is the only action one can take to distinguish these two causes. Thanks @Kit_L . I ended up trying the advanced piriformis again and although I felt a deep stretch in my piriformis, the nerve pain/sensation itself did not trigger (in this position). However ... something unexpected happened after I lodged a lacrosse ball behind my knee, the ball making contact on the outside of both upper calve and lower hamstring, and for some reason unknown to me, enabled me to transition deeper into seiza position without the sharp pain triggering. After a few repetitions with the lacrosse ball, I was surprised to find that I could then transition back into the seiza without triggering the shooting pain. Placing the lacrosse ball into this position reminds me of one of the ST videos where you place a stick behind both knees while stretching in the seiza position. I'm about to hit the sack however will report back tomorrow.

> Is it possible the duck walks set off something in piriformis? "Shooting pain in right leg" sounds like sciatica, and if piriformis is in spasm, it can cause this. Thanks for the tips @Kit_L. I tested out the advanced piriformis stretch both last night and this morning and doesn't feel as though piriformis is in spasm. However, I think you are absolutely right that there's something going on with sciatica. Some more data points: The sensation of the pain feels more like an electrical like pulse shooting up and down from top of the calve to the lower outer right hamstring I can transition myself into a squat position, but if I lean towards my right, shifting the weight to my right leg (so far okay), but as I slowly lift my right heel off the ground and move on to the toes, that's when I feel this nerve like sensation So, the pain does not seem to be solely located in the hamstring and instead sometimes in the top right calve, sometimes bottom right outside hamstring, sometimes both It comes and goes and is unlike a muscle like tension (e.g. my left shoulder) and more sharp pain that radiates and comes and goes Very odd, very interesting

> As always I like your updates. In this one though, I'm sorry to hear about the injury and wish you a smooth recovery. Appreciate the thought Ned. And likewise, enjoy following your journey and as I've mentioned before, almost every time I read about your LRP, I'm reminded to keep trying.

> In my experience, there is little to no load on the hamstrings WRT the duck walk (so, IMO unlikely that these caused the hamstring injury); duckwalks are all lower back, glutes, and quads. Is it possible the duck walks set off something in piriformis? "Shooting pain in right leg" sounds like sciatica, and if piriformis is in spasm, it can cause this. I'll test the piriformis position now. I actually don't think it was the duck walks themselves; I recall that I tried a few repetitions of a new movement (.gif below) that I didn't capture on myself on footage but it resembles something like below, but more of a twisty action:

Day 517 of stretching and flexibility journey On hamstring injury, regrets, and facing the pain For the first time since I began my stretching journey, I somehow managed to injure my right hamstring due to either too much load/sets of new exercises: duck walk, variation of single leg squats. Been limping the last few days and while I laid off and rested (very challenging for me to do) last 3 days, I decided today to very very gently and slowly stretch the hamstring today. Breathe. And Relax. Timeline of events Oct 6 (Monday) - went to the gym, inspired to introduce duck walks (and variations) and continue with single leg squats. Stopped the exercise early because I didn't want to "push it". Regardless of proactively stopping, I ironically woke up to right hamstring pain Oct 7 (Tuesday) - initially thought it was my IT band but turns out, it's my right hamstring. It's very uncomfortable and I thought perhaps I could get away with my Tuesday ritual of 4 hours of intense training. Big mistake. Regret #1 Oct 8-9 (Wed-Thurs) - Rest, no physical activity. Shooting pain along hamstring Oct 10 (Friday) - Still painful but went out to support my friend dancing at her performance and ending up lightly dancing at the after-party. Regret #2 Oct 11 (Saturday) - A DJ I been following is in town in London. On a whim, decided to go watch him play and ended up dancing for 2 hours. Regret #3 Oct 12-14 (Sunday-Tuesday) - Complete rest. Limping. Cannot get into squat position. Sat out of my Tuesday training. Thought of something Kit had mentioned: "Pay now or pay later." Decided to pay now Oct 15 (Wednesday/Today) - Been avoiding the squat position due to shooting pain in right leg. Although I rested fully last 3 days, I realized that some light stimulation with some light stretching may help the process

Day 514 of stretching and flexibility journey Summary first time ever experience a cramp in (I think) internal oblique In my dance practice, I started attempting spinal twisting / rotation and on Friday, rotating my upper body left or right, while keeping my hips faced forwards. During the first few initial attempts, my internal oblique started cramping and immediately, I had the thought of: "Oh, I guess this muscle has hits its limits at the end range of motion." Similar to hamstring cramp and foot cramps, I know that if I continue to stretch my body in this waste — and breathe and relax — over time, the cramps will subside. Today Hung on my pull up bar for probably 1 minute While I was taking a hot shower, lifting my arm upwards so that my finger tips were pointing towards the ceiling, and then rested the arm against the tile. This position tends to cause a cramp & spasm in my left shoulder and I'm slowly increasing the strength and end range of motion to (hopefully) over time, eliminate pain. The left shoulder has taken exponentially longer than my right shoulder to heal and no problem. I know it will vanish on its own over time

> The exercise you need is shown there. And work done by any of the lower leg muscles pulls on the plantar fascia (it's an extension of the Achilles tendon), so stretching and strengthening the lower leg will affect this area too. Thanks for the reminder. I still periodically walk on gravel and though that has improved the plantar fasciitis, I do believe that strengthening (using the exercise listed in the comment, the one where you deliberately pronate the foot) will help and I'll start experimenting.

