Stretching and increasing suppleness.

I have Thai boxed for some time now, but really struggle with my hips. It takes me ages to warm up, in order to be able to do roundhouses on the pads. Then after a training session, my hips hurt for days on end. I am really inflexible, and was hoping someone could give me tips on increasing flexibility. Are there any supplements that will help my joints and recovery time?

The right stretching for your tight areas (daily is ideal and quite likely before and after training if its a chronic problem) will go a long way.

Correct diet plays a huge role.

Omega 3's too!!! Good for a million things.

Water.

I have had great results with athletes and EFT.

In minutes I have seen over a 20 degree ROM difference.

Backing off on running can help as that tightens the hips too as does sit ups etc

Some good quality body work goes a long way too.

IMO

Thanks for this Mark, means a lot. I will continue to stretch before and after training. How can I gauge if my flexibility is improving. Is there any kind of yard stick methods. I just feel like I am stretching to the same point everytime.

I drink lots of water, and always have. I also eat lots of fish and vegetables. So i guess it must be chronic?!

Should have an increased ROM...

The yard stick is improvement or not..

belly breathing is huge!!! (for all of life it is but stretching too)
really relax into it...

piriformis syndrome? Pelvic myoneuropathy? I have/have had both it seems. Takes me absolutely ages, 30 minutes to loosen up my hips and probably 10 different exercises, for outward and inward rotation.
I agree with Mark that situps can cause real problems. Breathing during your stretching also and trying to really relax whilst not losing a solid core. Relax and stretch the muscles in your buttocks and top of the thighs. Also deep massage can help.

http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article130.html

http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Hip.html#anchor845056

(this page is very good anatomically in hip flexor description and can maybe help you see how various mucles are used in different movements and how you can work on them)



http://www.howtostretch.com/iliotibi.htm

some good stretches in here
good luck

looked at the last one.. I'd focus on proper spinal alignment in the stretches.

The body also goes for the easiest route or away from pain and we tend to avoid stretches we are trying to do. Often proper spinal alignment makes the stretch much harder and we have to back off loads to do the same stretch. Even if you feel the area stretching you are also stretching some of the wrong stuff and teaching your body to be out of alignment if doing the motions in a dynamic situation (like sport).

Sitting and stretching the hamstrings with one leg out in front... try that with neutral curves in the spine and you won't get near as far.

You'll see in the pics and with almost anyone stretching that the back is rounded out (especially lumbar region).

I feel a better starting point is laying on your back with!!! a lumbar support (towel roll thickness of hand and with of hand placed about belly button height) and then slip a rope over one foot and raise it holding it with your hands and keeping your butt in line and 'sit bones' on the floor.

I know this is for hamstrings (easier to describe in writing than others) but I share it to make a point. If you try a stretch while maintaining proper spinal alignment you get a vastly different stretch (some hold exceptions).

I would recommend (my bias) a CHEK Exercise Coach or higher (CHEK Practitioner level I and up).

"How To Eat, MOve and Be Healthy" - Paul Chek has some simplified but very good stretches for problem areas with good form.

The higher up you go they get into some very cool stretches and movement patterns that work with the nervous system and the brain and the nerves etc as well as the muscles.

My long time old training partner had many hip problems and tried many many things. Right now he is working with a CHEK level IIII out of California. He has worked with different stretching programs and different types of massage and physio therapists for at least 5 years specifically on the hips.

Food is huge in flexibility too.

I would also recommend, especially with chronic issues to do some Qi Gong exercises (or the like) specifically designed for bringing Qi (or energy) to that area of the body. "How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy" has a few to choose from for each area of the body taken from Qi Gong, Yoga, Tai Chi etc

Safety, security, tribal issues etc are often related to below the waist energy blockages (might sound out to lunch to you but it fits in my belief system and experience). In todays world that includes financial stress etc...

As you increase sensitivity to your body you can actually feel the Qi flow through it giving you your own experience of evidence that this indeed does have effects.

EFT can help big time too. Like I said I have seen over a 20 degree increase in minutes. It is also something you can learn quite easily how to do yourself.

EFT might sound out there to some but I'll tell you this. If I have an athlete come to me to increase ROM I'll only charge for results!

i agree with you about EFT. i think emotional "tightness", anxiety I suppose, can manifest itself with physical symptoms in limbs and organs.

Forgive me for sounding extremely dumb here (although the answer is only easy if you know it) what is EFT and ROM?

