Elastic Band syndrome

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bonmar
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June 10, 2009 at 8:43 pm

Post count: 220

#1471

Kind of a weird title for a thread, I know!

Now that I’ve finished my 100-day challenge, I want to refocus on strength. I was discussing this with my chiropractor this morning, that I’m very flexible in my golf swing, but seem to have lost about 20 yards in distance.

And why am I seeing a chiro, you might ask, after 100 days of yoga? Because my right SI joint still feels jammed in Standing Head to Knee and I want it freed up!

Anyway, she used an elastic band analogy – if you keep stretching an elastic band, over and over, when you finally shoot it, it doesn’t go very far, because it’s lost its strength through too much stretching.

Same thing with the muscles. She said Olympic hurdlers, for instance, will only stretch to the exact length they need to clear the hurdle, no further, to keep their power.

so I need more balance, more strength work, less yoga. Okay then, I’m off to do my weight workout, then walk the dogs, then to golf at 4:12. 🙂

Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)
Forum Owner

June 11, 2009 at 2:51 am

Post count: 3048

#5016

Hi Bonnie

This is correct. You can still keep going to yoga and work on building strength.

Sometimes one can get so flexible that the practice becomes all about surrendering to the stretch in such a way that some of the ‘work’ components of the practice are lost.

I don’t know your practice first hand so the following is just an analogy.

A very flexible body, say a dancer will come to class and go into Standing Bow and effortlessly kick up into the standing splits. Looks beautiful!

Is that person working as hard? Maybe yes and maybe no. I have definitely seen many very flexible people hanging out in poses like Standing Bow. Maybe you have seen that too, the dancer’s arm just reaching out with little activation, the leg poised.

In this example you would make sure that you are strongly kicking the leg backward as well as strongly kicking the knee upward. The more flexible you are the easier it is to just about pop your leg up and behind you without engaging much strength.

So I invite you to go to class and see what you can do to bring the strength component (and remember I don’t mean struggle) back into your practice. You probably won’t go as deeply into your poses and it will probably take a few classes to be present enough in your intention to consistently apply that principle but give it a shot and let me know how you go.

By all means, go and do some weight training! Can’t hurt eh?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂
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