In particular review the first video on supine activation (shown again below) that gives you an idea about what your tummy is doing in these postures.
Ok, so now you have reviewed (and practiced and understood) the importance of tummy activation we can have a think about some other thoughts on helping hamstrings, hips, and spine.
In these sequences I highlight the idea of bringing chest to knees. This is an active movement that we do by initially using tummy activation first and then using hip flexion.
With these postures I am using an active tummy movement then trying to lengthen my spine along the front of the thigh. A more apt description would be that I am not so much trying to bring chest to thigh but trying to bring belly button to thigh and then take my belly button to the knee along the front of the thigh.
If you are thinking of bringing chest to thigh this can create a tendency to droop or drop the chest when I actually want spinal length. In this practice if your spine will not lengthen then you are too deep in the posture.
This might require a radical rethink of your postures and movement.
While it may not immediately seem apparent, these are all fairly intense forward bends. There is a danger of over stretching. Do not attempt intense forward bends without supervision or a good understanding of your own lower spine. Best to practice with a teacher. As with all postures, you must be careful and go slowly.
Video
The video shows how I have lengthened my spine along the front of my thigh in the various incarnations of this posture. You should only straighten your leg if you can keep your spine long and do not feel strain. This will be beyond the capacity of most people.
STANDING UPRIGHT VARIATIONS Step 1: Toe and hips forward
Lengthen lower back (sitting bones to heels, top of pelvis back.
Toe forward, hips forward. This should help create postural firmness in your tummy.
Step 2: Knee raise
Lift knee forward and up. Make sure you keep hips forward.
Step 3: Spinal forward flexion
I bend forward from my spine to activate tummy muscles more (like I am doing a sit up in my tummy). I am trying to bring my chest towards the thigh without drooping the chest (keep it long).
Step 4: Push and press
Hold shin. With bent elbows pull with your hands but press with your shin.
There will be a tendency for the tummy to switch off here as the arms take over. But keep it on!
I try to wriggle my belly button up along the thigh. This is lengthening the spine and you will see that my back body is long throughout.
Step 5: Lean back
I lean back to come towards an upright position. Some people will not be able to keep their chest and thigh together and come fully upright. So, stay forward and that is where you remain for the rest of the postures (do not go on).
Step 6: Open knee angle
Keeping all previous activations, take an arm behind the thigh to keep chest and thigh connected.
Slowly start to open the knee angle. Do this actively. I am not pulling it open with my hands here. I use my hand on my heel so I can push my heel into my hand and pull back with my hand.
You might not be able to open the knee angle and keep chest and thigh together so only open so far that they stay together. This is where you stay.
Step 7: Open
If the leg will continue to open comfortably then you can take both hands and continue to straighten the leg.
In this position my hand is helping to open my leg. I am not strong enough to take my leg up this straight against gravity.
But I make active efforts to straighten the leg with my front thigh muscles, and also keep a pushing action of heel into hand and hand into heel.
Tummy stays firm. Spine stays long.
LUNGING VARIATIONS Step 1: Lunge
I transitioned to this from the previous posture, keeping chest to thighs and belly button working towards knee. I kept an active tummy. Most people will not keep active tummy as this is an easy posture to just collapse into. This means collapsing tummy and collapsing into the hip joints.
It is important to remember how I came into this posture, which is first through active spinal flexion with tummy activation and then hip flexion keeping tummy firm. Finally, I do some spinal extension but trying to wriggle my belly button up towards my knee. You can see tieback of my body is long. In fact, it is pretty straight.
In this position I keep my back leg active.
Step 2: Lengthen
I go to a split here. It is a matter of slowly straightening my legs and keeping everything else the same. that makes it sound easy. But it is not!
UPSIDE DOWN SPLIT Step 1: Short lunge
Tummy firm, I come to a short lunge. Keep standing leg active so I don't collapse into my hip. I keep sitting bones down and top of pelvis back to lengthen lower back and keep front of groin unsquashed.
Step 2: Both knees to chest
Bring the back knee to chest. Both knees are working to chest. Keep front of groins unsquashed.
Step 3: Straight standing leg
Take the raised leg out behind you. I am rolling that thigh in. Pelvis level. Got to be mindful you do not sink into the standing hip and squash the front of groin.
Step 4: Take it up
The raised leg stays rolling in, straight, and I see if I can just take the leg up. Watch that you are not rolling the pelvis out.
SUMMARY
There you go. A few more variations
These are tricky ones because they are very easy to collapse into. It is easy to sink and be passive if you are not mindful.
You might see if you can bring knee close to chest while you are lying on your back and without the hands. That would be a good indicator of whether or not these variations are going to be possible for you.
If the knee will not come to close to the chest while lying on your back you are going to find these postures impossible or difficult or else you will probably be doing the by compensating with some other movement. It might be worth thinking about trying the supine variations for a while longer first.
have fun. Happy and safe practicing!
Much metta,
Samantha
www.yogacafecanberra.blogspot.com
www.yogacafelk.blogspot.com
I had several questions about hamstring lengthening this week and this post has three videos to demonstrate some of the ways to help! You won't see any of the usual suspects.
Hamstring stretching or lengthening?
The truth be told, most people ask me how to stretch their hamstrings. It is I who always jumps in and reminds them that I will give them tips on how to relax and lengthen their hamstrings but I won't give tips on stretching them.