Emotional Freedom/Freeing technique and Range Of Movement

EFT - Emotional Freedom Techniques. Despite the name it works on the physical body. Much like acupuncture but with out needles and also gets the brain involved.

I do experience connections with the emotional and physical all the time but even with no connection EFT works in my experience.

Everyone has experienced emotions effecting the physical body... red faced, pain in chest when sad, nervousness and tightness in the muscles.

Research now shows that the chemicals released with emotions (peptides) go to receptor sites on the cells and that is how the cells respond to the environment is through the receptors. The environment (which turns genes on and off even) includes thoughts and emotions and beliefs even, as well as nutrition and toxic influences. Well at first they thought these peptides that are released with emotions ("molecules of emotion") only went into the brain and you experience happiness and sadness etc. They now know that almost every cell (if not all) in the body has receptor sites for them. The organs, immune system, bones and muscles literally are effected at a cellular level by our emotions.

Regardless, EFT works on the physical.

The acupuncture pathways and chinese medicine are partly based on the belief (with experience) that certain organs and muscle groups etc relate to certain types of stressors. The hips and legs etc are related safety, security and tribal stress or balance. Today safety and security are largely to do with financial stress. In my experience with myself and clients I find evidence of this over and over and when a person ois sensitive to the energy flows in the body one can literally feel when a block is released in the energy meridians. (acupuncture meridians)

As you get into understanding how it all works you can look at peoples posture and fairly accurately guess different stressors in their life. Kind of like cutting a tree and looking at the rings. I have seen people tell pretty detailed info about others simply from their posture, tight areas and symptoms with amazing accuracy.

ROM - range of motion

A ROM test would check to see how far a set muscle or muscle group will "stretch".

No question is dumb :)

Mark - "Regardless EFT works on the physical" - i take it you are not talking exclusively here, but that EFT works ALSO on the physical ; i believe that emotional and physical health are inestricably linked -
Mens sana in corpore sano -etc etc


have you ever got involved with/experienced SCENAR therapy (in reference to peptides etc etc) or acupuncture yourself and what have been your personal physical and psychological experiences?

cheers

HAWKMAN - totally. EFT works on hysical (regardless of any possible connections or not to emotional etc

I don't think the mental, emotional, physical or even spiritual parts can be separated.

If beliefs affect physiology, as "Biology Of Belief" discusses and shows from a scientific point of view. Then if your spiritual beliefs say life sucks or you are a sinner, then it will have affects on the mind and body. I am NOT suggesting those are right or wrong beliefs. Just saying that I feel that it all affects all.

SCENAR therapy - I'll have to look into that. Don't kno what it is.

I have had some results with acupuncture.

A personal story connecting EFT with emotions...

Jackie (my "GF" - don't like labels...) and I met at the first workshop I did on EFT. She had 8 year old back pain from a work accident and 1.5 years before the workshop re-injured in a car accident. 0-10 scale of pain she was an 8 and had been on high level pain killers most of the 8 years.

I asked if we could look for possible emotional contributors and she said yes. I asked her what was going on 8 years ago around when she got in the work accident and at first she didn't think anything. Then remembered she was getting out of a relationship that had started to become abusive.

She thought she had dealt with it and gotten "over it" but was willing to look at it.

We did EFT on that situation and none on her back at all. In 15 minutes her back pain was a 0!!

With athletes and stretching I have often got faster and better results by looking for possible blocks in energy flows to that area of the body that maybe related to emotions or past experiences.

My experience suggests that the body talks and is essentially a map and often physical issues are related (not always caused by any means but may have components that limit healing) to emotional etc

SCENAR therapy sounds very interesting... just doing a little reading.

For me it is all about results. Reality is we know very very little about the body and the reductionist model has failed miserably in regards to health and healing. There is a time and place for intervention but health and healing are not looked at almost at all by the current dogmatic views.

JAMA reports docs are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US yet we are so programmed to bow down, bend over and take a drug or a needle or knife that we can't even realize that these figures come from within the medical community and from one of its most respectable sources.

Anyway...anything "alternative" (most of which was around before med started killing women and having men only medical schools)...my only question is does it get results, are there side effects and how fast and gentle does it work.

I would like to know more about SCENAR therapy.. looks interesting.

