The gender poll shows there are lots of males around here, and since guys tend to be tight in critical areas (often without knowing it), I figure I'd share this. It's not about fitness, it's about alignment and it's quite unbelievable what releasing those muscles can do for one's physical/mental disposition.

I posted here before regarding my revelations with the foam roller. Since then, I have come across a different method, which works wonderfully and it doesn't require you to buy any device or do anything, really.

If you cannot sit yoga style (not full lotus, just legs crossed), cannot bend at 90 degrees with straight spine and straight legs, cannot tilt/tuck your pelvis at will, or have back/foot pain, you can derive some great benefits from this. Basically, all you need to do is identify a region that's tight (in guys that's often the hip area, including the psoas, which is possibly the most important muscle group), pick a muscle, and make it vibrate. Once you get it to vibrate steadily, you can turn on the tv if you want, as long as you can maintain the vibrations going. However, the benefit of staying focused on what's going on in the body is that you can direct the vibrations to neighboring areas, like from the hamstrings deep inside the groin.

The revelation, for me, was that you have to keep it going (for hours, if you have the time). The beauty of the process is that you're not really doing anything or paying the chiropractor, and it doesn't hurt either. It feels like you're in a massage chair, except the vibrations are generated from inside the muscle, releasing tissue that might have been out of service for decades. Seriously, when you start walking, it may feel like your in a different body, as the habitual patterns of least resistance are now broken, and the body goes back to employing the more efficient muscle groups for any particular movement. Also, by applying this to the chest area (which gets tight if you work a desk job) you can change your breathing pattern quite radically, which has many well researched benefits.

Well, hopefully someone will benefit from this.

Sounds like a cool idea. But, i don't fully understand how we are supposed to make the muscle of choice vibrate. Could you post a step by step to give us instructions on how it is done. A video would be cool to.

I haven't seen any video to discuss that, but it wouldn't be of much use anyway, as it's all internal.

Since tight hamstrings are common, try this: Stand planted firmly on your 2 feet, leaning with your shoulder against a wall (wear shorts). Now assuming your leaning against the wall with your right side, gently place your left hand underneath your glutes and start shifting your weight very slowly to your right foot, until your left foot is free. All the while, focus on the feedback you get from both your hand and your hamstrings (This feedback is the great advantage you have over massage therapists, chiropractors,etc). Also, if you can, look at the muscle and see what's moving. Now extend your spine towards the ceiling as best as you can, and relax the psoas and the quads (so your lower body sinks)

From there, SLOWLY start flexing your free leg (the left). If you have some ankle weights (or any other light object you can attach to your ankle), that will make it easier to focus on the movement. It's crucial that you make it very slow, deliberate and 'dense', while paying attention at the feedback you're getting from your hamstring/hand/eyes (it's an isometric contraction applied over the entire range of motion). Also, before starting the movement, align your hip, knee and foot the best you can, and try to keep it like that while flexing.

You'll soon feel the muscle vibrating and, if you're not used to that motion, it will probably go into a spasm. If it does back off a little bit, try again and when you feel the muscle going into a spasm, stop before it gets painful, hold that tension and slowly extend your leg. If you do that a few times, you'll become more aware of the vibrations and, eventually, be able to generate them without doing any of the above.

You're basically reclaiming control over automatic movements. When you normally take a step, you don't think of all the major muscles and the myriad small muscles that are contracting to make that possible, or the particular sequence in which they fire. Now whether you're super athletic or missing a few toes, your body will do its best to keep you up and moving, even though that may involve using certain muscles to perform in ways they were never supposed to.

Now weird as that may sound, taking control over long forgotten muscles, along with breaking patterns in the body and replacing them with more optimal sequences does have an impact on one's mental state and thinking process. I'm sure there are scientific explanations, but regardless of that, it's quite a fascinating thing to experience.

Also, actively visualizing the muscles as you work them helps. You can use this for inspiration:
http://www.bandhayoga.com/flyarounds.html

I tried the method above and couldn't get it.

Which part of my shoulder is touching the wall? The arm part to my side or shoulder blade (upper back)?

