Know your limitations but still push

There was a poomse competition last weekend that my daughter and I were unable to attend because we were out of town.  The competition also included a board break-a-thon for charity and a highest jump front kick competition.  Subsequently, the week before, the instructors were having us practice our forms, our presentation, and our jump front kicks.  I've done jump front kicks many times (they are in some of the forms) but never to see how high I could actually kick.

The actual "how high test" was the instructor holding a paddle horizontally and then we would perform the kick seeing if we could hit it.  As long as we touched the paddle with even just our toes,  he would then raise the paddle a little bit more and we would repeat until we no longer hit the paddle.  Since I'm tall, I was able to get pretty high.  Since I'm also more than 40, I hurt myself.  I pulled my hamstring pretty bad when I was kicking the paddle when it was more than a foot over my head.  The instructor was standing on a chair holding it and said I cleared it by a good 3 inches still but I was unable to continue.  It still hurts.  I'm doing daily stretches and I'm REALLY restraining myself when I go to class.   I've tweaked it a few times in class but not enough to cause any real pain.


I can only recall having pulled a hamstring once before while playing softball.  I was horribly out of shape and didn't really warm up.  It didn't feel as bad as this one.  I was back at it after a couple weeks.  


I've received a lot of good advice from one of my co-students.  I need to look for a wrap to keep my leg warm during class. I iced it quite a bit that first night and weekend when I wasn't hiking around Mesa Verde.  We didn't do anything strenuous on the hike and the leg felt pretty good afterwards.  I'm hoping that it heals pretty quickly because one we start our physical curriculum in two weeks, I'm going to have to be doing things a bit more "real" than I'm doing now.


Hindsight being 20/20, I should have realized I was going a bit too far.  I can't blame a lack of warming up because I'm the one who actually led warm ups that night and I know I covered the bases.  I do need to realize I'm not like the young kid instructor whose got rubber bands for legs.