As a general rule I don't think we need machines. That said i have had some cool experiences with some. Ever heard of the SCIO machines (spel?). They are quantum biofeed back machines. Hard to really gage results to tell the truth but they sure as hell picked up some stuff. example... once on one they were picking up Jackie and stuff about her (which was accurate)..

Anyway. Results...

I don't know many places that will charge for results only (depending to some degree on the issue). I have only given money back once to a client. I mix things in with EFT but as a rule it is my main method. I do think there are other wonderful things out there but as of yet I have not found one that works so consistently and at the same time is so simple that the client can do themself which offers them a chance to take some control back into their own hands.

Now I know there is much amazing stuff out there and EFT is not the answer for all and I know people who get amazing results using other methods (which i love looking into and learning). in terms of cost, time and not being completely dependent on someone else...AND results. EFT blows me away.

hmmm. I understand with a lot of what youre saying. I remeber reading a post somewhere you commented that paternal validation issues can manifest themselves in a specific physical manner.

What do you think about neck/shoulder pains?

SCENAR i had some very good results a few years back - it seems to draw itself to areas of weakness and relieve pain significantly

Results and experience - thats the shit to learn from IMO :)

I will keep looking into this. Thank you.

Neck - often related to communication or expression.. expression can be more about communicating or expressing in life etc

This comes from experience and also based on the chkra system, which science is starting to find supporting evidence of that there is more to those areas if nothing else. I forget exactly but I think there are way more nerve endings in those areas the Indians call chakras. Also related to 27-34 years oldf in terms of human development again related to communication and expression.

The shoulders according to Louise Hay (if memory serves) is like carrying a weight... it all seems to work in metaphors 9or is that why the metaphor is there?) . They are connected to the heart chakra (love and relationships) and I think they can also be related to the throat chakra (again communication/expression). My experience with clients is both.

The left side of the body (if right handed) represents the feminine aspects of self or may be related to females in your life and the right side is related to masculine energy.
(yin/yang)

Right brain (controls and creates left side of body) is intuitive and creative / feminine energy or qualities and the left side of the brain is more analytical and to do with structure (right side of the body) and represents male energies.
This isn't a man and woman thing. The Chinese break down Qi into masculine and feminine energy.

Its all about balance.

Masculine energy is hot and feminine is cool. The Chinese will look at balance and give you foods, herbs, exercises etc to help bring about balance.

My experience is that often, though not always, the emotional issues I think are related and then released also release the physical issue...and when if not releasing the right thing the physical issue does not resolve.

I share this as if it is one shoulder it might be worth looking at the related male or female component.

A good way to tap into intuition or the subconscious mind is simply to guess.
Here is an NLP question "If this pain represented an emotion or situation and if you knew what that was, what might it be." The point is not to figure it out (left brain) but to guess...allow whatever rises into the mind to surface, don't judge it and just go with it and see what happens.

Muscle testing is another way to tap into the subconscious mind or intuition.

I had a client yesterday (related to food allergies). With muscle testing (without saying the questions out load) I got it was related to something that happened at three years old. I was partly doubting myself for some reason and I asked her to intuitively guess and age that something may have happened, if anything did, that may be related to the allergies (they started at about 20 I think). She said three years old.

This happens over and over again, The confirmation from more than one method of looking and also finding accurate information.

But "guessing" is a very powerful way to tap in.

"if I knew..what might it be?"

I have seen a room full of 40 people do this, get something and many got something that had been repressed or forgoten and many broke down crying. Simply by "guessing".

Curiosity is very very powerful and when we get the left brain out of the way or at least come to some balance, we can tap into some wonderful stuff.

As a fighter if you are stuck in left brain and thinking loads and scared you will not act intuitively.

Did you know that scientifically it is suppose to be impossible for a baseball player to hit a fast pitch? The time it takes to process the info says that the body cannot react fast enough... yet they do. I think they are acting more intuitively and also why I htink the Thais perform so well with less programmed combos and less over trained left brain coming less from a place of fear fighting allows them to simply act. Many top end athletes talk about the zone...where it just feels like you act and you just know what to do...that is not a thinking place and I believe it is an intuitive place.

I have a similar problem in my groin muscle. I used to be able to throw roundhouses and head kicks constantly but now every time i throw one there is a twinge in my groin. Can i have advice on ways of sorting this out please. Its worrying me!

Finding someone, good physio, good body worker, good exercise specialist, good sports massage therapist, good EFT practitioner...

The trick in any is getting a good one.

thanks for the advice Mark.