training: Stretching

About 20 years ago, suddenly, my back went "out". I was one of those people you hear about, lying flat on my back on the floor, unable to get up. Thus began a long, frustrating road of education about chonic lower back pain.

After trying everything except surgery, I was at my chiropractor's office and he made a simple comment... your hip flexors need to be stretched. This was my silver bullet. I practiced the hip-flexor stretch he suggested, and, quite literally, have not had a problem since. It is now going on 3 years.

This, now, makes perfect sense to me... I was windsurfing, skiing and riding bikes... all stuff that tightens the hip flexors, and doesn't provide any real "balance" for that. What it amounts to is that my overly tight leg muscles were pulling at their anchors, my back. Something had to give.

Don't think I hadn't stretched... I was doing Yoga back in 8th grade, and, my friends, 8th grade was back in the '70s. In fact, the stretching I had been doing, (and these were stretches prescribed by physical therapists), were making it worse. They were not stretching the problem area, the hip flexor, and, (I believe) they were loosening up the other stuff that had been supporting the back, against my overly tight flexors.

My point? To remind you how complex this machine that we call a body is, and how little we know about it. When you stretch, sit down and write out a stretching routine, based on good advice and tailored to your needs, and stick to it. (I'm now as fanatical as any "reformed" person... I've found the cure! Pass it on!)

As you ready for the ride, remember to rest and stretch. Stretching and resting are the two major breakthroughs in current conditioning practices... Training is a stress/rest process, and your body can't build if you don't give it a chance to rest. Stretching is a "balancing" process. Your muscles can't balance themselves, you have to understand what gets tight, and how that "pulls" on the rest of the system, and use correct and complete stretching to bring everything back into balance.

Oh... then there's nutrition. heh... more on that later.

Some links:
Pilates for the hip flexor
Cycling stretches for triathlons (those people are crazy!)
...and a page on general Flexibility Training.