do the splits

I say that too often, but this time I feel like I really am close to accomplishing this goal.

After today’s stretching, I tried a few rounds of various split stretches. Afterwards I felt a new muscle being stretched for the first time. I’m not sure of its exact name without doing a web search, but this muscle is between the left Gluteus Maximus and the top part of the left Sartorius muscle. Basically, there’s a slightly sore spot between the legs.

But I do think this is the last muscle that needs to be stretched out in order to complete this goal, and even better, I think that can be possible in the next couple of days.

And that’s something else I say too often.

Near the end of my stretching session today I noticed that I was able to completely lower myself to the ground on my usual left-leg-front attempt and held that for a couple of minutes.

An hour or so afterward the usual mild soreness appeared (nothing at all like a pulled muscle this time), so I’m going to wait until tomorrow morning to see how my leg muscles are doing. If there’s no bad aches and pains like before, I’ll attempt this again (on sand).

And if it can be done, I’ll happily mark this as “done” and begin working on my horribly neglected right-foot front and middle splits (I’m doing the stretches for them, but not trying the actual split attempts very often at all).

I’m finding out that Pain Killers and Caffeine make a deadly mix when stretching for something like this. The lack of pain combined with the energy from the caffeine made for over-zealous stretching sessions (and a slight addiction to both substances).

But for the past couple of weeks I’ve been avoiding both, and am now able to stretch for this and not have badly pulled muscles immediately afterwards.

And time to lower my expectations a little (and say maybe sometime next month I’ll be able to accomplish this), while simultaneously keeping my optimism at a high level (I’ll definitely accomplish this before the end of the year, meeting one of my New Year 2007 resolutions).

Gravity doesn’t seem to help anymore since the sand is too soft (and surprise, I still haven’t tried on a flat surface), so now once I’m in position I’m trying to push my feet away from me to try and squeeze (unsqueeze?) that last inch.

Also I’m starting to use a new approach to the splits, by putting my front foot up on something while the back foot stays down on the ground, allowing gravity to once again be of assistance (possibly that’s the “ballet” approach).

So now, with everything going good so far, I’m going to be cautiously optimistic and say sometime next week I’ll have this goal met. I know, I could wait until all three splits (L/R/M) are achieved, but that’s a different goal, and I like marking things as “Done”.

(Just pretend the correct accent marks appear above the letters that need them)

All right, so two days ago I felt like I was making further progress on this, and decided to let gravity have its way with me to try and push down that last little distance. I tried my hardest to push my feet apart as far as I could, and held that for 2 minutes even though I felt a little pain (And I tried to just ignore the pain for whatever reason).

After that day’s stretching session I felt a little sore, but felt slightly greater soreness in my right inner thigh. That surprised me, since the last two sore (pulled?) muscles I had were on the left leg. What have I pulled so far? Let’s see:

1. Right hip flexor (particularly painful)
2. Left hamstring (If I remember correctly)
3. Left gluteus maximus (I had no idea that was pullable)
4. Current. Right inner thigh (“Sartorius” muscle, I think)

But anyway, I’m sure that this cycle (stretch, make progress, stretch more, ouch) will repeat once again even though I’ve been trying to limit my overdoing it. I’ll just start taking it even easier.

Doing my stretching on a quiet beach is good except for when there’s nobody around to help take a picture. This is one of those times.

I had to take a self picture using my camera’s 10 second timer. I seem to need at least 15 seconds to be able to reach the ground on sand (my feet get stuck in the sand so I have to push down real hard to get the sand to move), and my feet sinking into the sand didn’t help. Neither did the slope of the beach. I also had to prop myself up to keep me from falling over. Quite a challenge to do this properly within that 10 second time span.

I’ll buy a large yoga mat to get a flat surface and continue working on this goal.

And once again, the soreness of the left leg muscle is gradually going away. Maybe this time I can break the bad habit and not overdo a stretch and pull yet another muscle.

Although I’ve been trying to work on all 3 (left, right, middle) splits, the left foot forward has been gaining progress at a quicker pace than the other two, so I’m spending extra time to really stretch for that.

Of course when I’m able to do the left split decently, I’ll begin dedicating time to the right and middle, as well as trying to do the left split correctly, with my right knee facing down (Hanumanasana style) instead of to the side (which is currently easier for me to do)

I can still reach the ground while on sand, haven’t yet tried on a hard flat surface though. I’ll try that tomorrow.

When I set my mind to a task, I have the bad habit of being extremely stubborn (or the good habit of being very dedicated), going all-out on practicing or training for something until it’s achieved. This goal being one of them.

Here’s a portion of my current stretching routine, which I repeat 2 or 3 times in a session, and helps with the splits:

Pike stretch
Seated spread leg left/right/middle stretch
Butterfly pose, reach forward and then lean back
“S” pose (unsure of the name, similar to the Pigeon pose but with both legs bent to form that “S” or “Z” shape)
Pigeon pose
One-Legged King Pigeon pose (attempt to, anyway)
Lunge
Pyramid pose
Repeat above 5 with other leg in front
Wood Chopper pose (standing toe touch, just so I can stand up for a little)
Splits attempt and hold for 1 or 2 minutes

About 3 days ago, I must have overdid it once more, with some soreness the morning after (am I repeating myself?). But oddly, the soreness seems to be in a different area of my leg muscles than before. Maybe it’s just all those previously unused muscles and ligaments getting a good stretch now.

Continuing on.

But that’s what I said last time, and the time before last.

This time, I went to the beach for my daily stretching, but it was a little overcast (not quite warm), and the trade winds were blowing. I know, bad bad bad for stretching in those conditions, but I tried anyway.

I have a set of stretches and yoga poses I usually do twice in a row before trying a split, but today I repeated the set a third time (lucky that the sun came out from behind the clouds when I started that third repetition)

After that, I tried a split, and mysteriously was able to reach the ground (on sand, so a technicality) and also lift my hands off the ground as well. I held that pose as long as I could, for about 2 minutes or so, then stood up, tried it again and held that for another 2 minutes.

So unless I do something very wrong and pull yet another muscle, I’ll hopefully be accomplishing this on solid flat ground later this week. Really this time.

Closer to the ground than ever now, using the warmth of the afternoon sun and sand to their fullest.

Today my legs started out a little sore and stiff (expected zero progress), but after the stretching session, the soreness almost completely disappeared, with the stiffness gone.

Constantly stretching sore muscles to the point of pain sounds counter-intuitive, but if it gets the iron-fisted psychopathic gymnastic drill instructors’ seal of approval, then it’s good enough for me.

I’ll make a more reasonable estimate of being able to do this sometime next month. In any case, I’m confident that this can be accomplished by the end of the year, fulfilling one of this year’s resolutions.