The thing is, these people know how to stretch their hamstrings. They have invariably been doing stretches for a long time. The problem is the stretches generally don't help them to feel better movement.
The postures and advice I give are mainly around helping them feel better movement without feeling like they are stretching, such as I am doing in the photo below.
Standing balance with leg raised and straight
In positions like the one shown I am actively trying to keep my leg straight while drawing it towards my chest. It does not feel like stretching at all. It feels like the back of my leg and bottom is lengthened.
When I do postures like this I am cultivating a relaxation response in my hamstrings (known as reciprocal inhibition. Basically, I work the opposite muscle groups to help relax the ones that I am trying to lengthen. Have a look at this post for some cool graphics: http://www.bandhayoga.com/keys_recip.html.
It feels like a lot of work in the standing leg, front of raised leg, and tummy. Most people miss the tummy activation in this posture, which tends to cramp you in the front of groin. Which leads to the point below.
Active positioning for spinal lengthening
In postures like the one shown below I am doing very important spinal lengthening and hamstring lengthening work. It is basically the same position as the standing balance shown above, but just lying down.
Active positioning to improve hamstring lengthening
The key difference (in terms of effort) is that I am obliged to use tummy muscles in a way I am not obliged to in the standing variation.
I am using my active core to send a message to my spinal muslces to relax as well.
Importantly, I am actively bending forward in my spine using tummy museles in a way I can still breathe into the tummy. If I tighten my tummy by tightening everything and shifting to chest moving breathing then I won't get the same relaxation effect.
Many people are limited in their forward bending because their lower backs are really tight as well as their hamstrings (and their hips).
The active movement in the core that you cultivate in this position is important and will help lengthen the spine and it is why I put the lying down sequence first in the videos below.
Try to remember the feeling in your tummy that you generate in this position (of it being firm but in a way you feel you can still breathe there) when you do the postures in the other videos.
Remember, better spinal movement is more important than being able to touch your toes.
As an aside, many observers wonder why I am not holding my foot when I do postures like the one above. And it is, I suspect, because of the focus on the sensation of stretching as opposed to the sensation of lengthening.
Holding the foot, the way most people tend to (which is to just grab the foot and pull the leg) generally means the muscles do not need to work and you lose the potential benefit of a relaxation response. Pulling tends to switch you to a sort of suffering and grimacing associated with tearing yourself apart!
It would also feel like I was not doing much work if I held the foot in that way because the big muscles that were working (including the core core muscles) have switched off.
The truth is most people cannot even grab their foot with their leg straight because their hamstrings (and lower back and hips) are too stiff. And so most people would probably be using a belt or towel or rope.
And then you have to ask yourself if you cannot bring your straight leg close enough to your chest to be able to hold it without a belt then should you really try to straighten your legs in positions like paschimottanasana and all the other seated forward bends? In my classes I encourage people to come into all seated bends with bent knees to lengthen the front and back of spine first and only then to slowly lengthen the legs on the condition the spine does not distort.
Lying video and key actions
The first postures to try are in lying because they oblige tummy activation (in a way you can feel the movement of the breath).
In general:
front thigh (coming close to chest) is rolling out (your knee looks like it is turning away from midline);
press down through the grounded thigh and keep it straight. Reach through the inner thigh;
keep the front knee straight. That is one of the main points--to keep is straight. It does not matter how close to the chest it comes. That will be a good indicator of your available active movement and something for you to contemplate when trying this posture in other relations to gravity;
as you move through the variations keep the whole back of the pelvis and sacrum touching the floor.
you will be doing sit-ups here so this is a good core strengthening sequence. If you feel strain at all in your neck you are doing the sit up incorrectly and you need to learn how to do sit ups without your neck feeling strained.
First position (lying parsvottanasana)
Lying down, draw straight leg towards face. Do a sit up and reach as though you are trying to touch the toes (but don't actually get them).
You need to actively lengthen the side hip area of the raised leg down towards the heel of the leg on the ground. The pelvis and hip tends to hike up on that side and squash the side waist. If you need to, put the web of your thumb in your groin to help actively lengthen that side waist. You should feel this as an action of rolling that thigh out.
Second position (lying trikonasana variation)
To get into position I bend the knee, take the thigh out to the side, ensure my whole back pelvis is still on the floor, and then straighten the leg from there. The pelvis of opposite side will tend to raise up if you try to get to the ground so be mindful of this.
Note, to make it real trikonasana type posture I need to add spinal movement and turn from bottom of spine to top away from the leg out to the side then do a little lengthening movement (not clearly shown in this video).
Again, keep that raised thigh actively rolling out. I am still trying to straighten leg and draw it towards my face but out to the side.
Third position (lying parivrtta trikonasana)
A tricky one and tough to capture on the video.
I bring the raised leg back to midline. I really need to make sure that the hip does not hike up here. Put a thumb in your groin if that is the sort of thing that might happen to you.
Keeping your pelvis on the floor, take that raised leg across your body. It will not go very far.
From there, you are still in a sit up, you can try to do a twist from the bottom to the top of spine, turning towards that leg.
It is not shown here but you could try a little spinal extension (lengthening from the front surface of your spine.
I could have positioned my arms better in this posture but was focusing mainly on spinal movement.
