Stretching hamstrings - no progress
I'm not getting anywhere with my hamstring flexibility.
Here's my post to a physio forum. It describes what I do. I only stretch in the morning at the moment. Will dedicating even more time to this help improve my flexibility or do I need to try something else? I'm on some mushroom supplement from a traditional chinese herb shop now, so we'll see if that works. However, is there anything you can recommend.
Here's what I do:
Quote:
My age: 29
Everymorning I stretch my hamstrings and hipflexors. My ROM before I start is something like 1" off touching my toes with straight legs. When I finish I can get my knuckles flat on the floor, but I've never achieved better than this.
The problem is that when I wake up the next day I'm back to where I was before with what seems like no change at all!
I find that my left leg is A LOT worse than my right. It feels like a have a golf ball stuck 1" below the skin behind the superficial hamstring (the bit that is closest to the skin) and about 4 fingers down from where my butt cheek starts.
All this is frustrating because it costs me at least 1/2 in a day and if I don't do it I start to encourage back problems.
What more can I do to make progress? Is there more I can than stretching?
Here's how I stretch every morning:
I stretch my hipflexors down on one knee, only 1x40secs each side.
I then stretch my hamstrings. This is where I'm getting frustrated. Here's what I currently do:
- I might start this in the shower by heating the area and stretching by putting one leg up, stretching upwards and also activating it further by pulling down I do this for only 20secs on each side.
- I then go outside to stretch in the fresh air. Bizzarely I find fresh air and breathing help.
- I start with kicks into the air making sure I can feel the stretch in my hamstrings. I breath out on the stretch. I do 2x10 on each side
- I then stretch my hamstrings by putting one leg onto a box approx 1m high. I activate it by pushing down with my leg and stretch it was well. I bring my toes towards myself to stretch it more. I do this for at least 2 mins. I then switch to the other side. I then both sides again and again so I have done 2-3x2mins of stretching on each leg.
- at this stage I usually find that this hard stretching still isn't enough so I do the same thing but isolating towards the glutes I do 1x2mins on each leg
- I then try to touch my toes with straight legs and find I still can get my hands flat on the floor, but sometimes I can get my knuckles on the floor
- I then stretch standing up by pushing my bum out until I can get my knuckles on the floor
- I then start my day
hamstrings=garbage can...
meaning that, chronic hamstring tightness can be for lots of different reasons, because the postural system uses them as a catch-all method of dealing with a wide variety of issues in various places, from the foot, to the knee, to the hips, pelvis, low back, shoulders and, according to some methodologies, the head / neck complex!
let me preface this by saying that, not having directly examined you, I really have absolutely no way of knowing specifically why your HS are "tight"; that said, if, as you claim, you find that you are increasing your flexibility only to loose it the next day, there may be a reason that you are not addressing that causes this;
first off, it may be intrinsic - your system may just qualitatively not be as amenable to lengthening as someone else - this can be a connective tissue issue, or it may be a muscle tension issue, or both; whether or not anything can be done about that is anyone's guess; one thing I'd say, is that staying well hydrated may hep your situation in a very general sense, and given that most people are walking around dehydrated to varying degrees, increasing your level of hydration may make everything work better overall;
now, as to the HS specifically, let me give you a semi-hypothetical example (meaning that it's based on what I often see clinically "for real", but may not apply specifically in your case): let's say that you have had an episode involving injury to the low back, where you have bent over to pick up something relatively heavy, and as you straighten up, you feel a sharp pain in your low back;
one way of looking at this is to think about your hip flexors (HF; the iliopsoas being the main one): when you bent over to pick up the object, you put the HF on relative slack; when you powered up to standing, the HF were quickly lengthened / stretched; as a result, according to some thinking, you may have triggered a reflexive muscle guarding function, which is designed to prevent excessive lengthening, in order to prevent tearing at the end of a muscle's available range (this capacity is present in every muscle); therefore, the HF contracted reflexively, in order to limit their being lengthened excessively (BTW, there are other school's of thought about this, but this is the easiest to consider conceptually for non-clinicians, IMPE); as a result, you feel the pain associated with HF going into what amounts to a muscle spasm; and usually, this occurs asymmetrically, either only on one side or if both sides, more on one than the other
now, after this single event, the thinking is that having had this one episode, the muscle becomes "concerned" that this could happen again; so what happens is that the threashold for this guarding response is actually lowered; meaning that next time, you won't even have to move as far or as fast in order to trigger this effect; and so on, over time; and then you end up with chronically "tight" HF;
now, when HF's become chronically facilitated / "tight", the other, and this is important, one result is that the hip extenders (HE; gluteus maximus, primarily) will respond to this by becoming relatively hypotonic or lax, or "inhibited"; meaning that the function of glutes wil become reatively impaired in general;
so, how does this relate to HS? well, the HS muscles are long, multiple joint muscles; their primary function are to act as decelerators of the leg as it swings forwards during gait; meaning that they are very good at being on / off muscles and good at stopping the hip from going into too much flexion at the end of swing-phase; meaning that they are technically HE's, albeit it weak ones, and they do it best in a very context-specific manner; however, as HE's, they can do the same job gutes do, but just not as well; therefore, when glutes become relatively inhibited because the HF's become relatively faciitated, HS will then start to "take over" for glutes to some degree, and as such, HS wil start to become relatively overused / chronically tonic and therefore will start to become more faciitated themselves;
so now, if you go and start to passively "stretch" HS, what you run into is a postural system that is in conflict: on the one hand, HS are being told to be tight (usually more on one side than the other), to make up for the glutes that are inhibited, which in turn are responding to the HF's that are facilitated asymmetrically; OTOH, you are trying to counteract that programming by lengthening the HS, often in a static or non-weight bearing capacity; meaning that, temporarily the HS might loosen, but sooner or later are going to get tight again, because the postural system "needs" them that way in order to function in gravity / dynamically; and so one could stretch until the cows come home, but until the main issue is resolved (asymmetrically tight HF), it's not going to hold; and that can be one reason why someone can stretch without having any lasting change
now, bear in mind, that the above is a hypothetical, it is presented as simply one rationale for why one can stretch HS to no lasting effect; as a hypothetical, it is a bit of an artifact, meaning that in "real" life things can be more complex, bringing in a whole range of other issues in the body that may impact the situation, either positively or negatively; my point is to simply try to illustrate that there may be a reason you are not aware of that may need to be resolved - of course, I don't know your history, have not examined you, so there is no way I can really tell you what is going on; as such, you may want to look into finding someone who can work with you to identify and resolve any issues that may be impacting your ability to lengthen HS; of course, finding someone who can do so may be difficult - many PT's would just tell you to stretch more or stretch different, as opposed to tracking down the root of the issue, if it does indeed exist; OTOH, you may actually just be stretching "wrong", and might benefit from something like good quality yoga instruction (I would suggest an Iyengar certified instructor for best results); of course, you may also find answers working with a chiropractor, an acupuncturist / TCM practitioner, a Rolfer, an Athletic Trainer, a manually oriented osteopath, etc. - it's really often more about the skill of the individual practitioner as opposed to the background; the trick is finding someone good and not wasting your time / $; one thing would be, if you showed someone what I have written, and they go "yeah, sure, that makes sense", try them; if, however, they look at it like they have no idea what it means, move on...just a suggestion...
bottom line, you will have to explore this on your own - although you might get excellent advice in general here, it may not apply to your specific situation; good luck