Also, I have tight hamstrings and hips. What I've found works for getting the hammies vibrating is the following:
1) lay flat on my back
2) bend my knees toward my chest
3) grab my big toes
4) focus on keeping my back aligned
5) try to straighten my legs.

Yes, I do that too -basically any position imaginable will do the job. What you described is stretching the hamstrings, but actually activating the quads. Now try turning on your belly, elongate the spine and release the psoas/quads so that your hip bone touches the floor, then slowly start flexing your foot. It's important that you keep everything relaxes, except for the hams (keep the hip bone pressed into the floor; you can also use a piece of string/elastic band to guide your foot in a straight line, because the tendency will be for it to move in the same pattern it follows when you walk, following the path of least resistance and avoiding the tight spots).

Make sure everything is aligned (hip, knee, foot). By the time your leg is bent at 90 degrees (foot facing the ceiling), you may be able to extend the vibrations into the groin/hip/spine. While I've been working on body awareness for quite a long time, Ive started this vibration thing just a few days ago, and what I've described above has turned by tight side into my flexible side in a few hours.

Also, it helped me transition from a quad dominant walker to a glute dominant, and it seriously feels like i'm 50 lbs lighter.

I guess my goal in posting this was to try and convince people to have patience. I don't really know how long it takes if you start fresh without really having much body awareness, but it's so worth it. Nowadays there's so much fitness/yoga advice all over the place, that people simply block out this sort of message. However, it's all focused on tight abs and circus flexibility, with the random talk about light and love, while ignoring the sort of internal awareness that cannot be readily seen or demonstrated.

Something strange happened.

I've been doing this since the time of my last post.

Out of no where I started crying. No emotions on the conscious plane, just streams of tears.
I feel incredibly good, I need to learn how to get my back to do it too.

Any suggestions for the back?

I'm telling you something is up with this stuff The yoga people endlessly repeating that we store emotions in our hips, while mixing it all up with the light and love talk, make it sound gibberish. But, while the presentation might not be the best, there's truth to it. If you pay attention at what's happening in your body when you feel intense emotions, you can actually start noticing activity in the area (along with the butterflies in the stomach).

Playing with the muscles around the spine (try extending your spine upwards from the base, while keeping the surrounding area relaxed) can also lead so emotional outbursts

edit: just saw your question. which part of your back ? for the lower back do the one starting from the hamstring (the one I described in the previous post), as it releases the glutes and the psoas, which are what's preventing the back from relaxing.

Also, put 2 tennis balls in a sock, lean against a wall, and roll the device up and down your spine (you can also do it on the floor, try both). That releases the back and the abs, as they work together to keep the erect posture.

Upper back, beneath my shoulder blades.

That's the infamous rhomboids. You need to become aware of the muscle so you can get some control over it. Look a picture of the rhomboid, visualize it, massage it with a tennis ball -do whatever you need to do until you are sure that you have gained a bit of voluntary control over the rhomboid. Beware of the fact that if you're just working out your back muscles, you're probably using the trapezium and the lats, without any involvement from the rhomboid.

Now try this: lie on your back on a foam roller (along the spine) or some similarly narrow device and activate your rhomboid by slightly contracting it. Extend your arms to the sides, and VERY SLOWLY bring them together above your body (keep them straight), focusing on initiating the movement from the chest, an keeping the rhomboid working. This will release the chest muscles, which in turn will give you more control over the rhomboid.

Next, turn over, lie on your belly (you'll need a taller surface for this one) and do the same starting with your arms together and bringing them to the sides (focus on using the muscle between your shoulder blades, not the upper traps).

Eventually, the space between your shoulder blades should be about 4 inches. When I first started doing this exercises, mine was like 8, now it's around 5.

Thanks, this seems really interesting.

Do you have any suggestions for stiff shoulders and necks from sitting in front of computers and reading a lot? I can't seem to quite get it.

