Ligament Problems. Have I Reached My Limit!?!?!

Here's a video about my contortion injury, to my fibular collateral ligament. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INdzHXbY9DQ

Long story short, can ligaments adapt to training? Or are they likely to limit achievements in flexibility?

Jamesters my friend! I watched your video to 3:41 and i just had to stop as it was scarring the pants off me.

I'm an Ashtanga Yoga teacher, and teaching people how to put their foot behind the head is something i do for a living. The type of pose you are working on is an EXTREMELY advanced variation, in fact i'm the only person i know of in my area to do it, and that was with over ten years of slowly learning how to do other foot behind the head poses.

The reason i say this, is the second i saw you grab your leg and move it towards your body, its clear you're thinking that what you call the 'lower leg' needs to move. You are basically trying to tear your knee apart, you are very lucky you are not more injured!!!!!

I'm not saying this to belittle you, but to caution you. Unfortunately i feel it would be irresponsible of me to tell you how to get there without working with you in person. I will as least tell you this, the knee joint SHOULD NOT SIDE FLEX MORE in a good foot behind the head, you don't pull the foot EVER!!!

Its all in the hips and learning how to get the femur to turn just the right way in the hip socket. In other words the lower leg must turn. If you go too fast with this very deep variation you can seriously hurt your knee (you know this now), your hip, or even rupture a lumbar disk.

The theme on this site is not to do things at all cost, but how to do things and prevent injury. Ask yourself why you want to do this, how important it is to you, and do you want to do it once when you are 20 are take your time and still be able to do it through out your life.

If you are serious you will need some kind of teacher, there are too many subtle things that go into it to from a forum or YouTube.

That said, if you get with a teacher, and still need advice, i will be very happy to help if possible. I do have a great deal of experience in this. It shows great initiative that you put the video up and have continued working on this even after the injury. Now focus that into finding someone to help you meet your goals.

My knowledge is way under Jason when it comes to this. I have been told and read that connective tissue doesn't stretch much without some disastruous results which why certain fitness communities are against yoga and some of the odd contortion training.

Being flexible in your hips make a lot more sense than just torquing on your knee to get it around.

Thanks Mr. Brady. If you watched through the rest of the video you'd see that I was upon the same conclusion as you, that it's not so much the lower leg stretching as it is the hip, so I think you jumped the gun a bit, hehe. However, I really do appreciate your detailed response and have some ideas of ways I can increase my hip flexibility without risking further injury. Perhaps I'll make a video of it in the future and see what you think. I read you comment in my thread about a shoulder problem too. You seem very knowledgeable. I take gymnastics classes and while there are some really good coaches that have helped me in many ways, I don't think there's any coaches that are knowledgeable about my very specific problems as well as certain very specific goals I work towards. I'm friends with some Cirque du Monde/Soleil people who have some contortion classes in San Fransisco and Los Angeles that I've been wanting to check out but haven't had a chance yet. Where abouts are you Mr. Brady? If nearby (I'm in Fresno, CA) or even if I happen to travel around you perhaps we could arrange a private lesson or something.

Great thanks for reading that with an open attitude. I saw that you were building up to the conclusion that's its in the hips, but i just want to you know for 100% certain, its not in the knee. We don't want to stretch the knee ligaments. There are some people out in the flexibility world that seem to think you should, but if you want a long and happy life of being able to walk, don't.

I'm in Helsinki, Finland which is a long ways from Fresno. If you have some friends that are contortionists, then that's a good start. I think that this kind of work takes even more patience than the strength work, so don't force anything. It takes a while to know your limits, and to read the body's signals. Yoga in theory is a bit different than contortionisim in that its not for show but for its effect on the system, but in either you have to really be focused.

I will be in my home town, Camarillo, Ca in March so if you haven't found a good solution by then we can try to figure something out. Lets take it to PM from there though, so as not to clutter Coach's forum.