Stretching, do you stick with ONE method ?

also, VERY gradually stretch that injured hamstring. If you havent been stretching it already, you are gonna find that it is very stiff. it will loosen up. just accept that you are gonna have to take it slow on that leg. and use perfect form. you will find that you will still be able to stretch your other front split well and you may be able to stretch your middle splits nicely. depends where your tear was. I have gained so much flexibility in my middle splits since I tore my hamstring. it’s weird, but it didnt affect that at all. my left splits suck and I’m okay with that. my right splits are ok. they could be better, but I am scared to push it too far.

Hi guys! Re: the hamstring tear. As with any injury, it’s best to get a diagnosis from a health care professional for therapy and healing, but one thing that worked for me was Active Release Therapy or (ART). What happened is I injured my hamstring during an aggressive front splits attempt w/out proper warm-up. I don’t know if I tore it or not, but I do know that my flexibility in that hamstring was impaired (couldn’t stretch it like I used to) and time did not make it better. What happens with my kind of injury is that when the muscle fibers are injured, they heal, but in a knot. That knot will impede the stretch. With ART, the chiropractor or massage therapist stretches the muscle and tries to straighten those fibers out of the knot. When the fibers are stretched again, you’re able to stretch more. For me, after a few sessions, I found remarkable improvement in my hamstring stretch. Between the targeted massage therapy sessions and the ART sessions I was back to my previous stretchability, and have continued stretching more. My studio instructor, who is a dancer, suggested this to me. ART is a trade name and practitioners of it should be licensed or certified in it in order to offer it as a service. ART is a technique that is different from general massage; if you are getting massages, ask your provider if they do it. I found a chiropractor licensed/certified to do it, it takes about 20 min. She did it (ART) on my shoulder blade too, where I had been having neck/shoulder blade pain from attempting to do those elbow handstands, and she solved that one too!

another one who’s had ART therapy…it made a WORLD of difference. I still am taking side splits super slow (don’t have either at the moment) and that bugs me, but it’s what I gotta do. My middles are SO MUCH BETTER than my side splits, I wish I had stretched them more (I quit stretching altogether for months and months) while my hamstrings were healing.

I would select the best bits from the methods available. The instructors can only make a program based on what has worked for THEM (and possibly what the know have worked for a lot of people, even though not particularly for themselves). And while you are not them, you will always have different strengths and weaknesses.