Hamstring & Hip Pops
Dancing Smart Newsletter
August 12, 2005
Announcements
Welcome to all the new subscribers who signed up at the Dance Teacher Conference that was held in NYC this past weekend. Wow, what a wonderful event it was! I really enjoyed meeting and talking with so many of you, and look forward to continuing our dialogue through the newsletter. I'd like very much to hear from participants who took my assessment testing workshop about your experiences with evaluating your students' range of motion at the hip joint. Hats off to Lifestyle Media for producing the event!
Onto the question of the week…
Question of the Week
Hiya, Deb!
I have just recently found your website and absolutely love it! I skimmed through the "Tight hamstrings" newsletter, but I have my own question on flexibility and extension:
Everyday, I push myself into splits. It's painful. Some days, I can do it better than others. It feels as if all the stretching I do is in vain because it seems like my hamstrings just become 2x tighter the next day. Same goes for my seconde position when sitting down.
For extensions, I've just now recently found out how to stretch my quads. So, now I don't grip them as much. But, there's still a lot of gripping in there. I'm trying to figure out how you DON'T grip your quads while stretching the leg out and in pointing the foot while in a high développé.
Actually, this brings up another question of mine. Whenever I do grand battements on my right side, my hips pop. I feel like this is the reason why my right side's extension is 60-70 degrees whereas my left is over 90. My left hip never pops, but my right does.
Can you please give me advice?
Thanks, Stephen
Deb's Answer
Based on some of your adjectives I'm concerned that you are working too hard at your stretching. There is a muscle response called the stretch reflex, which kicks in when you put too much push on a muscle. What happens is the muscle contracts to protect itself from tearing when there is too strong of a force. Now you are working against the goal of releasing muscle tension and instead are creating more muscle tension.
Try an experiment and don't do any splits for a couple of weeks. Do massive amounts of ballwork, using a pinkie ball underneath the hamstrings as you are sitting on the floor. Leaning forward slightly as you are working with the ball will increase the massaging influence of the ball. (For more detailed information check out my Ballwork: Releasing Muscular Tension DVD)
Make ballwork your focus followed by some single leg hamstring stretching, standing with your foot on a low to medium heighth surface. Stretch each leg, breathing and releasing for 2/12 – 3 minutes each leg.
As you are walking and standing during the course of a normal day, check how often you have tension in the quads and gluteals. You are already aware of a fair amount of tension in your quads, so simply include monitoring for gluteal tension. Remember, one should be able to stand easily with the weight going through the skeleton and with relaxed muscles in standing. Muscles are designed to move us – not to support our weight – the skeleton does that.
As far as NOT gripping the thighs when in a high développé, that's anatomically impossible. I'm translating gripping to mean contracting the quadriceps muscle, and since the quadriceps are hip flexors they have to contract in whenever you take the leg to the front or side. It is impossible to lift the leg without their engagement. You ARE trying to lengthen the leg as much as possible to keep that long line dancers love so much which is why I think this correction got started. This reminds me of another comment I have heard over the years, which is to lift your leg from underneath, another anatomically impossible action unless you are lifting the leg to the back.
To address your last question about the hip popping on one side that seems to go along with a lower extension, I would begin by checking the amount of turnout you have in each hip. Make sure you are testing your turnout with the hips in extension, lying on your stomach as I describe in Tune Up Your Turnout on pages 32-33. Then go to testing the iliopsoas muscle and see if it is tighter on the side that's popping. If so, work on stretching out both muscle groups and see if the popping decreases while your extension increases.
We are assymetrical beings, and generally work to our side that has the greater range. This encourages a pattern of compensation on the side that doesn't have as much range and can produce patterns of muscle strain. It goes without saying that if the hip popping begins to be painful to get it checked out by a health practitioner. (Watch for an article on Hip Popping that will be in October's issue of Dance Spirit)
Until next week!
Deborah