Neck Issues and Starting H1 Again

I started H1 this past summer and about 6 weeks in doing the initial headstand excercise, my back and neck muscles revolted. Everything went into spasm, freezing up with a solid amount of pain. I've been letting myself recover- doing excercises from Kit Laughlin. I've started F1 again even though I still have some back and neck pain because I feel like the strengthening will help me in my recovery. I'd love to restart H1 at some point, but I'm scared that something about the neck position doing the hea stand will bring my back and neck back into spasm. I am 44 and in pretty good shape but by no means an athlete. I really want to do this program because it's the only thing I've seen out there which really charts a path. Would love to hear any thoughts that might help me move forward.

if you have any pre-existing injuries or concerns, mentioning them would be of great benefit: 1. for the most important thing, your safety and 2. how to begin or scale the work.

 

can you describe your initial experience? what kind of jumps in volume did you do? did you test for mastery on the first day of your workout as prescribed in the course? or was it further down the road? and what exercises specifically gave you the pain and how? (tripod, headstand, forearm headstand?) was it entering the position, during the pose, lowering from it?

I feel your pain! I had a very productive H1 session yesterday but I'm struggling to turn my neck right today.. I think I've pulled my levator scapulae a bit... unusually its on my left side though. Been doing plenty of smr with the lacrosse ball today and some stretching in that area.

Do you think its from the headstands or the mobility work? Which elements are/were you working when problems started? It's PE1>iM that's causing me problems.

I'm guessing Coach would say you're working the elements to hard for your current level but it's a fine line between making progress and stagnating. I figure that if our shoulders aren't that mobile then they'll try and find an easier way of achieving the movements given the chance which is where the problems start to occur. I try to take a positive from it and everytime something like this happens it's my cue to learn about my body so I'd encourage you to try and persevere with H1. Even if I only ever achieved the prone dislocates I'd be really chuffed!

I started from the very beginning of HS1. And the problem arose about 6 weeks into the course doing the tripod. Although I didn't feel any pain during the excercise, I could feel a strength imbalance across my shoulders, neck and jaw. It felt like my left side was much weaker than my right side while doing the position. I assumed that things would even out as I kept progressing. But then my back started freezing up. Not while doing the excercise. Just one day out of the blue, my lower back and hips froze up and the right side of my neck radiating down to my shoulder and shoulder blade. I think it's interesting that the spasm and freezing up was centered in the opposite side from where I felt weakest during the excercise. Seems like maybe I was compensating to that side.

How far apart were your hands when doing the static seated shoulder flexion? If you check out my zombie poster boy thread on one of the videos you can see that I don't always manage to elevate my shoulder properly when doing that exercise. Maybe it could be something like that going on?