Transformation While Restoring a Twice-Torn Achilles Tendon and Getting to Squat

[Edwin S.]

Following on from my first post here in Feb 2018 I started and maintained a consistent workout which consists of the Daily Five (replacing exercise 2, which my elbow tendonits couldn't stand, with Kit's sitting-in-chair stretch from the Back Pain book) followed my ten of the exercises from Master The Squat. 

While this set of exercises has improved my flexibility in general in the entire mid and lower body, the ultimate aim is to get my right dorsiflexion much closer to my left dorsiflexion range. Following a full Achilles tear in mid 2013 and restorative surgery I tore the same tendon again 80% and decided to restore it myself without surgery. Two specialist surgeons' advice given to me here in Germany was surgery using the tendon from the big toe and run it along over the Achilles tendon as a tissue renewal. I wasn't having any of that, after having spend a few weeks in the library of University of Cologne researching experience around diverse areas of the world with non-surgical recovery. It seems until this very day that I am only the second person on the entire internet who made this decision.  And I am very glad that I did.

Over that period since then I have been basically able to once again do everything I could before the injury, albeit with a right calf still only 90% as strong as the left and a still thick, taut right Achilles tendon. While this is immeasurably better than having a tendon that is too long, it often produces tension (both medially and laterally) in the knee as a result. My knee-to-wall in squatting position shows 130 mm space between the front of the left foot and the wall, and less than 100 mm for the right foot. This is however some 15 mm better than three years ago therefore it is heading in the right direction, but has reached some point over the last six months or so where it has remained the same.

All the other exercises have gradually improved all areas of the hips and my previously very tight/short hamstrings, and together with Bulgarian squats have improved overall knee function quite markedly. Squatting in bare feet without some elevation is however still not something I have achieved, or at least not for more than a minute or two. Any repetition of this minute or two for a few days then leads to tension in the knee, which forces me to leave that exercise for a week or so (otherwise cycling, my only form of transport, is impaired).

There is however something perhaps more important than any of these matters mentioned above, and which very definitely confirms something which Kit has consistently emphasised in many of his podcast interviews. That is, that you will be a transformed person after two years. Until recently I had experienced not much change over many months, yet happily kept going with my every-fourth-day system with C-R and on the second day doing the same exercises as more of a limbering without C-R. It seems to work best, because limbering every day seems to lead to tension which is still present on the C-R day. In recent times an ever so subtle yet important loss of tension developed in the core, particularly around the hip flexor and bottom of the pelvis. It all resulted in a state of relaxation and ease, of being able to more easily allowing stress-carrying activities and situations around me to simply slide off of me or around me, without it changing even my positive mood. Then, following one social meet-up with a particular family of kindred spirits here in Germany, my 45-year nail-biting habit, which had defied all attempts to stop it, simply melted away over a couple of days, so absolutely that it was not even perceptible. Some four weeks later everything is still the same. My mood is permanently positive or highly self-confident, despite constant tension and stress in my household. Some sort of inherent tension, kept within my body since early childhood, I would guess since age four, simply isn't there any more. Yet my body is nowhere near as flexible as I want it to be. I can still only barely hold my fingers on my toes with straight legs for a minute. Perhaps more importantly, my body has generally become more soft, while also being more muscular.

I'll return specifically to my exercises and workout in a future post, but just felt it more important to pass on this experience about losing tension and transformation, and hope that it might encourage or inform even one other person embarking on the stretch-therapy experience, and who might be doubting how successful or far-reaching and beneficial it all can be.   

[Edwin S.]

More than two years after adding this post, I think that it might be a good time to update progress.

Sometime during the later part of 2020 after purchasing Master The Squat and diligently learning and following the exercises given, I was most regular with Exercise L2C, the rod of correction. Persistently going through L2C then accompanied by L2B were most satisfying and beneficial. Some of the others either tended to negate each other's progress in a sense, were easy to overdo or were irritating to my defective right knee (which, being part of the right leg unit and the stiff thick twice-torn achilles tendon is never negligible). The Sumo Squat felt great and productive, but I felt that I would first need to work on the quad over time before coming back to the Sumo Squat.

 After a couple of months I decided to give the highest priority to Exercise L2B and L2C, since they were in practice the actual end point being pursued in the Master The Squat sequence and also function almost meditatively and the rod of correction was doing its job. The aim was to be in the squat position ten minutes a day. At this point I needed to use a 20mm board then over time a 20mm board to raise the heel. At times I would add a period, after the ten minute squat, of being in a barefoot version for as long as was possible every second or third day. This progressed over time from one minute to two minutes to five, until such time after months of being able to most of the ten minutes barefoot, then extending it all to 15 minutes, then to eventually doing all 15 minutes barefoot.

Persistence despite all the distractions and obstacles of the last two years has led to to the point that I now squat for thirty minutes a day, regularly as a continuous period, while listening to an MP3 or MP4  - all barefoot.

I have not nearly reached my end goal (the ankle angle still needs to improve and I'd like to obtain the suppleness to be able to almost bounce out of the position into a standing one after twenty minutes without the body protesting, particularly in the back), but it's clear that a stiffened slightly shortened achilles tendon with a great deal of cross-binded scar tissue can be retrained to be more flexible and allow ankle flexibility better than most young westerners today possess. Being able to squat barefoot allows the squat to be done as part of the quad training and strengthening as well, which allows me overcome some other initial problems in a positive feedback-loop manner.