Day 511 of stretching and flexibility journey I'm suddenly feeling very appreciative after waking up this morning and realizing some aches have vanished (for some time, but not sure when exactly). In particular: No left hip flexor pain when rolling out of bed - I think for the better part of a 1.5 years (more or less since I joined stretch therapy forum) I've had this nagging pain in my left hip flexor that tended to feel irritated first thing when waking up (somewhat similar experience to Kit's reported back pain he experienced back in the day). However, this flare up is gone. Though I cannot pinpoint the exact exercises leading up to this moment, it's probably a combination of several of them. Have not experienced upper back / right shoulder pain - there was once a period where I would intermittently experience right shoulder pain such that I could not even sit up from the laying position .... I'd have to carefully roll over on my side So despite my continuous, constant desire and effort to increase flexibility and eliminate my left shoulder pain (pain used to be about 8/10 and probably now at a 2/10 after almost every day of puppy pose and holding and breathing) and perform single leg squats, I just wanted to acknowledge that my body has been repairing itself. Now, with that said, I also had a recent observation: After doing some leg strengthening exercises on Monday (it's now Thursday morning), I'm still limping on my right leg - the pain was worst on day 2 (i.e. yesterday) and I could barely sustain weight. What's ironic is that during the exercise on Monday, I even cut the exercise time short, because I didn't want to "overdue it" and yet still, it happened. At the same time, I recall watching one of Kit's interviews where he said something along the lines of there's no such thing as over-training, just not enough rest (or something to that effect) My right plantar fasciitis kicks almost always after I allow my daughter to sit on my shoulders while I walk her around town - my 6 year old daughter loves to sit on my shoulders and I almost always say yes. However, I think there's some part that's weak in my body (foot, ankle? not sure) but I only drew the connection recently after this weekend. I'm going to tinker around and see what sort of strengthening exercises I can emulate since I would like her to continue sitting on my shoulders ... but without excruciating right plantar fasciitis pain.

Day 493 of stretching and flexibility journey This is my first time posting on the form, using voice transcription. I’m pretty sure I recall kit often using voice transcription so feeling a little inspired after this morning I was testing the feature out using Apple notes and was super surprised how well I was working so I was like I will try it on this forum on Friday, I did a limbering session and someone else at the gym came up to me and said "whoa. Seems like you’re quite flexible." At first I felt a little embarrassed cause I’m far from where I’d like to be in terms of flexibility (and still proud of the progress over the last 1.5 years). He said “ I was never able to get into stretching”. Long story short I may be spent 10 minutes chatting with him - a muscular gym rat (I say this with flattery) in his late 40s- about how I got into stretching this past 1.5 years despite all the previous failed attempts and hopefully gives him enough of gives him a little nudge to give it a shot himself as well Summary Getting into (very slow) duck walks - in my dance, I've been avoiding "floor work" for some time (despite previously breakdancing for years) over the last 2 years because I had previously injured my shoulders (obsessive training induced injury), felt too stiff during squats. Recognizing I was avoiding certain position however I am applying some of what I've learned during flexibility work and in short, just getting myself into positions (very slowly), and performing micro movements and continually finding little pockets of stiffness to lubricate with movemet Felt inspired to work on various positions to be able to work towards a movement like:

Day 484 of stretching and flexibility journey Just experienced another POP, which freed up what felt like an additional 10-15 degrees in range of motion. It's 10:29pm and I'm ready to hit the sack however I was just limbering before bed, stretching (the back of) my neck in the below position, a stretch I've been doing more or less every day for the past several weeks. Over the course of the past few weeks, I've felt (and still do) so much tension in the back of the neck, a blockage and tonight, unexpectedly, while holding the position and maintaining deep rhythmic breathes, I heard a big POP — similar sound and sensation what happened in my hip/piriformis back in November 25, 2024 (below), so I didn't panic — and then suddenly, I was able to tilt my chin up what felt like another 10-15 degrees (although I'm not sure since I wasn't recorded this limbering session). Relearning the same lesson over and over: lean into the discomfort, breathe and relax. Over. And over again.

That all makes sense, especially paying attention to the fact that the pain itself has changed. And to clarify, part of the curiosity of better understanding the series of actions (e.g. lying relaxation practice, limbering, leaning into the painful stretches while taking deep deep breathes) that had lead to the improved my condition(s) with the hope that I can pass on knowledge to other individuals in the future. Presently, I'm more or less able to heal my own (n=1) body and sometimes question if I'd be able to assist others in healing their own ailments / increase ROM etc. 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 Thanks for sharing more perspective on supervenience theory, something I plan on digging more into. You're right, within my own dance practice, there are a wide array of changes applied across many different axis that it would difficult (or impossible) for me to say with any confidence that some x change contributes to y outcome, and only can safely say that as a a whole, z, has changed.

Day 477 of stretching and flexibility journey I almost always avoid sitting in a certain position — right legged crossed, while left knee drawn to chest — while on working at the computer since this specific position tends to cause a twinge of pain around my right knee. However, last night, while sitting at the computer for a couple hours, re-arranged myself and unconsciously transitioned to this nagging position, only to find out that the pain has almost disappeared (not fully, but pretty damn close). I was caught off guard, super surprised, because I was fully expecting for a jolt of pain in the right knee area. Honestly, though I wish I was, I'm not entirely confident what I've done to reduce the pain. Is it the daily limbering? Is it the intermittent lying relaxation practices? Is it the single leg squat training I've been doing? Is it the calve stretches? is it the increased willingness and tolerance of uncomfortable positions that I historically (prior to stretch therapy) would avoid but now lean into? A combination of some or all? Not sure.