By the end of these postures you should sense your tummy very active! That will have helped lengthen the lower back and help you for the next series of postures in standing! Standing balance video and key actions
In the standing balance video you see I do take my foot (after I have done the active postures first).
However, when I take my foot I straighten the leg out slowly without distorting my spine. I also press the foot and hand into one another so that the leg is active and not being passively pulled (this triggers another relaxation response).
In general:
raised sitting bone feels like it is scooping underneath you and lengthening in the lower back;
raised thigh is rolling out;
keep standing leg foot pointing straight ahead;
remember your core activation from previous postures and find it here.
Posture one
Watch the leg stays straight. Watch the raised leg hip does not hike up. Keep trying to feel as though you are smoothing your side hip down to the ground.
If comfortable you can try the assisted posture, shown below, by bending the knee, drawing thigh to chest, holding foot and pushing foot out as you draw in with the hand, keeping thigh and chest together slowly start to straighten the leg. If you have trouble in the lying sequence with getting your leg straight and past 90 degrees then you will not be able to do this and best to work with just holding the knee to chest and pressing shin to hands and hands to shin until you can start to slowly straighten the leg without thigh coming out from the chest. Be patient.
Position two
As you did with lying, bend the knee then turn the knee out to the side but still in front of you. As you did with the lying version do not let the pelvis move with you. Keep scooping the bottom under. Then try to straighten the leg. If it will not straighten then put the toe tip on the ground. From there try to straighten the leg and raise it.
You want to keep rolling the thigh out and scooping the bottom under.
This is really much harder than it looks as you will see if you try.
If you feel ok with the active version you can try and draw knee to side-front chest. Keep scooping hip under. From there you could try to keep knee and shoulder close and then slowly start to straighten. If knee comes out from shoulder then you have gone too far. Be patient and wait with knee in shoulder until the leg is almost straight when you can let it move away from shoulder a little.
Position three
The leg comes back to the front here. I need to be particularly careful the hip does not hike up. Then I rotate the spine from bottom to top, maintaining length through both side waists.
Standing postures
You can then try these positions in their more traditional forms; parsvottanasana, trikonasana, parivrtta trikonasana.
I have linked these postures without chaining my foot position at all. The thigh positions remain the same. The pelvis position does change when you move to trikonasana, but the lower back position does not (it remains lengthened). The pelvis position is a subtle change and it is just the top side pelvis that opens lightly to the sky. This opening does not cause a shift in the leg positions.
It is really tricky to do these postures all linked together without changing the foot positions and without falling over. You will need to keep your legs and feet very active.
Watch for your bottom sitting bone trying to stick out. I keep a light feeling of it scooping under to keep the length of the lower back.
The end
Phew, this has been a long post!
We have been working on some variations of this in class. Remember these videos are intended for my students so I can position and correct and answer questions. It is better to learn from a teacher you are physically present with than the internet.
Have fun. Stay safe.
Much metta,
Samantha
www.yogacafecanberra.blogspot.com
www.yogacafelk.blogspot.com
A yoga teacher posted a question about how to increase the flexibility of a student's calf muscles, which were feeling stretched in purvottanasana.
In this post I describe a mental checklist and framework I use when I receive similar questions from students. The video above demonstrates the how I have applied the technique in the past to assist students feel greater ease and less tension in their hamstrings.
Whether or not you are a teacher or student you have probably wondered how to increase your flexibility so that you can move in greater freedom.
There are many approaches to flexibility training.
Active Movement
The system of yoga I practice is based on active movements to help safely and effectively improve mobility while ensuring you have the strength to support the movement and posture.
This means that we encourage students to move into postures and hold them using their own muscular activation without relying on external forces or supports for assistance.
External forces or supports include things like gravity, momentum, pushing or pulling a single body part, and props.
Active movement minimises the chances of over-stretching, which is a common cause of injury and source of joint pain as the supporting structures around that joint can become lax and weak through incorrect practice.
Using active movements to take you into postures helps you to achieve a balance between strength, flexibility, and relaxation in yoga.
Simon and Bianca, amazing teachers, note that "the safest way to apply the principle of strength with flexibility is to commence a stretching posture with the muscles around the joint to be stretched already toned (i.e., in an active state).
Although a stretch initiated with muscular strength may not be as intense as a relaxed muscle stretch, the balance between strength and flexibility will be maintained, and the risk of over-stretching other structures such as ligaments and nerves will be avoided." (Borg-Olivier and Machliss, 2011, p.51).
So, what does this all mean for a student's calves or hamstrings or iliopsoas or any number of other bits that they might want to stretch? And how does this relate to the practice?
First, remember don't lose sight of the bigger picture of the practice as a whole.
While I practice a system of yoga based on active movements that safely and effectively improves strength and flexibility, my main aim is to apply this system in a way that moves circulation and energy through my body so that I can minimise suffering, increase calm and focus, and find a better connection to myself and others.
So, having reminded yourself of the bigger picture, have a think about why it is important to stretch.
While some people might say that yoga is not about stretching (and they are right), it is important not to forget that too much tension in muscles can manifest as feelings of tightness in particular postures and in daily life. And muscles that are tense can, over time, become a source of pain.
With this in mind, it might be useful to think more about our aim as promoting movement. We want firm muscles but not tense ones. We also want muscles that can be lengthened and relaxed rather than ones that are feeling stretched. Too much sensation of stretch (along with too much tension) will actually block movement.
