Stretching for Pole Dance #5
Frustration
Grr, grr, grr, grr, grrrrr. That pretty much sums up my experience with stretching right now. Not only are things not improving, they’re actually backsliding. It seems I stretched everything out nice and loose, up until the place where my hip has problems – and I can’t get beyond it. Whatever irritates it, which I’m still trying to figure out, has been irritating it beyond belief, and now I can barely do what I was previously doing easily.
And it’s not like I’m slacking on the stretching, or the massaging. I still do all of that a couple of times a day. It just feels very pointless right now, although I realize it would be a lot worse than it is if I weren’t doing that. Though some days I’ve wondered if I needed to lay off on the stretching, so I have tried that, too.
Hope on the horizon
Nevertheless, my hips have been this bad before and suddenly cleared up. I just keep trying new things hoping to either relieve the problem long enough for this flare-up to go away, and even – fingers crossed – get rid of the pain altogether.
Towards that end, I have been playing with the cushions in my car, switching my desk chairs around, and searching all over the web for anything that seems to relate to what’s going on in my hips. I now have pedal extenders for my car and I made an appointment with a physical therapist. Hopefully, somewhere in all that will be a way out.
False starts
I did get super-excited this week thinking my problem was all in my hip flexors. I researched it online and found some stretches and have incorporated them into my routine, but I don’t, in the end, think the hip thing is due to my hip flexors. It seems more in my hamstrings (are they supposed to be tight cords??). So, just waiting to see what the physical therapist has to say.
I didn’t want to bore you with another vid of me getting nowhere in my stretching, so I thought I’d show you this pole dance I did in my new sailor costume! Nothing fancy (I don’t yet do fancy), but I definitely was having a lot of fun. Hope you like it!
A toast to a future of non-whining posts.
Just to give some perspective, while the hip pain is a, literal, pain in my ass, it’s hardly the worst thing ever. It’s just getting more annoying than it has been because suddenly I want to work on my splits and it’s getting in the way.
Still, this does run the risk of becoming a big oh-my-aching-ass series, as opposed to the how-to-stretch series it was supposed to become. So, I’ll see what I find out at the PT appointment, but if it looks like I’ll be whining for a lot longer, rest assured I’ll post less on this and come up with something else!
How are all of you doing with your stretching? And, for those of you who asked, here’s where to get the stretching DVD I’m using.
[...] been posting video updates on my stretching journey towards the splits. However, ever since I aggravated my hip injury, I’ve had to sideline my efforts to get into the splits and just try to heal and get [...]
I LOVE your sailor outfit video soooooooo much!!! It made me smile and bop along!!! I too am costume-obsessed right now! I went to the Burlesque Convention in Toronto and bought purple sparkly shoes and a matching corset!! I wore them in my July Challenge video on SV. I couldn’t get the booty moves ’til I dressed up and put pasties on my butt!!!
I recently found a youtube video that shows you how to make a leg stretcher from crutches! I’m trying to get my centre split and this thing is really helpful!!! I have a hip flexor injury and this type of stretch is really making it feel better! I hope all goes well with your PT!
I’m off the the Great Midwest Pole Jam this weekend, so we should skype when I get back and I’ll show you my leg stretcher–it’s pretty awesome!!!
@RoadKillGerbil – Glad it’s not being a downer – that’s one thing I never want to do here!
@Heather – Thank you – I’ll be sure to look that blog up!
@Birthe – Glad you saw the vid – apparently it got blocked by Youtube pretty quickly (I’m such a copyright violator).
@Frida – You know, I have a lot of issues with my feet, so you may be right that it’s stemming from there – thanks!
@Svarri – So far, so good with the physical therapist – not enough time to have a lot of benefit yet, but she seems to know what she’s talking about, which is a great place to start!
@Lori M – I wish I were there, too! Glad he’s helping you!
I really wish you were out here in Cali. I have been having mystery hip problems for the past 7 months or so (just had an MRI last week). I have also thought I figured out the problem over and over only to find out that I didn’t. I have a pain guy who helps keep me pain free more often than not. I’d love for him to get his hands on you!!
If you’re ever in the area, check him out:
http://www.trivalleybodyworks.com/Welcome.html
Good luck with your physical therapist appointment – it can be really helpful to get someone else to look at things. Often it’ll be things you never considered you had.
All I can say about the stretching is just stick with it. Consistency is what will get you through this – and you will get through it. Progress from stretching is never consistant. It’s really easy to get fustrated when you hit an impasse as when you start training flexibility it improves rapidly at the start (somethings take very little loosening).
But with things that are long term problems/tighter areas (like your hips from what you’re saying) – it’s taken years for them to become the way they are and you’ll have aquired habits to go along with it. All of that has to be unlearnt and worked through.
I’m not sure if this is any encouragement, but with my box splits stretch it took me 4 months of doing the stretch regularly to even feel like my hips were stretching. All I felt for those 4 months was resistance. Now I feel like I’m actually making slow progress.
Also, the effectiveness of stretching can be affected by your mood/stress levels.
Hope I’ve not spammed you with to much in this comment – I’ve been spending quite a lot of time stretching in the last 2 months as it’s the only exercise I’ve been able to do! I feel quite passionate about it
hey jennifer!
a few years ago i suddenly started having severe hip pain also. i was sure that i hadn´t hurt or forced myself in any way. i´m a dancer/teacher and have a part time as a waitress so i´m on my feet most of the time and it was just so awful to be in pain most of the time. i had x-rays and had massages and went to the cairopracter a bunch of times, but they couln´t figure out why i was in pain and nothing they did helped. i did notice that it would hurt alot sometimes and then almost not at all so i tried to figure out what i did different on those days. you wont believe this… it was a certain pair of shoes! They were beautiful and seemed so comfortable to walk in but something about them irritated my hips. i stopped using them and after a few days had no more pain!! last winter i started getting these pains again and after a couple of weeks of experimenting found which pair of shoes was the culprit and binned them. pain free again.
so stupid that something so simple and fixable was the scource of so much pain!
pay attention to what you´ve been wearing on your feet scince your hips have been bothering you, might it be the same thing?
anyway i hope you figure it out soon and keep on stretching and inspiring us!
xoxo frida
ps: if you can´t figure it out you might want to try a glucosamine supplement which can be really amazing for joint pain!
My stretching sucks too. I get nowhere. But I force myself to continue anyway.
Let’s just keep it up!
And your sailor outfit and video rocks! I could never dance that fast, I’d trip in my own feet halfway through.
I’m not sure where I came across this blog (I originally thought I might have read it here, but apparently not, since I can’t find it now), but I thought it might be useful for helping you to figure out your hip pain. She’s a biomechanical scientist, and talks a lot about body alignment etc.
http://www.katysays.com/
In some ways, an oh-my-aching-ass series is still useful to me, and probably quite a few other people too. It helps to see that other people get discouraged too, and then see the improvements start again afterwards.
Have you tried re-reading your first blog post on this topic? I sometimes find that reading something so positive brings back some of the old energy.
And, I don’t know if it helps, but your stretching (and rather pointed comment!) has encouraged me to start working my ass off on the stretching again. I’ve been rally good for the last week or so, and I am determined I’m gonna get there. I’m probably gonna blog about it on StudioVeena, but I’ll carry on commenting here as well. So, you are still helping and inspiring and bringing about positive change, even if you’re not benefiting as much from it yoursself as you’d hoped. Thank you!
And that is such a cute outfit! I love it.