Yoga from the Heart

If you are prone to headaches, you probably know some of the triggers (stress, lack of sleep, hunger, allergies, sinus problems, eye strain) that cause them. But have you considered that your posture and a lack of oxygen could be to blame? Most of us sit and stand with rounded shoulders and head jutted forward. Our poor posture affects our respiration and circulation and can add up to muscle tension that results in headaches.

If your headaches are of the tension variety, yoga can help. The best time to treat a headache is at the first sign of the pain, before the muscles go into spasm. To reduce the amount of headaches you experience, incorporate the following yoga poses into your daily routine.

Simple Seated Twist
10 seconds

Sit straight on the edge of a chair, feet firmly planted on the floor, buttocks pressing down into the chair seat. Cross your right leg on top of your left at the knee. Take your right arm to the back of the chair and your left hand to your right knee. On an exhalation turn from the belly to the right. Keep your   shoulders down and your chest open. Relax your eyes, jaw and tongue. Hold for ten seconds,  breathing evenly. Return to center and repeat on the opposite side

Grabbling Opposite Elbows
10 seconds

Stand with the feet firmly planted on the floor, hipwidth apart. Clasp your elbows behind your back. If you have more flexibility, place your palms together behind your back, with your fingers pointed upward. Relax your eyes and jaw. Hold for 10 seconds, breathing evenly. Release.

Yoga helps with tension headaches by relaxing muscles in your head, back, and neck, boosting circulation to your brain and upper body, and improving your posture.

Gomukhasana Arms
10 seconds

Props
Yoga belt or tie

Stand with the feet firmly planted on the floor hip-width apart. Lift your right arm into the air beside your right ear. Bend your right elbow, reach your right hand behind back, palm facing your back and place it down between your shoulder blades. Bring your left arm behind your back and climb it up to clasp your right hand. If you have tight shoulders, use a yoga belt between your hands. Hold for 10 seconds, breathing evenly. Release and repeat on the opposite side.

Garudasana Arms
10 seconds

Wrap your arms around your torso, right arm under left, hugging yourself. Bring your hands up, your left elbow resting in your right elbow, your hands rotated palms toward each other. Relax your eyes, jaw and shoulder blades. Hold for 10 seconds, breathing evenly. Release and repeat with your left arm under the right.

Side Stretch
10 seconds

Sit on the edge of a chair with your feet hip-width apart and firmly planted on the floor. Lift your arms beside your head, taking hold of your left wrist with your right hand. On an exhalation, gently stretch to the right, pulling your left arm and wrist with your right hand. Press your weight down to the left buttock. Hold for 10 seconds, breathing evenly. Return to center and repeat on the opposite side.

Namaste,

As a sports lover, you know that injuries come with the territory. You know that injuries, whether caused by repetitive motion, imbalances in your biomechanics or both, can be painful, frustrating, and limiting.

Yoga is a great tool for preventing injuries. Through a combination of active and passive stretching, yoga can be helpful in keeping you injury free.

In this article we will address one of the most common injuries for athletes – plantar fasciitis – and two simple ways to address it with yoga. Many sports injuries tend to be chronic so practice these poses preventively on the days you train or workout. If your injury is acute, rest until the inflammation subsides. When you are feeling better, practice these poses.

Reclined Leg Stretch

What it Does: Reclined Leg Stretch provides a safe stretch for the hamstrings and the tissue that runs along the back of the hip, thigh and calf, which tugs on the sole of the the foot when it gets tight.

How to Practice: Lie on your back, legs together. Strongly extend through the heels.

Keep the left leg tunneling into the ground as you bend the right knee and draw it into the chest. Place a strap around the arch of the right foot and hold the strap loosely in both hands.

Exhale and extend the right leg straight up. Walk your hands up the strap until the elbows are fully extended. Keep your neck relaxed and make sure you are not throwing your head back.

Lengthen the back of the leg between the buttock bone and heel. Try not to be overly enthusiastic about pulling your leg toward your chest. Instead, emphasize the grounding of your left leg as you draw your arms back into their sockets and lift your collarbones.

