Hamstrings from Hell

[JasonE]

I have fabulously tight hamstrings. :evil: :evil: :evil:

Lying on my back, I cannot even straighten my legs perpendicular to the floor. I have to let my legs drop to about a 45 degree angle in order to fully straighten them.

I am otherwise pretty mobile and reasonably flexible, but these tight hamstrings make it very difficult to do Pilates with my girlfriend (our 1 shared workout).

I want to start spending extra time specifically on relaxing my hamstrings and lower back, in addition to my regular sessions. Pointers would be most appreciated! :!:

Thanks!

[Scott Sonnon]

As a general guideline, the site is not the source (unless specific reconstruction or scar tissue).

I'd need to hear more about your total condition and how you arrived here. Expand upon your training history, including any injuries, surgeries, traumatic events, or otherwise related events (even if "seemingly" unrelated). If it comes to mind, it's your body throwing you a signal, so share it.

Have you any upper body posterior chain injuries, tension or conditions/issues?

What about any lower back or SI injuries? If so, then mobilize your pelvis and lumbar joints with Warrior Wellness circles, infinities and waves.

If your Achilles and Calcaneal Spur are both tender attachments, then mobilize your ankle/toes/feet, as well as your knees (a la Warrior Wellness).

5-10 repetitions of all dysfunctional areas daily for 1-2 weeks may resolve the situation, unless there has been permanent trauma.

Keep me apprised of your progress.

[JasonE]

I will try to keep this brief, so let me know if you need more detail.

I have been training martial arts on and off since 1991. I have spent varying amounts of time studying TKD, Sport Karate, Aikido, Japanese Jujutsu, Reaction-based SD, Shinbudo crosstraining methods, Judo, Reflex-based SD, BJJ, Tai Chi, Escrima, and Capoeira... usually 2-3 arts concurrently. I'd say my training has been 65% grappling / 35% striking overall.

At one time I was very flexible, but in '95 or so I tore my right soas muscle while improperly switching from nearly full chinese splits to a nearly full forward split. This later led to all kinds of bad back issues and a short left leg. In time I found a combination of skilled chiropractors and massage therapists that were able to fix all this.

Along the way I have had a bad sprain of the right ankle and a near-3rd degree separation of the right shoulder. These have also recovered over time.

In 1999 my right knee got arthroscopic surgery for a torn medial meniscus that healed very quickly. Since then I usually wear light, flexible open-patella Stardox knee supports when I train to protect it somewhat.

Both elbows have been hyperextended a few times, more so the right one. In 2002 the right was hyperextended pretty badly in tournament and I wore an ace bandage for a few months when I worked out. Eventually the elbow felt better and I started lifting weights. It wasn't long before my right shoulder and upper back were having all kinds of trouble due to the elbow not healing right. Over the last year, my massage therapist has pretty well worked it out, but I haven't gone back to lifting. When I bear a lot of weight with the shoulder, it does feel as solid and stable as the left, so I can't work the free weight that my larger muscles can handle. This makes benching and pressing calisthenics very difficult.

Other than that I am a year into a relationship that is going great, have gone from a very stressful position to a much less stressful one at work, and have a bit of stress related to parents and siblings.

My job involves sitting in front of a computer 8-11 hours per day, and I tend to slouch after a while. Sitting upright in my chair is somewhat more comfortable but most days my mid-back gets a bit tight no matter what.

Over the last week I have started working some joint mobility stuff, but I haven't seen your Warrior Wellness material yet. That will have to be the next thing I order...

[JasonE]

You can see more about where I am at now by going to the

"Starting Virtually from Scratch, with Too Much Information" thread on the Program Design forum.

[Scott Sonnon]

Jason,

That's an extremely involved injury dossier. However, it may explain rather well your hamstring hyper-tension. I suspected you had injuries in those areas which elicited reflexive bracing in your hamstrings.

Your musculo-skeletal system is actually trying to protect itself. This primal protective reflex (probably reinforced by your reflex based martial art training) may have become chronic.

Don't try to force range of motion. Perform your Warrior Wellness daily, smoothly and slowly. Keep us apprised of your progress.

[JasonE]

Unfortunately, I don't have the Warrior Wellness material to work with yet, but I have been having some success with a combination of dynamic movements and stretching (PNF & Isometric). I've been drawing from Pavel's "Relax Into Stretch" book & tape and his "Super Joints" book, from Kit Laughlin's "Stretching & Flexibility" book, from Coach Sonnon's "Bodyflow" book, and from his GTB tape series.

I've noticed a significant improvement in my overall hamstring flexibility, the tension level is markedly lower and I can straighten my legs at a 90 degree angle to my body for Pilates and other movements now. I still have a bit of work to go, and I'm looking forward to acquiring the Warrior Wellness series when I have the ready cash again.

On a related note, I've noticed that my right soas muscle is awfully tight too. When I sit with my feet together and knees turned out, the right knee won't drop nearly as low as my left.

