The Road to Stretching

When I was younger, I rarely stretched. When I was 22, my lower back began to hurt (strained back) from mountain biking. I went to physical therapy. The treatment - strengthening and stretching. When I was 24 my knee began to hurt (IT Band Syndrome) from training for a marathon. I went to physical therapy. The treatment - strengthening and stretching. When I was 25 my feet and knees began to hurt (IT Band Syndrome) from hiking the Appalachian Trail. I went to physical therapy. The treatment - strengthening and stretching. When I was 29 my back, hips, and knees (locked sacrum, misaligned spine) began to hurt from playing beach volleyball. I went to physical therapy. The treatment - strengthening and stretching. The causes and locations of pain were different. The treatments were the same. But the treatments were temporary and not cures.

My last physical therapy began in August of 2009, after suffering for over a month with back, hip, and knee pain (from beach volleyball). I knew that tight muscles were one of the main contributors. I told my physical therapist that I wanted to focus on stretching. After his evaluation he prescribed a treatment of 10 minutes of stretching followed by 50 of strengthening. It was the roughly the same treatment I had received for nearly every other injury. It no longer made sense to me. I thought that I should have been stretching for 50 minutes and strengthening for 10. I went to physical therapy for three months without relief. I stopped going.

I now believe I was stuck in a cycle of injury throughout my entire active life. I exercised until tight muscles promoted injury. Once injured, I went to physical therapy. Inside and outside of physical therapy, I mostly strengthened (which tightens muscles further) and minimally stretched. My flexibility did not change. Zero increased flexibility led to frustration. Frustration led to a stop in stretching. A stop in stretching led to more injuries. More injuries led to more physical therapy. More physical therapy led to more emphasis on strengthening (tightening of muscles), thus ensuring the completed cycle.

I suspected stretching as a missing link in my continued health after my second IT band injury. At the time, I asked my physical therapist how to properly stretch my IT band. His response - "there aren't any good stretches". I took him at his word. He was the professional, after all. But the more I experienced, the more I learned that most people (especially professionals) are limited by their own experience.

To test my theories, I have taken matters into my own hands. In January, I began doing yoga...