Thread: Relaxation Problem.

Whenever I tense certain muscles such as my calves, and let them relax when I'm through tensing them they just get tighter until its painful. I guess it's what you call a muscle cramp...

This is really frustrating and is inhibiting my relaxation technique progression...

Any ideas on how to stop it?

I have this occasionally, really unpleasant feeling. I usually get it in the bottom of my foot or my calf. I've just learned not to tense them.

I've had similar experiences which have ended up in cramps that are just slightly below the knee. However, I can often tell if that's going to happen if I start to feel that muscle/tendon becoming tighter than I intend it to be, and it's always the same spot. If you can't already, you'll be able to tell where it's at.

My advice would be to either not tense it as strongly, or even try putting your leg at a different angle before tensing it. And if you feel a cramp coming on, then don't suddenly release the tension, but rather just untense it (relatively) slowly.

If you practice the tensing/relaxing for a while, though, you'll start to learn what it feels like when your muscles relax and you'll be able to relax them easier without taking too much time tensing them. I hope that this helped.