[Kit_L]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:17 PM, filosofo said:

Persistence despite all the distractions and obstacles of the last two years has led to to the point that I now squat for thirty minutes a day, regularly as a continuous period, while listening to an MP3 or MP4  - all barefoot.

That, my young friend, is Mastery. Congratulations, and thanks for taking the time to write how you did this, in detail. Excellent work.

And let me talk this opportunity to elaborate on what I said (which you noted in your first post) re. 

Quote

you will be a transformed person after two years

This is because fascia has a half-life of about six months—that is, half of it is new material over that time, and the process continues. This means that almost all of it will be renewed in that two-year period, and if you have been doing new activities, like you have been, then the new fascia exhibits these new qualities—the very qualities that allow you to do now what you could not do two years ago, and the new fascia is the 'new you'. As well, there is no doubt that your new-found state of relaxation has played a major part in this transformation. 

The fact is that most people are not as persistent as you are—and that is why these methods do not bear fruit for them.

[oliviaa]

Hello there, Olivia here. Calves and ankles were seriously tight in my body for a very long time, and I could not squat flat-footed, only with heel lifts. Three things 'unlocked' the movement for my body.

The first was a super-duper strong stretching sequence that is part of a series/approach we now call SledgeHammer Stretching: the calf sequence can be viewed on the ST site at https://stretchtherapy.net/sledgehammer-stretching-calf-sequence-full-demonstration/: the video page has a link to an article, too.

Along with what you called the rod of correction (above), I found doing that softening technique while the soleus muscle and Achille's tendon were under stretch was very effective: find that video at https://stretchtherapy.net/rollstretch-techniques-for-soleus/.

And, spending time in the full squat but not static, rather adding movements: see a video of that at https://stretchtherapy.net/olivia-squat-movements/.

One further thing. My feet used to be rigid, so softening them has been hugely beneficial. Here are some things to try for your feet:

- https://stretchtherapy.net/foot-awakening-sequence-suitable-for-pronation-overly-high-arches-foot-and-ankle-mobility/

- https://stretchtherapy.net/foot-and-ankle-mobilisation-and-stretching/

Cheers
Olivia

[Edwin S.]

On 6/1/2022 at 2:53 PM, oliviaa said:

And, spending time in the full squat but not static, rather adding movements: see a video of that at https://stretchtherapy.net/olivia-squat-movements/

Hello, this is precisely what my daily program evolved into. I'd not seen this video at all until today.

Learning to understand the spasm reaction in the tibia, which you mention, was very important. I transitioned to or tested out the flat-footed version during any one session before the spasms in the tibialis would begin, or eased off and moved back to the raised heel as soon as they started. On some days the spasms were there, on others they weren't, in which case I "exploited" the new opportunity. 

The only point I would add is that I made sure that the abdominal muscles were always in a relaxed state through all these movement variations in the squat position (which is something Kit mentions in a number of interviews and explanations with regard to being a target aspect of stretch therapy), meaning that the "work" was being done in a relaxed state and the posture would interact with the mind to the extent that the body would wish to integrate the new postures and movement permanently. It also allowed me to to gauge progress by comparing right to left as well as making the whole thing much more enjoyable. (I also happen to have developmental asymmetry in the legs which is to a great extent the result of growing up playing tennis and Australian Rules football as a ceaselessly jumping "small ruckman", meaning that I have a fantastically well developed jumping leg and a not-so fantastically developed landing leg and therefore like to work on correcting this asymmetry).

On 6/1/2022 at 2:53 PM, oliviaa said:

One further thing. My feet used to be rigid, so softening them has been hugely beneficial. Here are some things to try for your feet:

- https://stretchtherapy.net/foot-awakening-sequence-suitable-for-pronation-overly-high-arches-foot-and-ankle-mobility/

 I do intend getting back to working on the foot some time (I even posted a query regarding foot flexibility elsewhere in the forum under how far can foot flexibility be taken? ) since my foot is large (size 13 long 14 wide) and my ankles joints are also very large relative to my height, meaning that they tend to function like concrete blocks as the stabiliser foundations of my body .

 

[Edwin S.]

The new focus of my transformation is my own mini-program I like to call "Mastering Exercise 30 Wall Seated Knees Apart, as shown in Stretching Flexibility-1.3, on page 96" . There's been significant progress from an initial point where my knees were closer to each other than to the floor, but it still looks nothing like page 96.

[Kit_L]

It took me five years to make progress in this pose—but I was not meditating nor doing relaxation exercises then. And there's a YT clip showing an additional, and for me far the more important, contraction, here:

This contraction unlocked this pose for me immediately—turned out this was the missing link. This contraction is not in the book, I don't think. Can you try it and see if it helps?

[Kit_L]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:22 PM, Edwin S. said:

Hello, this is precisely what my daily program evolved into. I'd not seen this video at all until today.

Again, masterful. If you do any work like this, and even if it's formulaic in the beginning, your own body will add what it wants/needs all by itself. I cannot stress this too often, but the whole of the Stretch Therapy system has evolved this way, with involved people simply listening to what their body is saying, feeling what's going on as they practice, and coming up with their own modifications. Inevitably we will coalesce on what works.