This idea of lengthening and relaxing is really important. You are already very flexible. We are all very flexible when we are completely relaxed. Just look at the things drunk people can do and what happens to your musculoskeletal system under anaesthesia.
If you are a yogi one of your friends or family has surely sent you these sorts of pictures, showing the relaxed state drunk people can get themselves into.
Our nervous system regulates our muscle tone, and in yoga we use a variety of tips and techniques to try and regulate our nervous system to influence our muscle tone. This is an important point and can perhaps help you appreciate why a lot of 'stretching' is ineffective in the sense that you do not end up with more movement around the joint and remain just as stiff despite daily stretching.
The point is that mechanically pulling or tugging on two ends of a muscle may not have any effect on your nervous system. Using active movements will have an effect on the nervous system, which is why it is more effective at improving mobility when used correctly.
A Little Detour
Here I make a little detour and note some yoga styles and well respected yoga teachers (like the Yin Yoga approach) encourage a more passive approach to posture and I do not want to suggest it is incorrect or improper. At different times of our lives and even of our day we need to do different things.
You just need to understand what you are doing and why and appreciate the potential consequences and make sure you are working with an experienced teacher who can explain to you what they are doing and why.
I have made this little detour as I hope not to sound dogmatic. I don't wish to suggest something is always wrong (or always right) or make people fearful of practicing (or not practicing) in a particular way. I do encourage some sort of reasoned approach, which is why I take the time to write this all down and refer you to other authors so you can see my point of view (point of bias?!). I have written this here deliberately as someone recently told me I sound like I think everyone else is doing things wrong. I might have to insert this disclaimer into every post!
Reciprocal Relaxation
Anyway, thinking back to what you can do to apply active movements to promote lengthening and relaxing in an active rather than passive way.
This is a big topic and best always to come to a teacher qualified to talk to you about it.
There are many things you can do to promote active relaxation and below I talk about one particular technique that really helps to create relaxation of the muscle and ease of movement around the joint.
This technique involves activating an opposing muscle group prior to entering a posture (can also be while in the posture).
This means you activate the muscle/muscle group that is opposing the action of the muscle/muscle group that will be lengthened in a particular asana. This triggers a relaxation response known as reflex reciprocal inhibition.
It is called a reflex because it is something that will happen automatically or unconsciously. For example, and very simplistically speaking, if we want to bend our knee the muscles that cause knee bending will be activated while the muscles that straighten our knee will be inhibited (unless we consciously over-ride this). This needs to happen otherwise the knee would not bend if the muscles that straightened the knee were being told to work.
Using this principle we can suggest that activating muscles that bring the top of the foot closer to the shin (dorsiflexion) will cause relaxation of the muscles that push the sole of the foot away from the shin (plantar flexion).
The muscles commonly called 'calf muscles' work to cause plantar flexion. Some can also contribute to knee flexion (knee bending).
Therefore, if we want to create a relaxation response in the muscles of the calf to help them relax and lengthen we could activate the opposite muscles, in this case the ones that cause dorsiflexion. You can feel these muscles if you try to pull your toes towards your shin. You should feel the muscles across the front of the ankle become firm.
Because some of the calf muscles also cross the knee joint they have some influence on bending the knee. This means you could combine dorsiflexion with straightening the knee to enhance the relaxation response.
A Mental Checklist
Here is a mental checklist I follow whenever I get a question about how to stretch a particular part or help increase flexibility or give greater ease in a posture:
identify a posture where the particular discomfort, tension, or stiffness is felt. This is used as a baseline to be able to test whether the technique you use actually worked. That is, you attempt the posture immediately before using the technique and then immediately after and see if there is a difference.
identify the muscle group that feels tight or feels like it needs to be lengthened (target);
identify the main joint complexes the target muscle/muscle group crosses remembering that for some muscles/muscle groups there will be more than one;
identify the movement/s that place the target muscle/muscle group in a lengthened position;
identify the muscle group that works to position the joint so that the target muscle group is in a lengthened position (i.e., the opposing muscle group);
actively position the body so that opposing muscle group is working without the assistance of gravity, supports, or props;
hold the position in a way that is firm but not tense, and breathe naturally. Hold for at least 10-15 seconds if possible or as long as you can while not suffering or causing tension;
enter the pose that previously caused strong sensations of stretch (i.e, the baseline posture). It should now feel less like it is being stretched and more like it is being lengthened and relaxed and you should feel you can move more freely into that posture.
Application Of The Checklist
I used this type of approach and checklist successfully on students who wanted to feel greater ease in parsvottanasana so their hamstrings were not tugging and so they could have greater ease of movement.
Using the steps above I:
identified that the muscles across the back of the front leg in parsvottanaasana felt tight in the pose;
identified that it seemed to be the back of the hip joint that was the main joint that was being crossed but also the back of the knee joint;
identified that the movements that seemed to place the target muscle group in a lengthened position were hip flexion and external rotation with knee extension;
identified that the opposing muscle groups that worked to help create the above movements were the hip flexors and external rotators, as well as knee extensors;
found a position for the body that required the hip to be flexed and externally rotated with the knee extended and held this position against gravity while remaining calm. In this case the position was a one legged standing balance with a leg raised straight out in front;
had the student enter into parsvottanasana slowly with the leg that was raised acting as the front leg. In almost all cases students found that they were able to go deeper and feel more at ease in the posture. The most common reason this did not happen was when students emphasised taking the leg high rather than on straightening the knee fully. Because the hamstrings cross two joints, hip and knee, you need to make sure the knee is completely straight. You need to encourage the leg coming up only so high as is possible with the knee straight and focus on straightening the knee.
