Hi All,

I felt some minor irritation during the level 1 Heart stretch in my rib area - it feels like it may be in the external oblique muscle or serratus anterior muscle. I didn't think much of it b/c it was so minor, but today I tried to do the same HE stretch after I did the Small Intestine stretch and it was a little more irritated -it doesn't feel like it is pulled- but definitely irritated. So now should I just concentrate more on the SI stretches? Or are there some other stretches I can do to take stress off that area?

Thanks for your help

John

John, try reversing the stretch to provide strength training for the Heart MMG (meridian muscle group). If that still causes irritation, try stretching and strengthening the balancing (SI) and counter-balancing (AP & TH) MMGs.

Generally, try strengthening if you are feeling irritation while stretching a particular MMG, then try stretching and strengthening the balancing and counter-balancing MMGs. Instead of continuing to work on the irritated area, work all of the areas around it. You should not experience pain while stretching if you stick to this method. Also, if you have had any injuries in the area, stick to strength training in order to remove possible scar tissue.

Thanks Luther - I'll give that a shot

I had another situation where I was having pain during the KI stretches and probabaly pulled the muscle. So for about 4 weeks I stretched and strengthened all the muscles around the KI, and did some strength training with the KI mmg. The KI group felt a ton better, so a few weeks ago I re-introduced some light KI stretches and it felt absolutely fine. Then when I increased the intensity of the stretch- I felt the same pain that I originally felt (granted that it took a much larger range of motion to produce that same pain - so I was happy about that progress). My question is - how does one know when they can safely go back to doing the original stretch that produced the pain?

John, I think you have the right idea. Work the MMGs around the injured area and then go back and lightly stretch and strengthen the injured area. Gradually increase the resistance in order to get a feel for how much you can take. If you are still feeling the pain as you increase the resistance, stick to strengthening the Kidney and stretching the Bladder.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you have an injured area, it can be beneficial to only strength train the area and lay off of the stretching. Especially if the injured area has scar tissue, first use resistance strength training to remove the scar tissue.

Also, I have found the KI MMG on many people to be needing more strengthening than stretching in general. This is probably one of the easiest MMGs to pull, so it's best to build up strength before stretching. As always, only stretch within the range that you can continue to resist. It may be tempting to push your knees down to the ground because you want to see an increase in ROM, but it's never good to push yourself too far.