After the Sydney Stretch Therapist 2011 workshop, a participant emailed me:

[Kit_L]

Hi Kit,

the course in Sydney was fantastic and I was blown away by the amount of learning and physical and emotional shifting I went thru over those two weekends.

I am looking forward to the online Forum you talked about in class, as always there are more questions springing up after completing a workshop.

I have a question about stretching the hip flexors (Psoas mainly) with the solo floor stretch you showed us. I have being practicing on myself with that stretch a couple of days after the course and I thought I got more range with ease. I have a fairly tight Psoas especially on the Left side. I had no immediate discomfort, but since then I have had a pain in my back in the lumbar area on the Left and I can feel my Psoas is very tight on that side and has Trigger points which activate after work.

I was wondering if this is because I inadvertently overstretched it and if there is anything to the theory that Trigger points in muscles can become worse if stretching is done prior to their release with Trigger point therapy (I meant to ask you this at the workshop, but never got round to it).

I am aware that in my enthusiasm for the exercises I might have not moved into the stretch as slowly and sensitively as you recommended. Which is the best way for me to "calm down" my hip flexors and stop this overreaction? Should I continue with more gentle stretching twice a week or let it settle for a while?

Thanks for your help with this.

My reply was interspersed through the questions, so I will reproduce the above email again, and add my replies:

Hi Kit,

the course in Sydney was fantastic and I was blown away by the amount of learning and physical and emotional shifting I went thru over those two weekends.

This often happens, and most commonly after stretching the hip flexors (HF;

rectus femoris, psoas, illiacus

) as (especially for more flexible people) these are the "last bastions" of unstretched tissues in the body. These days, since I found the 'new' HF stretches, I believe that the vast majority have never stretches

psoas

,

and that stretching this general area produces the most profound effects, both physical (especially heightened perception of foot alignment and a reduction in lordosis and kyphosis) and emotional, for the reasons given above.

I am looking forward to the online Forum you talked about in class, as always there are more questions springing up after completing a workshop.

Here it is; I look forward to everyone using it.

I have a question about stretching the hip flexors (Psoas mainly) with the solo floor stretch you showed us. I have being practicing on myself with that stretch a couple of days after the course and I thought I got more range with ease. I have a fairly tight Psoas especially on the Left side. I had no immediate discomfort, but since then I have had a pain in my back in the lumbar area on the Left and I can feel my Psoas is very tight on that side and has Trigger points which activate after work.

It is hard to say for sure, but most likely you let the lumbar spine extend a little while stretching the HFs—this can leave the result you mention.

I was wondering if this is because I inadvertently overstretched it and if there is anything to the theory that Trigger points in muscles can become worse if stretching is done prior to their release with Trigger point therapy (I meant to ask you this at the workshop, but never got round to it).

It's the opposite, in my experience: stretching can reduce trigger points and, further, make them far more amenable to treatment. And the area you mention is so 'armoured' in so many people that if I were working on this area of anyone's body, I would do the partner HF stretch both before and after. Before to loosen the area so that I could go deeper, and after to integrate the new movement possibilities into the patient's brain, so that they 'embody' it.

I am aware that in my enthusiasm for the exercises I might have not moved into the stretch as slowly and sensitively as you recommended.

Which is the best way for me to "calm down" my hip flexors and stop this overreaction? Should I continue with more gentle stretching twice a week or let it settle for a while?

Let it settle for a while, and have a hot bath before you try again next time.

Cheers, Kit

Thanks for your help with this.