Free Your Spine in Uttanasana

Safer Standing Forward Bends

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

1. Safer forward bending in uttanasana means cultivating hunch awareness and making sure you do not dome up around your lower back.
2. 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. 
3. In uttanasana you need to shine the Bat Signal high into the sky--tilt your sitting bones up!
4. 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.
5. 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. 
6. 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).
7. 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!). 

Happy and safe practicing!

Yoga Quiz!

TAKE THE YOGA QUIZ CHALLENGE!

I found this photo on the internet when I typed "tight hips" as a keyword into Google.  I am not quite sure what the picture is trying to show (is it tight hips? tight hamstrings? tight lower back?) but I thought it was a good way for me to introduce a new interactive feature into this blog.  Whether or not you come to my yoga classes or not, I hope that you can learn something from reading it.  So I have decided to have little yoga quizzes from time to time that I hope might enhance your practice or the way you think about your practice. 

I want you to take a look at the picture in the photo.  It is actually a fairly accurate replication of what I sometimes see in yoga class when people are coming into a standing forward bend. 

Below are some questions I want you to think about in relation to this photo.  I will post my own answers soon but hope that some of you might send in some suggestions of your own--either to my personal email or publicly if you are up for it!  I am giving a free yoga class to the person with the most creative and positive answers so have a try!

1. What is the name of the standing forward bend in yoga (in Sanskrit and in English)?
2. What part of the body typically stretches in this pose?
3. If we were to make some changes to the way she is doing this pose, what might we suggest?  Bonus points for giving a reason.
4. Reason why you love or hate this pose.

As you can see, I am not necessarily looking for one 'right' answer.  Have fun exploring your answers, just as I hope you have fun exploring your yoga.

mettha,
Samantha

Mega Yoga Stretch

There are a few yoga poses that provide a stretch that is just, well, mega.  These mega stretches may push your intensity threshold, but they are usually worth it.

Thursday classes at the moment offer one of these mega stretches.  On Thursdays we are going from the two ends of the torso to open parts of our body that will help us fly up into backbends.  They are not the only keys to the flying backbend but they really help.  In last week's blog we thought about how our orangutan arms--how our arms connect to our waist.  This week, we get a chance to go to the other end of our torso and consider how our legs also connect to our waist. 

Anatomically, this is true.  There is a muscle called the iliopsoas that goes from our thigh to just below our lower ribs. 

This is a pretty important muscle and, among other things, influences the curvature of our lower back.  If this muscle is too tight, your lower back can get habitually pulled into a curve that is exaggerated (too curved or hyperextended).  Without going into too much anatomy, if your lower back is constantly being pulled into a tighter curve this can lead to all sorts of back problems as the vertebrae get pulled closer and closer together and the discs get compressed.

Backbends require our lower back to be long and free, not tight and compressed.  If your iliopsoas is tight you are going to have trouble feeling this freedom and it is likely that you will get a 'crunching' or squashed feeling in your lower back as you try to come into backbending postures. 

Bearing this in mind, on Thursdays we are doing a mega yoga stretch to help free the iliopasas so that we can have free lower backs in backbends.  We do a wall variation of virasana (hero pose) that seems much more difficult than virasana itself.  This is probably because your thigh is fixed against the wall and cannot move, thereby preserving your alignment, whereas in the real virasana your thigh can move around (even if you try not to let it) and subtly change the alignment of the pose.  As most of you have no doubt found out by now, the smallest change in your alignment can make a huge difference to a posture.  When our body is stretching it will often find little 'escape routes', by which I mean it tries to take us away from the intensity. 

In the the mega stretch on the video clip there is little escape from the intensity.  You need to go with the flow and breathe.  Of course, as always, be mindful of any strain that might be leading to injury.  In this pose the most likely strain would be in the knee joint or possibly the lower back if you are not mindful.  Below I have outlined a few points about the integrity of the joints for this pose:

• fold up your mat like I do in the video clip.  This is actually just to act as a cushion for your knee.  The thing about this pose is that it looks like the pressure is on your knee, but your weight is actually not on your knee cap but on the bottom of the thigh bone.  I usually do this pose against a wall without my mat, but, having said that, having a little cushion does bring a bit of comfort.
• watch the front knee does not come too far in front of the ankle and definitely not over the toes.
• in the video clip I fix my shin straight up the wall and then slip my pelvis inside the heel of my foot to take it all the way back to the wall.  You do not need to do this and you should not force yourself to do this.  Remember, yoga is never about forcing.  Your body will 'do' when it is ready. Your pelvis can stay in front of your foot, it does not have to go back to the wall, and that is completely ok!  You can use this pose as a lunge variation rather than as the virasana variation as I move into.  Work within your limits. 
• this posture requires us to maintain the normal curve of our lower back.  We don't want to try and flatten it or exaggerate it.  Most people will probably find the curve exaggerating--especially if your iliopsoas is tight.  So be sure to keep your lower ribs from jutting out, which will increase the curve at the lower back. 
• if you are going to try and take your arms overhead, make sure the natural curve of your lower back is maintained.  Tight latissimus dorsi muscles (which connect your arms to your waist--see last week's post on orangutan arms) will make it difficult to take your arms overhead and the escape mechanism for them will be to try and increase the curve in your lower back to allow you to do so.  So watch what happens to the curve in your lower back as you try to take your arms overhead.  If it starts to get exaggerated then don't take them up any further. 
• ankles that are tight might make it a bit difficult to get into this posture.  If the front of your ankles are tight and you cannot get them flat against the wall then roll up a little hand towel and place it between your ankle and the wall.

