Hamstring Insertion Injury

Hello Lulu

I am concerned that you are feeling that what you are doing is causing injury. It does mean there are some techniques that you are employing/learning which are simply not right. Luckily there are changes that you can make.

It is not entirely clear which poses you are indicating in the post. But the first one must be Standing Head to Knee. Yes you are correct. Lock the standing leg and do not proceed past the first part of this pose until you have the ability to completely lock that standing locked knee for the ENTIRE 60 seconds.

The mere act of fully engaging your quadriceps muscles when you lock the knee has the effect of relaxing the opposing muscle – the hamstrings.

BUT

Do NOT generalize this out to every pose. Because there are particular poses where a bent leg will give you much more stretch. Sounds odd I know but please go and take a look at the blog post about Opening Up Your Hamstrings With Hot Yoga. This technique will apply to Hands to Feet as well. Plus take a look at the posts on Floor Head to Knee and Intense Stretch for other tips to help your hamstrings.

Basically at the moment, some of what you are doing even though you are doing it with the intention of helping your hamstrings heal, is actually having the opposite and unintended consequence of CAUSING more problems, making it worse. Yikes.

Please get back to us here with your response, your discoveries etc. I have a feeling there may be other particular poses that are causing you grief. If they are then check out the posts for those ones in particular and see if the answers are in there already. And also feel free to open a new thread to cover any unanswered questions! I will answer them in pose specific posts and link it back to this one for you! :cheese:

Finally as a beginner student, not surprisingly you want to pay attention and to respond to everything your teacher asks you to do. I would really request that you pay attention to your body’s voice because at the moment it is screaming out (sometimes in pain!). So something has got to change. Please don’t go beyond that point of discomfort – where you know you are doing good – into pain. And please don’t cross that pain threshold when and because your instructor tells you to do it (either wittingly or unwittingly). Remember they are teaching a whole class and unless they are also teaching every individual and saying stuff like “Lulu, do it this way because you have tight hamstrings” or “those of you with tight hamstrings do it this way” then learn what it is you should and should NOT be listening to.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Lulu

I hope by now you have had a chance to read the article I pointed you to before about the hamstrings. You mention a number of times that you have problems with Standing Sep Leg Stretching and I am positive you will find the key there: Opening Up Your Hamstrings With Hot Yoga.

With regard to the poses you mention in your last post:

With Standing Bow Pulling, I once again recommend you looking at the posts for that pose. In a nutshell you should NOT be consciously bending forward at all. It is all about the kick.

Re triangle: would you tell me whether it is both legs bothering you or just the bent or only the extended leg?

In Separate Leg Stretching it could be that although your legs are bent your arms may be bent too, which will mean your body is too far forward. Let me know!

Lulu I know now that since posting you have purchased my manual (humble and grateful thanks) so I am hoping that the step by step pose descriptions with photos will assist you greatly.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