I don't know if this is new or if I've only noticed it now that other muscle groups are relaxing. I've started working on it using the resources cited above, but it's a hard one to get to without a partner... and my girlfriend isn't too patient with helping me out with this.

[bob_stra]

I have fabulously tight hamstrings. :evil: :evil: :evil:

Lying on my back, I cannot even straighten my legs perpendicular to the floor. I have to let my legs drop to about a 45 degree angle in order to fully straighten them.
Thanks!

I think you mean parallel, right? Perpendicular would be with feet planted on the floor, knees bent?

In any case, I think you'll find that your low back is contributing significantly to your discomfort. A little know relationship (even amongst clinicians) is that of leg adduction / abduction and curvature of the low back (lordosis / kyphosis). The more the legs rotate otwards, the bigger the low back arch becomes. This also works in reverse. For years this was attributed to "tight piriformis syndrome". Sometimes that's a part of it. Most, IMHE, it isn't.

I really don't have time to go into the anatomical details of it right now, but perhaps you might like to explore this?

http://www.nas.com/~richf/low22.htm

Remembering to go slowly. Also, if your knees can't comfortably rest on the floor (eg: position 3), prop them up with pillows or a stack of books.
Be comfortable. Pain is noise and its difficult to learn when your body is screaming at you.

Alternatively, you might like to try this one -

http://www.nas.com/~richf/low15.htm

Not important either way. The good stuff is in the trying, discovering and yes, even in the occasional failing. You meant to learn something, not do something. Don't be in too much of a rush to "do the exercise".

[JasonE]

My hamstrings have improved surprisingly fast!

I can move through a much wider range of motion with little or no discomfort. I just did the work described in my Program Log and trusted the methods I had to give me the results I needed.

I feel that it was the combination of activity with ROM exercises and PNF stretching that did the trick, rather than any one factor.

When I get Warrior Wellness, it will be cool to compare how it works compared to my cocktail approach.

[SteveB]

A beautiful and simple way to prevent stretching injury:
After years of yoga study, some years back I finally decided to train to be an instructor. Only here did I learn, for the first time, a stunningly simple concept. Breathe continuously as you stretch, making a mild "Darth Vader" sound with throat constriction as you do. Notice how the quality of breathing changes as you put stress on your body (go into a stretch or inverted balance position, for instance). Note this. Work to increase the stretch while never, ever disrupting the flow of the breath. Your body will ALWAYS tighten your breathing before you reach the point of injury. Just by paying attention to this one guideline, you can virtually guarantee never injuring yourself in stretch. Yes, there will be people who gain greater flexibility by grunting and straining, but our hallmark must be Breathing, Motion, and Alignment. They will be sidetracked with injuries, soon enough, while you'll be kicking butt into your old age.

Steve

[JasonE]

Steve -

Thanks for the suggestion!

Now that I think about it, I have intuitively used this continuous breathing method quite often while stretching. I usually try not to constrict the throat much, but I like to keep a long slow breath going in or coming out.

With PNF stretching, I relax into a mild stretch, then inhale as I contract the muscles I want to stretch. I then release the breath and move into the stretch when I release the muscular tension. After 2-4 repetitions, I stop and move onto another area.

The combination of breathing in on the contraction and exhaling with motion on the release seems similar to what you are describing, but I am curious about the function of constricting your throat. God knows I've imitated Darth Vader enough to know how to do it, but I'd like to know what it adds to your stretching practice.

[JasonE]

UPDATE:

My hamstrings are better than they were, but as soon as I stopped stretching every day, they started tightening up again.

While they are not nearly as tight as before, it bothers me that they started reverting so quickly after weeks of progress. It looks like I will be doing a lot more stretching again.

I recently saw my massage therapist, and he suggested a different method for stretching the muscles high in my right hip that are limiting the outward rotation of that knee. Apparently I am not allowed to go a deep stretch with this, so I will give an update when I have progress to report.

[JasonE]

Thanks to Bob, I located this article online.

It indicates that by relaxing my neck muscles (which are usually a little tense), I may be able to significantly loosed my chronically tight hamstrings.

http://www.somatics.de/NeckAndHams.html

Thanks again, Bob! :D

[Scott Sonnon]

Jason,

I hate to say I told you so, but... remember my initial question in this regards?
Have you any upper-body posterior chain injuries, tension or conditions/issues? The principle of Back Force Transmission Systems suggested that would be the first place to investigate.

Congratulations on your progress!

[JasonE]

Coach Sonnon -

I have to admit I didn't think about your question very much early on, as I had other issues that made my relatively minor upper body tension seem like nothing.

Now that I'm overcoming some of those other issues and doing more independent homework, I am finally beginning to grasp that there are deeper levels of inquiry that I have yet to explore, and probably many I haven't yet heard of. I am very interested in seeing what the Neck Rolls might do to work out some of this stress.

I have an alternate version I used to do which got me a lot of strange looks, but I think your version has more potential therapeutic value. I will have to compare them side-by-side once I get the form down.