The raised leg hip is in flexion and external rotation with the knee extended. This means the muscles that cause those actions are working and the muscles that oppose those actions are given a cue to relax. In this case, the muscle that contributes to hip extension, knee flexion, and hip internal rotation is given a cue to relax.
The video at the top of this post shows how I applied this technique for the case of hamstrings in parsvottanasana.
Answer To The Original Question
Now, I do realise I have not given the yoga teacher a specific answer to her question but I think I have contributed something far more valuable, which is a tool or generic framework that you can reason with so you come up with your own answer.
This technique is not something I came up with. I learned it from master teachers Simon Borg Olivier and Bianca Machliss from Yoga Synergy. They learned it from their advanced practice and studies. The 'checklist' is something I dotted out though and I am sure it could be improved. Any errors are, of course, my own.
Hopefully this has inspired some thoughts about how you could help improve feelings of ease in the calf muscles using active movements and I am happy to discuss any ideas with anyone. I have my own ideas of what I would do and maybe you have some to share as well! Ideally it might have inspired thoughts on how you can use active movements to precede other postures as well to generate ease and freedom of movement.
A Word Of Warning On This Approach
When I first started this way of practicing I tended to over-tense. This is an example of incorrect application of the practice as it made me feel tired and sore rather than fresh and energised. You need to make sure you create firmness without tension. Over-tensing and over-stretching are both undesirable. It's a delicate balance and one best learned under the guidance of an experienced teacher.
Happy and safe practicing!
More Reading
Borg-Olivier, S., & Machliss, B. (2011). Applied anatomy and physiology of yoga. Yoga Synergy: Sydney.
http://www.dailybandha.com/2011/02/heres-tip-to-help-you-get-heels-down-in.html
http://www.bandhayoga.com/keys_recip.html
http://www.dailybandha.com/2014/05/the-gastrocnemiussoleus-complex-in-yoga.html
http://www.bandhayoga.com/keys_fire.html
http://www.yinyoga.com/newsletter12_biggest_problems.php
When I first started yoga, I was attracted to much more physical styles.Some of the first serious yoga classes I took were from a particularly vigorous style of yoga that that involves some great and challenging postures, invigorating breathing, and a whole lot of sweat.At the time I was also doing a lot of running (about 60km a week) a lot of cycling (about 100 km a week) and a lot of rock climbing (about 4 nights a week), and it appealed to me to be doing a style of yoga that suited my otherwise athletic lifestyle. I was very much in the mind-set that I needed to sweat to be doing something good for myself.
However, within a few months I had stopped these classes, realizing that what I really needed from my yoga was something that slowed me down to balance the other activities that were going on in my life.It was a pivotal shift in my own thinking—that I could do something good for myself by slowing down both mentally and physically.
I wonder if there are a lot of people similar to me, who came to yoga with the idea that you have to be bathed in your own sweat puddle by the time you lie down for a few minutes of savasana at the end of your yoga class?
Nowadays, I prefer my sweating to take place while out on a run rather than on my yoga mat, although that is not to say I still don’t enjoy getting my heart rate up in some challenging yoga sequences as those of you who come to Monday and Thursday classes will no doubt experience!
But, more and more, my own practice is becoming quieter and quieter.And so I wanted to share a series of blogs dedicated to lying down yoga.I have found I can practice yoga quite happily for an hour or more without standing or even sitting up.
The first pose I want to share is supta padangusthasana.For those of you who are interested, whenever you see ‘supta’ in the name of any yoga pose, you can get the idea that you are going to be trying to do something relaxing.All of the ‘supta’ poses are lying down.
This pose is great to stretch your hamstrings.I would recommend it for anyone who wants to cultivate hamstring flexibility and, in particular, for anyone with lower back issues.This is probably the safest forward bend ever.It’s a big claim, I know, but the reason it is so safe is that your spine is naturally elongated along the floor.There is no movement or bending of your spine at all and the movement comes from your legs only.
I would recommend that you practice this daily if you are trying to improve your sitting forward bends.Importantly, unless you can get your legs past 90 degrees in this pose then you are probably not ready to do straight leg sitting forward bends like paschimottanasana (where you sit on the floor with both legs straight and try to fold forward over your thighs).This is because if your hamstrings won’t allow your legs to move beyond 90 degrees in the lying down version, the only way you will come forward in a sitting forward bend is to round your spine.In fact, if you find that you cannot get your legs beyond 90 degrees in the lying (supta) version, then you should either be sitting on a block in the sitting version, or bending your knees.If nothing else, supta padangusthasanawill force you to be honest about your true hamstring flexibility.
The most relaxing version is to come to a doorframe or pillar, as I have done in the photo below.I have placed my bottom at the pillar edge and lengthened one leg through along the floor, keeping it straight (if you do this at a door frame your leg will go through the doorway).The other leg goes up the pillar (or up the doorframe).To straighten your leg up the pillar/doorframe, you need to have 90 degrees of flexibility.If you cannot straighten your leg (or if the leg going along the floor starts to bend) then you know you are not ready to sit on the floor in a forward bend without props or adjustments.If you cannot straighten the leg then you can move your bottom slightly away from the wall so that you can straighten it.