See if you can hold the two poses I demonstrate in the video clip for about a minute each.  Focus on steadying your breath as you do so.  In between legs, get up and move around.  You will really feel the new 'freedom' in the leg that you have just stretched.

This mega yoga stretch really targets the front of your thighs and pelvis and, combined with your orangutan arms (see last week's blog), will help you fly up into backbends!  Have fun and practice safely.

Monkey Grip: Improve Your Yoga With Orangutan Arms

I have a good friend who has arms like an orangutan, by which I mean his arm span is greater than his height not that he has hairy shoulders.  Orangutans have amazing arms and shoulders, which comes in handy when you live mostly in the trees.

But for those of us yogis who (for the most part) don't live in trees, having arms like an orangutan, or at least imagining that you do, is a great asset to your yoga practice. 

The fact is, although most of us think of our arms as starting from our shoulders, they actually start from our pelvis.  Well, not the arm bones themselves, but the muscles that help our arms to move.  We have lots of muscles that connect our arms to our torso (you've probably heard of your deltoids).  But there is one pretty big one called the latissimus dorsi that runs from your humerus (that's the arm bone that goes from your elbow to shoulder) all the way down to your pelvis. 

I don't want to get too much into anatomy here, but you might be able to imagine now that if the skeleton above raised it's arm overhead and it's latissimus dorsi were tight then the arm would not move very effectively.  This is especially if the skeleton wanted to to externally rotate at the shoulder joint, like we do in backbends, because the latissimus dorsi muscle is even more stretched in that position. 

Having extra long arms that are rooted in your waist will help you with all backbends, and will help that pesky problem of the elbows splaying out that happens in some inversions (like pincha mayurasana or hornstand).  It also helps you experience downward facing dog (adho mukha svanasana) in a different way and with more freedom in your neck and spine.  Your handstands will get better and you might even find yourself becoming more attractive, wealthier, and.... wait a minute, strike those last two. 

To cultivate orangutan arms (ie, arms that move freely from your waist not hairy ones) there are lots of things you can do.  I got on a movie-making spree last weekend and made three short clips to help you bring awareness to the area extending from the middle of your upper arm, down through the armpit, and down to the waist, and to feel the connection between these areas. 

In the first clip I try to show how to connect your arms to your waist in downward facing dog.  I also show a pretty intense stretch that will hopefully bring your awareness to the entire torso, armpit, arm complex.

In the second clip I show another intense stretch to really open up your armpit area.  After you have held this stretch for a minute (or two), I recommend you go back into downward dog again and see what a difference it makes!

In the third clip I show another way to come up into an effortless backbend by really drawing those arms back down into your waist.  As you watch this clip I hope you can see that my entire spine rises from the floor as though it is floating just by setting up my arms.  Those of you who come regularly to my classes and who struggle with backbends will know that I can help you fly up not by lifting you (I am not that strong) but just by firmly sending your arms back into your waist.  If anyone is willing to be filmed with me making this adjustment then I would really appreciate it so we can show people what I mean!!
Before you watch the movies and try some of the poses I am doing, I recommend that you try this little exercise so that you can really feel your arms connecting to your waist. 

1. Come into tadasana (mountain pose or standing upright)
2. Take your arms over your head
3. Reach your arms up as high as you can
4. Now, imagine that you have a shirt pocket sewn into your side ribs, just above your waist
5. Bring your awareness to your armpits and drop your arms back into those shirt pockets.  Your elbows will probably bend a bit.  That's fine.

Once you understand how the arms connect to your waist and can manage to keep them connected you will fly up into backbends like a wind billows out a sail. 

By the way, if you can hear Kylie Minogue in the background of these movies, it is just because I was having a bit of a yoga dance practice session when I took the shots.  Am seriously thinking about doing a yoga dance workshop as it was a lot of fun!

Orangutan Arms and Downward Facing Dog

Stretch Your Orangutan Arms!

Use Your Orangutan Arms To Fly Into Backbends!

Support For Your Dog

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!