On and off problem

Hello,

Lately, middle split stretching is giving me some trouble. I've been having an on and off pain in the right leg in most of the middle split stretches, namely the pancake stretches for the past two months. It usually felt like that muscle that connects your groin to the knee (maybe gracilis). I normally avoided sharp pain and usually was able to manage doing the middle split stretches by starting slow and warming up. Usually the exercise where I needed to be more attentive to not go to far was the Pancake good mornings (it's also the exercise I'm tighter at). The pancake work and the vertical frog with the right leg extended where I felt it most. I also feel it somewhat in the front split series but only on the Wide Hurdler Stretch. All other exercises felt fine, even things like the ISO Middle Split and wall splits.

I had a two week vacation and didn't do any hard stretching even to let it rest

Last week though, I did middle split stretch and though I tried working on that edge of not going to far, unfortunately I probably worked at a bigger intensity then I could actually handle. However it was weird, I felt the muscle that usually was tight like move, but there was no immediate pain, I just starting feeling a dull ache. I stopped the stretch and re-evaluated. To be honest at the time it even felt better as if the muscle had let go, but I felt a bit scared at the sudden jolt. I resumed the series and was able to finish it without issues. However the next few days I feel an ache, but located on a different spot, more in the groin, and going into pancake stretches is still feeling a bit tight and while there is no sharp pain (it actually feels better in comparison) there's this constant dull ache in the groin (kind of like a bruise like pain, but not sharp pain), which goes away if I stop the stretch. Everything else, is fine, even pike stretching still feels conformable.

Today I was supposed to middle split stretch but I think I'm going to skip and just do some gentle limbering and maybe for a few weeks, for middle split do some daily limbering instead of having a hard stretch session. My idea is to keep the area moving but not go for new ROM for a while and maybe resume MSS after one or two weeks of no pain.  Would you advise anything different ? 

Hi CHristian , my personal suggestion it is to take off the stretching pose where you feel too much pain for at least 3-4 work and work around the problem. 

When pain it is good restart slowly and consider the idea to insert a program to improve strength on legs. are you also following the foundations?

Hello Alessandro, 

I'm following Foundation. Leg strength are actually where I'm most advanced being on Weighted Lunges with 75% BW (I retested the new progressions and mobilities though, found them easy as you said). On my Foundation warmup I usually do all the F2 mobility elements (and the new kneeling parallel slide which is awesome) and a set of SLS. 

It's not so much unbearable pain as it's more of  a sort of ache coupled with tightness that feels a bit wrong (I'm afraid that if I go deeper I'll regret it). In any case, that's what I'm going to do, work around it, do more active mobility to keep the blood flow going instead of passive mobility.

Any idea was muscle can be limiting me ? It's a bit odd that I'm okay with pike stretching and iso middle split but feel this problem with pancake (and somewhat in the wide hurdler stretch).

I know that feeling, as I've been having trouble with the gracilis both in the past when attempting to stretch for side splits, and in the MSS course.

My experience is that the pain tends to lessen very gradually as you accumulate sessions. Therefore I've reached the conclusion that it is not an overuse injury, but I'm still not pushing my luck by going excessively hard.

It might be some fascia adherence / scar tissue issue (lol), but that would be speculation on my part.

An update. I layed off middle split for two week following my post. However not doing middle split stretches wasn't working because up till yesterday, every day there was still some sharp pain and tightness, like the gracilis pain I had described in my post. The weird bruised sensation turned back into the normal tightness in the muscle with sharp pain if I stretched it.

However, today what I did was during work, in my desk I would every few minutes stretch gently my right leg, so like a seated cossack squat, just stretching out the leg and pivoting a bit in the chair enough to stretch the inner leg and using the edge of the seat to kind of roll the muscle and keeping the area warm and active. After a few times doing this, it started to feel really good as if the tight muscle had relaxed. I then did my Tumbling 1 work by lunch, came back to work and resumed this seated stretching every 10 minutes. Amazingly throughout the pain was gone. There still was some tightness, but no pain that I'd notice.

I was apprehensive but I started doing the Middle Split Stretch series and found no issues what so ever. I didn't even have to juggle the edge of discomfort/pain as there simply was no pain. I finished the series, took a shower and as I type this I feel amazing with no pain and loose and limber. Middle Split Series lately was leaving me really sore in the area where I had pain for the past 2 months, but today it felt awesome, not even sore.

Not sure my observation will apply to all cases, but maybe some gentle stretching throughout the day that feels comfortable will do wonders to ensure that when you do the real work in stretch series the body is readier for it. Just resting and leaving it be wasn't doing much for my case.

Flexibility is weird .

According to your description it sounds like I am experiencing the same issue.  I am not sure I understand exactly what you were doing in the chair at work.  Do you have a picture that you can upload?  Or point me to a video of what a seated cossak squat would look like.

THe lunges are so much stressful on the gracilis and adductor. in fact they are used as the last exercise to rehab from groin injury. You need to consider to stay away from weighted lunges a bit.

2 hours ago, Sam Andersen said:

According to your description it sounds like I am experiencing the same issue.  I am not sure I understand exactly what you were doing in the chair at work.  Do you have a picture that you can upload?  Or point me to a video of what a seated cossak squat would look like.

It's pretty simple actually. When you are sitting down get the tight leg to the side, heel into the ground toes of the ground. Your other foot is planted on the floor like when you are normally sitting. Now kind of rotate your hip to the opposite side of the tight leg, keeping that tight leg extended and the heel firmly in place. I have a chair that swivels at work so it's easy to do this often (and without looking too weird ,haha). You can actually press the inside of your leg in the edge of a chair, like you where rolling it. This is a gentle stretch, you're just looking to move the area. 

Maybe a cossack squat isn't a great description, but think of the position of the vertical frog from the middle split series (4th and 5th stretch). When you're in the static, you can kind of pulse to try to open the hips more, right ? This is would be like that, but from seated so it's much more gentle and not a powerful stretch, so that you can do ever so often.

32 minutes ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

THe lunges are so much stressful on the gracilis and adductor. in fact they are used as the last exercise to rehab from groin injury. You need to consider to stay away from weighted lunges a bit.

I didn't actually feel any problem with the weighted lunges before but in any case I seem to have overcome this problem. Ever since doing this little stretch during the day and MSS last Wednesday I feel absolutely fine, not even a hint of tightness or pain. 

Excellent!  Thanks for the improved description.  Trying it out now.