If you can take your leg up the wall then, if you want to lengthen your hamstrings more, you can take a belt or towel or scarf around the foot and start to draw the leg towards your face.Keep your shoulders on the ground and your neck relaxed.One of the most common things I see as a teacher is the displacement of tension into muscles completely unrelated to the ones you are trying to target and in this posture it is not uncommon for people to struggle to reach their foot by lifting their shoulders off the ground or straining their neck.
Only when you can bring your leg back far enough that you can reach your foot without moving your shoulder away from the ground should you attempt to take your toe with your hand.
A few things to remember in this posture:
·Don’t displace tension into the neck or shoulders;
·Take deep, relaxing breaths;
·Your hamstrings might attempt to escape the stretch by one of two main methods.Watch out for these.First, your knee might bend—keep it straight.Second, your hip/bottom might jut out to the side.You will feel this as a shortening of the side waist of the raised leg side.Make sure to keep both side waists equally long and keeping your pelvis level;
·Lengthen the raised leg heel up into the sky, creating as much distance between the back of your knee and your heel as possible.This will increase the sensation down the back of your leg dramatically and you may feel a stretch from the heel to the sitting bones;
·Hold for as long as you like on both sides.Why not try a couple of minutes?
Enjoy your practice. I will be back with more sweatless yoga poses soon!
Last week I posted a photo of a lady in uttanasana. She seemed a bit too hunched and rounded for my liking. That prompted me to write the yoga quiz, to see whether it was to your liking or not as well, and to see if you could think of some ways to improve your own forward bending. And that then prompted me to make a little movie about keeping your spine long in uttanasana--standing forward bend.
Before I start, I just want to put it out there that my tips for uttanasana (or for any poses for that matter) are not the only ways to practice the pose (I also have more tips as well but limited myself for the sake of making a short movie clip that does not gobble up all of the memory in my computer!). What I encourage you to do is try and, in practicing, ask yourself whether your spine feels relaxed, happy, and free. If the answer is no then we need to try something else!
Watch the movie and then read some more of my tips below. In the interests of transparency I have to also add that I was partially motivated to make this film clip this week so that I could show my sister in Australia my new haircut and glasses since my skype camera is broken (Hi Shell!). This is why I turn to the camera at least twice and wave.
The Hunch
Below is last week's photo. I like the peaceful look this lady has on her face. She does look like she is enjoying her pose and that's great. It's my feeling that she is trying to reach her toes when perhaps she is not quite ready though. Why do I say this? Because you can see that her entire spine has become rounded. In particular, see how her spine rounds up from her pelvis to form a peak at her lower back and then rounds down again as it arcs towards the floor? This type of forward bending puts your lower back at great risk, especially if you have any lower back problems.
Hmmm, I have a hunch that something is not quite right here...
What you want to try and avoid in uttanasana is this upward peak that forms around your lower back, or what I call "the hunch". The hunch is very sneaky and likes to creep up on people in forward bends. Hunch awareness is an important thing to cultivate in your yoga practice.
So why is this hunch appearing on this lady's back? Why might it appear on your own back?
The hunch does not appear by magic, landing on your unsuspecting spine. In forward bends such as uttanasana it generally appears when our hamstrings (the muscles on the back of your thighs) are not long enough (they are too tight), which means our pelvis cannot tilt forward properly. When your pelvis does not tilt sufficiently any forward bending movement then comes from rounding the spine. This is usually accompanied by some hunching of the shoulders as the arms stretch out to reach the feet or the floor, which you can also see in the photo above.
The hamstrings are really important in forward bending poses such as uttanasana. Let's take a closer look at how they can limit forward bending.
Hamstrings and Pelvis
Your hamstrings are muscles that start on your sitting bones (part of the pelvis). They go down the back of your legs and across the back of your knees where they attach to the bones of your lower leg. The fact that the hamstring muscles are attached to your pelvis and cross your knee joints is an important thing to consider in cultivating hunch awareness and minimising its impact. A picture might help here. Below are some images of your hamstring muscles. You can see how they start at your pelvis and go across the back of your knees.
The picture on the left shows the 'normal' tilt of the pelvis, which is just slightly forward. The picture on the right shows what happens as the top of the pelvis starts to tip forward. This lifts the sitting bones higher into the air. As the sitting bones lift, the hamstring muscles start to get stretched as one end of the muscle (attached to the sitting bones) is getting pulled away from the other end (attached below the knee).
Some people have hamstrings so tight that they cannot tilt their pelvis forward in any forward bends. Some people even have hamstrings to tight that the their sitting bones are actually pulled down in normal day to day life so that their pelvis tilts backwards (as though you are a dog with its tail tucked between its legs). When your pelvis starts to tilt backwards you lose the natural curve in your lower back (lumbar curve) and the hunch starts to form.