Epoe, research the upper-crossed syndrome. In short, the chest muscles become tight and short, pulling your shoulders forward and up. As a result the rhomboids lengthen too much and become tight as well. When people are concerned about looks and fitness, they'll often notice the chest looks flatter so they'll work it out more, which only makes the muscles tighter and the problem worse. Also working out the lats with the goal of bringing the shoulders down does the opposite: tight lats lead to internal rotation of the shoulder, further aggravated by the tight chest, and the cycle just keeps reinforcing itself.

The first, easiest thing you can do is use a tennis ball to massage the sides of the chest (standing against a wall). That will release your pectoralis minor, and start reversing the cycle. The advice to work out your back muscle to compensate for a tight chest often backfires in that you'll build strong and tight external back (trapezius and lats) on top of the weak rhomboids.

Once your chest muscles start releasing, begin to focus on gaining awareness and control of the rhomboids. As you activate them and they become more toned, they will pull your scapulas back and down; however, it won't happen until your chest releases enough to allow for that.
Also, don't go crazy stretching the rhomboids, although it may feel good. The problem is that they're tight, not short.

could intense dancing on forest trance for hours induce similar benifits ,

Come back in a few hours and let us know

Thanks for the information. This seems like something that could really make a diffrence for me as I sometimes feel muscle pains in my arms.

good one ,

Thank you so very much! I've had trouble activating my glutes in the past. One day of this, literally just one day and shazzam, my glutes are firing like no other!

I wasn't quite sure what you meant specifically by 'vibrating' the muscle so I just basically squeezed them over and over and over again very fast. It did the trick.

I'd like to direct your attention to this thread by the way, you might like it

Instant methodology to directly control magnetism and see it with third eye (Coulomb's Law)]

The subject matter of that thread is very related. I found that entering the state described therein, I could activate any muscle in the body, even the most dormant and inhibited ones. I did not need to tense them hard either, I had flawless control over them so I could gently nudge them as I pleased.

This is so cool. I feel like im catching fire as i do this, like white hot sunlight feels like its pouring out of me the more I try to do this.

Thanks for the link, ETV -I'm at it right now, and I'm always glad to hear about other people's experiences with this mind/body thing ))

On making the muscle vibrate: the technique I use now, and which seems to work very well (to the point where I'm concerned about my joints ability to adapt) is this: find a tight area in the body, then get an anatomy book and see exactly what muscle groups are involved. Next, find the muscles in your own body and asses their condition by trying to perform whatever function is assigned to them (in the book).

After that, place your hands ever so gently on the muscles, relax the area as much as you can, then start contracting very lightly in the direction your muscle wants to go naturally (not the direction where it's supposed to go). Also, start with the muscles that are long and tight, then move to the antagonists, which are short and tight.

Look at the muscle as well, and place your hand on the tight areas as they start appearing when you flex. You'll feel a vibration, then the muscle relaxes. Somehow, it works much better for me if I can watch what's going on.

After relaxing the muscle as described above, start contracting it by doing whatever the anatomy book says that muscle is supposed to do. Make sure you initiate the movement from the muscle you're targeting, not somewhere else (if you don't stay focused or the movement is too hard, the body will automatically compensate). As the same time, know what the antagonist muscles are, and focus on relaxing those (ideally, keep one hand on the muscle you're flexing and one on the antagonist and look for the vibrating tension). For instance, if you're tensing the adductors, relax the abductors.

PS. Thinking of the group yoga classes I took for a few months, I am now horrified at what I was doing to my body. If your body is not properly aligned and you don't have control over individual muscles (especially the deep muscles), you're only compounding the problem.

A quick, easy method I came upon while experimenting with body awareness and then found out that some guy actually 'invented' it (took him 15 years, according to his website : ). Anyway, it gives great results, and fast.

What you do is you apply gentle pressure to the muscle fibers at the points of insertion, while inducing a VERY gentle isometric contraction (you contract the muscle cells selectively and without moving the joint; if you can't do that, generate first a few very strong contractions of the entire muscle and move the joint as well if you need to, then work of fine tuning). The result is an awakening of the muscle not over months of steady practice, but right there, as you look at it.

Try it on your feet, you'll be amazed at how many dormant muscles are in there.

please people do not do this ...........read this other thread to see what has happened to tango because of all this

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=51876