Thank you nono, and was that a pic of your daughter the other day? What a beautiful child. Spareribs

Thanks! She's really a delight. She just started doing yoga with me and can make it through my 25 min routines now. Her brother, who's 1, plays tackle while we pose, making it an interesting 25 min. Kind of a "combat proprioceptive training" program.

I'm stoked that so many people have gotten into this! halllar- I read in the daily that you were trying these. Care to comment? deez- I'm sure there are plenty of other people at the gym that do stranger things than this! Keep at it, maybe you'll get some people asking you what you are doing, and you can spread the word! Hey, if you need Aleve, I buy it by the caseload to save $$$. I'll ship you a few cases if you need more. I agree with dg, if these aggrivate your SI issue, back off till it's healed, of just do the one's that don't bother it. dg- I think those toe raise walks are suppose to work the calves, so I suspect it should make them feel sore at first. Just shows that you really need this stuff! Maybe back off on those a little and ease into them. Regarding your swinging leg hitting the ground, I would say just flex it more, but it seem that that bothers you. Standing on a book or platform will be fine. Just don't go doing it on the kitchen table and fall off. As these progress, you'll be doing the exercises on either a pillow, bosu, or wobble board, so that'll take care of the elevation. I'm glad this is helping you! Mr. Ribs I'm glad you are finding this stuff useful too! Hope it helps! Week #2 is just about done for me. I did them at the gym this AM, and was able to stand like a statue while doing them, so bring on Level #2! What a difference this stuff makes! Yeah, I get some looks at the gym too, but so what. I do try to slink off into a dark corner somewhere to hide, and to make sure I don't kick anyone in the process. Also, I do them on a thick, cushy exercise mat in my socks, to add a bit to the challenge. Next week with the new difficulty level, it'll probably feel like starting from scratch again. But thinking about how hard this was just 2 weeks ago, and how good it feels now, I suspect the same progression the next two weeks. Keep up the great work, gang! And thanks again to dg for digging this stuff up!

so the first time i did them was at the gym and the looks were hysterical!! today i did them at home and i definitely think i'm going to back off the leg swings until i have a more definitive diagnosis - i could feel them aggravate that pain so i took it easy ---- the 4 hours standing on the concrete floor doing the marathon bags and the twisting motion in the assembly line defnitely was bad for me - just took 2 more alleve with dinner and going to throw some ice on now....monday morning i am calling for a referral to a sports medicine doc - maybe an MRI or something is in order to really see what's going on in there!!

Yes I have started these this week and have only done them twice. The first time just before a run and the next time on a day off. I was suprised at how strenuous they actually were. I am not sure yet when I want to do them. They say before your workout but I wanted to try it different times. I plan on only 3 times a week per the article but it sounds like some of you are maybe doing them more. I will do them again tomorrow before my long run. I don't think I have done enough to make any difference yet but I can definantly see the benifits. I did mention in the daily that my legs seem more sore and tired this week for some reason. Maybe these are the cause and the xtra soreness is the strengthening of my weaker leg muscles ? Anyway I plan on keeping it up at least for the first 2 week period and then see if I want to go to stage 2

I'm glad these exercises are gaining momentum here. Leslie- are you doing these yet? Sarge- as dg asked... what else are you doing for your hip, if anything? deez4boyz- make that sports medicine doc appointment please! dg- yes, the leg is supposed to be straight on that one exercise, you are right. I noticed I do keep mine slightly bent, just enough so that the foot of my swinging leg just skims the floor as it goes by. I figured that was good enough. Very funny story about the windows in the gym. I wonder if a crowd had gathered outside! halllar- welcome to the club. Stick with it! nono- I think the main thing is that you are doing these exercises, so fit them in however your schedule permits, just keep doing them. When you go to your 5 days a week running, how about doing them before each run, just cut down on the number of sets or reps. It makes a good warmup routine. You could probably do a set in 10 minutes or less. And by doing them 5 days a week, you'd still see a lot of benefit. I have been doing these about 5x a week. In the beginning, my ankles and other muscles were burning by the end of the sets. Now, just two weeks later, everything feels very easy to do. In the gym locker room this morning, it was pretty cool to be able to lift up my foot and put my sock and shoe on while balancing on my other foot the entire time. So today I took it to level 2. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't bad at all. The technical difficulty isn't that much more than level 1. There are more exercises though, so maybe that's where the difficulty lies. In fact, I think they eliminated what I felt was the most difficult exercise from level 1, and that was the cross leg swing, where you swing your leg at a 45* angle to your body. Did anyone else find that one a real challenge? Level 2 does add the one legged squats. I found that one challenging, and wobbled quite a bit, especially laterally in the knee. That is gonna help tremendously with knee stability. I thought the bicycle kick one was going to be tricky, based on it's description, but didn't find it bad at all. Hey, maybe there is something to this stuff. The real reason I'm happy to be at level two is because people at the gym got bored of watching me do the level 1 ones, so now with these new exercises, the crowd is back again!