You can probably tell by now that being able to move your pelvis freely is key to safe forward bending. In fact, safe forward bending movements should be initiated from the forward tilt of the pelvis. Being able to tilt the pelvis forward will enable your spine to feel free and agile. You can see this clearly see in the film clip I made. At the end of the clip I demonstrate exactly what happens to your spine and lower back when you tilt your pelvis the wrong way in a forward bend and I encourage you to watch this part a few times and feel it in your own body. A good tip would be to imagine the Bat Signal (you know, that light that shone into the night skies of Gotham City to alert Batman that some dastardly plot was unfolding) was shining from your backside as you practice uttanasana. Now, if you really wanted to alert Batman to the perilous ground situation you would need to shine that light as high into the sky as possible. If you sense your light is shining only slightly above the horizon or even down into the ground then you are most likely to be in danger of hunching your spine in your forward bends.
Now this is all well and good if your hamstrings are long. You will indeed be able to shine the Bat Signal high,your pelvis will move freely and your spine will be long. But many people find themselves in the situation that their hamstrings are stretched to maximum capacity, their pelvis is stuck, and their Bat Signal is still nowhere in the night sky to be seen. Fortunately there are some strategies you can adopt to ensure your uttanasana is safe.
Bend Your Knees
First, you could bend your knees. This is a smart option, especially for anyone with lower back issues, and works because once you bend your knees, the distance between the two points where your hamstrings attach (your sitting bones and below your knees) is shortened again and tension is relieved. You will be able to keep bending forward but your knees will be bent and you will be in more of a squatting position. See the image below.
Forward Bend With Bent Knees
Practicing the pose in this way will allow your spine to relax downward, allowing gravity to lengthen it, without the hunch appearing. You might have to bend your knees more, or less, depending on whether the hunch starts to appear or not. Because you cannot see yourself you have to use body awareness to detect if the hunch is creeping up and one way to do this is to feel if your lower ribs start to move away from your thigh bones. If that happens, you can be pretty certain that your lower back is rounding.
To practice uttanasana in this way start in a low squat, connecting your lower ribs to your thighs (as though somebody has tied your body to your legs). Hug the back of your calves or thighs and from there start to slowly press the heels down and tilt the sitting bones higher into the sky, allowing the legs to slowly straighten. Keep straightening your legs until your lower ribs start to move away from your thighs and then hold in place. You can try to deepen your hamstring stretch by actively trying to tilt your sitting bones higher and higher into the sky from this position.
One problem in doing the pose in this way is that if your hamstrings are really tight you will find you have to bend your knees so much that you are practically squatting on the ground. This is really tough on your thigh muscles and they will get tired so you cannot hold the position for very long. Another option, then, would be to use a prop such as a table or chair or block.
Use A Prop
Your next option might be to keep straight legs (or slightly bent knees) and use a prop to rest your arms on, which supports your spine. See the image below where I have used a block.
Doing the pose in this way will probably be a more satisfying hamstring stretch since your legs are straight. Remember that you want to try and tilt your sitting bones into the sky to shine that Bat Signal as high as you can. If you don't have a block you could use a chair or even a table. The main point is that my spine does not start to dome up around my lower back area and that my pelvis is the highest point.
In Summary
Safer forward bending in uttanasana means cultivating hunch awareness and making sure you do not dome up around your lower back.
Be mindful of the position of your pelvis. If it starts to tilt backwards (as though you are a dog tucking its tail between its legs) you are entering into hunchville.
In uttanasana you need to shine the Bat Signal high into the sky--tilt your sitting bones up!
Don't be afraid to bend your knees. This will ensure your pelvis is the highest point and your spine can dangle down freely from there.
Don't be afraid to use a prop like a block or a chair or a table. This will enable you to keep your legs straight but also to keep your spine long without it starting to hunch.
Although I did not mention this above (so it should not really be a summary point) the ego or our desire to touch the floor is at the heart of a lot of unsafe forward bending in uttanasana. You do not need to reach the floor in forward bends. You need to lenghten your hamstrings and free up your spine. If your hands reach the floor then fine, so be it. If your hands do not reach the floor it does not matter. Don't leave them just dangling in mid-air though. Instead, place them on the back of your thighs or the back of your calves and start to gently draw your shoulder blades down the back of your torso so that your neck remains free (remembering it is also part of your spine).
Finally, I really encourage anyone with back issues to seek advice from an experienced therapist or teacher as they start to practice uttasnasana. If practiced incorrectly it can create pain, however, when practiced mindfully and with proper alignment, you will be able to find a variation to suit you (also watch for my upcoming post on Super Stretches for People with Low Back Pain!).
Our doggy friends instinctively know this stretch is good for them but most of us struggle with adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog) at first. It's usually the wrists that feel like they are bearing too much weight, and perhaps the shoulders. Once you learn how to use your hands, forearms, and shoulders correctly this will become less of an issue but, until then--to use that wonderful Sri Lankan turn of phrase-- what to do?
Why not try a supported version of the pose? You just need a belt and a column to tie yourself to, and you can get a great stretch for your hamstrings, calves, and spine without putting any weight through your wrists at all. This supported version is fabulous even if you can manage a five minute down dog with ease. I had forgotten about it until recently when I saw a spate of people with bent up legs and crooked spines, then saw a few people with hand injuries who could not put weight through their arms at all.
Check out the video below to see how to support your dog. A word of caution: make sure you are securely tied or you are going to face plant. If you don't have a belt then use a non-elastic sarong or scarf. As always, stay there, relax and breathe. For those of us who have had a long day at the office, a long day of looking after children, a long day of shopping or walking in high heels, or even just a normal, easy-going day, this pose is sure to top it off and leave you feeling longer, calmer, and refreshed. Have fun!
