This a complaint I hear all the time in my Rolfing practice. Whether it's hamstrings, calves or both, "Why can't I stretch out my legs?" Of course you can stretch them but then they just wind up tight again. Why don't they stay loose? Why can't I keep the muscles in my legs more relaxed? You can stretch and stretch all day long, and may not have much success, so have you ever considered that your legs must be working hard to hold you up when standing and walking around? So how could we relieve some of the load that our legs take on everyday? Perhaps it has to do with how well aligned we are in gravity. Our feet, our ankles, our hips, the relationship of our hips to our upper body, even the head not being stacked well on the shoulders can weigh about 40 LBS, and it may be your legs that have to engage to keep you from tipping over. As Ida Rolf often said:
"Where you think it is, it ain't!"
It's a conundrum, your legs have to let go and lengthen for you to walk around, and good luck bending over to pick something up if your legs won't let go. I have literally had people tell me that their calves are chronically tight and they can't stretch them out, while I am working on their calves on the table, and they were completely soft. So what's the deal? Why are they suddenly tight when you stand up and walk around? The answer is that they, for some reason, need to expend a lot of effort to stand up and walk with their legs. If the ankles and arches are not flexible, then there is a lot of strain when walking, if their arches are bound up, they may stand in front of the mid line and need to engage calves and hamstrings just to keep from falling over. If they have an anterior or posterior pelvic tilt, this not only puts strain on the legs, it also means that the body above the pelvis is not well supported. So good luck stretching out your legs when all of these things are occurring!
Everything in the body exists in relationship, and this also includes the nervous system and the mind/emotions that can trigger it. Every problem is a full body problem from a Rolfer's perspective, and that's why a systematic approach is needed. A roofer can try to patch a leak in your roof, but determining exactly where leaks can be coming from is tricky. In many cases a roofer would probably want to just replace your whole roof to do a proper job. The same is true for the Rolfer, we would rather do a systematic approach for the whole body, a basic 10 series. Some problems might not go away until a full series is completed. Just like anyone who takes pride in their work, a Roofer or a Rolfer, we want to do our best, and for anyone who has not done a traditional 10 series yet, or in a long time, the best thing I can suggest is to do a full Rolfing series.
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