Online Course lesson 12

Here it is, the final lesson.

This weeks topic is Upper Body assisted Sliding Techniques. Hard to explain but its like a controlled dynamic movement that moves you within a stretched position in and then out of your near maximal range. You control the speed and depth of stretch using either a pullup or as below a dip style assist.

The pictures below will probably give you an idea of what it is better than I seem to be able to explain it.

Starting position

 

                                                                    Finishing position

He demonstrates a number of different stretches. Its explained that this is an advanced technique and to start slowly and gently to see if you are ready for it.

For those that have been following my Blog, you will know that I am currently suffering from a hip injury and cannot really do any deep stretching at the moment, so I haven't been able to try these techniques to give you my opinion.

So that was the final lesson in the Elastic Steel Splits and Flexibility Training online 12 week course, next week I will look back over the course and give a review on the course as a whole, hopefully an update on my Hip injury and my plans going forward in my flexibility training.

X-rays

So I had my X-rays done yesterday of my hips and lower back. I just want to sort out what is going on. Will get the results on Friday afternoon. If they don't show anything, I'll probably opt for an MRI. My physio is now talking about an impinged nerve as a possibility.

Bad Hip

/sigh

My Hip pain has flared up again after a relatively light stretching session (not even isometrics/pnf stretching)

So sadly it looks like I really need to give my hips a solid rest, I'm thinking of trying to get some scans done to just find out what the hell is going on. I have a physio appointment booked for tomorrow so will see what he says.

The pain seemed to be improving then after a long but fairly relaxed session the pain returned with a vengeance, the trigger points in my hip flexor which had almost totally gone have also returned. 

As the hip is aggravated by lateral stretching or by hip flexor stretching, I think I'll try and keep up with my hamstring stretches (lightly of course) and see how that goes, I'm really reluctant to stop stretching completely.

Will report back after my physio appointment.

Online Course review lesson 11 - Isometric Palpation

Hi,

A really interesting lesson this week with a new technique demonstrated - Isometric Palpation. Essentially you move into a stretch position, perform an isometric contraction and at the same time palpate the muscle being stretched at the origin and insertion. I haven't seen this type of stretching discussed anywhere else before, its not mentioned in the Elastic Steel DVD or book and a quick google search didn't really get any hits either.

Cant wait to give it a go but unfortunately my hip flexor was bad today so only light stretches and a quick ball massage to try and release the trigger point for me.

Will update the blog mid week this week with details on how the new technique goes. Have my physio appointment on Wednesday this week.

My jujitsu instructor was talking to me about starting to gear up for my 2nd degree grading so that's good news, just need to get this injury sorted.

Injuries and review of lessons 9 and 10

Damn injuries! Havent been able to really train for almost 3 weeks now due to what appears to be tendinitis of the Hip Flexor. Its much better now but for 3 weeks any external rotation or abduction would cause pain and my range of motion was severely limited. Thankfully its definitely getting better so should be able to get back into stretching properly in a few days. The Ball massage definitely has been helping. I have learned a good lesson though, I need to continue to do my general conditioning and not just the course specific routines presented each week, warm up properly and not over do it..give myself time to rest and listen to my body.

Quick Review of lesson 9 and 10.
Lesson 9 was a continuation of accelerated stretching focusing on the hamstrings

Lesson 10 I thought was a bit weird with an almost karate like kata/pattern of static exercises, it was strange in that the positions held weren't demonstrated in a deep position so it didn't look like ELC. There was also a sequence of stretches for hip flexors, hamstrings that he has shown before that you perform prior to trying to get into the front split.

At this stage with only 2 weeks to go there has been almost no actual practicing of the splits (think we tried front split once). Considering its an online course on how to do the splits I'm a bit confused. Comparing it to other training methodologies like Kurz and Pavel where you are doing split specific PNF training 3 times a week I'm thinking the course name is misleading. It should just be Flexibility Training Course and not Splits and Flexibility Training Course.

Now I understand that to achieve the splits you need to be flexible, so you need to have an understanding of how to develop flexibility I just don't feel that the course has focused on performing the splits in particular, more just on lower body flexibility.

Anyway, 2 weeks to go then I can hopefully put into practice what I have learned, my Hip Flexor should be 100% by then as well.