If you have only got ten minutes a day to practice, why not try the Can-Can-Flow?This is our warm up sequence in the Yes-You-Can-Can class.I designed it specifically to bring our focus to two things.First, lengthening the legs.Second, to keep the spine long while doing so.The second is actually more important than the first and please read the blog “Yoga Gems #3: You don’t do yoga to be a hunchback” before practicing the flow shown on the video.
The toughest thing about straightening your legs when you are bending forward is not actually getting your legs straight.It is dealing with the little voice inside of you that says you have to touch your toes or reach the floor while your legs are straight.
That little voice is a bit like the archetypal devil sitting on your shoulder who encourages you to do something that most of us probably know we probably shouldn’t—at least you should know if you have been coming to yoga class for some time.
The thing about forward bending is that sometimes we look too far ahead of ourselves and try to get somewhere our body is not quite ready for.If you have had a back injury you will know this on an intimate level.But even for those of us without back injuries we need to be mindful that we don’t develop awkward habits that could lead to injury down the track.
The angel, if you listened to her as she whispered from your other shoulder, would be telling you lots of nice things as you practiced forward bends.Here’s a potential though not exhaustive list:
·Relax and breathe
·Let go of ideas about where you ‘should be’ and just be where you are
·Please don’t come to yoga to turn yourself into a hunchback
It is the third of these that I really want to focus on.
If you come into a forward bend, either from standing or sitting, with the idea that you have to straighten your legs and touch the floor or your toes you are potentially setting yourself up for trouble if you don’t have enough length in your hamstrings or lower back.What will likely end up happening is that you round your spine and then shrug your shoulders in order to reach wherever it is you want to be.You will end up looking a bit like a hunchback.
This is not a pretty sight.Imagine if I kept my shoulders and spine in exactly the same configuration and stood up.In case you cannot imagine, I demonstrate in the video.
Ok, can you honestly say to yourself that you have come to yoga so that you can re-enforce a hunch in your spine?!Do you want to go home after class and say to yourself, “Gee, I am so glad I spent so much time cultivating that hunch.Feels so gooooood.”My guess is no.But the devil, you see, will encourage you to do exactly that.
So what can you do?
First of all, bring absolute mindfulness to your spine as you practice any forward bend.
Second, remind yourself you are trying to open the whole back side of your body—from your heels to the crown of your head—rather than just focus on that short distance between your bottom and your knees.It might help to think of yourself as trying to fold your body in half like you might fold a towel—you don’t want the bottom half to be smooth and straight and the top half to look like a camel’s hump.
Third, even though you are doing a forward bend, see if you can think a little bit about a backward bend as you come forward.You will not be able to maintain the natural curve in your lumbar spine as you bend deeply forward but it helps to feel as though you are trying to do so.To do this it can help to imagine pushing your sitting bones behind you or above you—increasing the distance between your sitting bones and your knees.In the midst of a forward bend this is much easier said than done though, since this action creates a lot of tension in your hamstrings.
Fourth, draw your shoulder blades down your back so that the shoulders are free and move away from your ears.This will free up tension around the neck and the upper back.
Fifth, if you are in sitting, make sure you feel your centre of gravity in front of your sitting bones so you do not feel like you are falling backwards. You might need to use a block to sit on if this proves really difficult, or take option six, below.
Sixth, you can also opt to bend your knees as much as you need so the torso lies on the thighs. I like this one a lot, especially if your hamstrings are pretty tight.This action is very effective as it will release a bit of that tension on the back of your legs and allow your spine to relax forward more so you still get a satisfying feeling of being able to fold forward.You can still stretch your hamstrings by pushing your sitting bones further behind you.This calls for a tilting action of the pelvis so the top of the pelvis comes forward and your sitting bones move backwards.Once you have laid your chest on your thighs you can really hug your chest along your thigh bones and then start to straighten your legs from there, but only so much that your spine still feels relaxed and long and you can keep your chest and thighs roughly parallel (like that folded towel).
In practice this means you might not reach your toes or the floor at all.It does not matter.Reach the back of your calves or thighs instead.Just remember to move those shoulders away from your ears (you can try to press your hands into the back of the calves with your elbows in and then ‘pull’ the calves up under your knees to also free up some tension in the neck/upper back in a forward bend).
A word for the more experienced.Your spine is ultimately going to round a little bit when you come into a deep forward bend so you do not need to keep it stiffly upright (unless you are practicing some particular technique that calls for this).If you maintain this stiff upper back for too long what you will find is that the muscles in your back start to get tired.You need to allow for slight rounding so that your spine can relax.The trick is being able to feel the difference between a nice relaxed and long spine and a hunched and constricted one. In the video you can see my spine is not ramrod straight, but it is long and I can still move it and find little wavelets rippling through it no matter how deep I bend.As soon as I cannot ripple anymore, I know I have come too far.
As always, it pays to listen to what is going on inside your body.“Length” and “Freedom” should be a little mantra that you repeat to yourself when you practice forward bending.
If you feel in your body that you are slumping then this is a good sign that you need to do something to lengthen your spine.If your back muscles are getting tired then you are probably ‘too straight’ and you need to relax them a little.If you cannot move your neck in freedom you shoulders are probably shrugged as you try to reach too far.If you feel any pain at all in your lower back, bend your knees a lot to keep the lower back long or come out of the pose.