Stay for 30 thirty seconds to 1 minute breathing evenly. Slowly release. Repeat on the left side.

Figure Four

What it Does: This yoga inspired stretch relieves tension in the hips which limits the movement of leg muscles which in turn puts stress on the back of the legs and increases tension in the plantar fascia.

How to Practice:
Lie on your back, both knees bent. Bend the right knee and place the right ankle just above the left knee; flex the right foot. Reach your right hand through the “triangle” open space created by your right leg and interlace the fingers of the right hand with the fingers of the left that is reaching around the outside of the left thigh.

Keep the hips, spine, and head on the floor. Relax your neck. Hold for 30 seconds to 1 minute and repeat on the other side.

Namaste,

In my last post I focused in on the importance of alignment in Chaturanga Dandasana. In this post I am reposting information from Ray Long, MD FRCSC, a board certified orthopedic surgeon and the founder of Bandha Yoga.

In his post, Dr. Long looks at a technique that can be learned with Chaturanga Dandasana and then transported to other poses to improve benefits and safety. He calls this technique “ease in, ease out” and it relates to how one approaches the end point of a pose.

For this cue, Dr. Long advises taking a yoga block and placing it at the level of your sternum and then lowering down to lightly touch it from plank position. Then straightening your arms to return to plank. The image that body weight practitioners use for this is “kissing the baby” because one touches the block as gently as kissing a baby on the forehead. Working in this manner teaches muscle control and sensitivity.

Figure 1

Those who avoid full Chaturanga due to weakness of the muscles involved can develop the strength for the full pose by starting at a wall as shown in figure 2. Here instead of the chest touching the block, bend the arms to lower towards the wall and gently touch the forehead, hold for a moment and then straighten the arms. Work in this manner until you can comfortably do ten repetitions. As strength builds, transition to a plank with the knees on the mat, lowering down to touch the block as in the final version. (Figure 3)

Figure 2                                                           Figure 3

Working in this manner—slowing the movement as one approaches the endpoint of the pose—also sets up a cadence or rhythm. It aids to protect the joints, which have smooth curved surfaces that adapt best to gradual transitions during movement.

Namaste,

Chaturanga Dandasana, (Four-Limbed Staff Pose) is one of the postures in the Sun Salutation.  The pose is very popular in yoga classes especially Vinyasa classes (flowing from pose to pose without pause). It is a favorite among students who love a “tough workout.”

We live in a fast-paced world today. We’re all about speed, getting more done in less time, multi-tasking whenever possible. Could we be missing the foundation for our next step in our rush to get things done — including getting in a “workout.”

If practicing Chaturanga Dandasana is important to you, then take the time to develop an understanding of alignment. Set out on a mission to discover a way to safely include Chaturanga Dandasana in your practice so that you can not only avoid injury, but use the pose to challenge your body from a place of inner strength.

Namaste,

Many of us have a strong jaw-clenching habit, and, as with all habits, we bring it into our yoga practice and then refine it. The more challenging the pose, the more we literally clench our jaw. Aside from the tightness this creates, think about the message that it sends to the rest of the body: “This is really hard! The only way to get through it is to clench and push and over effort!” This kind of tension limits our capacity to respond to what we are feeling.

In order to be present in our practice, we want to soften the muscles in the face, not tighten them to “get through it.” Ways to do this is include creating space between the upper and lower teeth, softening the eyes and “lifting the corners of the mouth” (i.e. putting a small, gentle smile on your face).

Give it a try the next time you hear the name of your least favorite pose called during class. The results will be rapid and astonishing.

Namaste,

If there’s one powerful pose for all-over toning it is Plank Pose. A truly foundational pose, plank builds arm and abdominal strength while keeping wrists supple and healthy. If you practice this pose regularly and in a well-aligned way your upper back and neck posture will improve and you’ll create support for your lower back as you learn to engage your abs.

In order to reap the benefits of Plank, follow these instructions.

Set It Up:

• Begin on all fours.
• Align your shoulders directly over your hands and your knees under your hips.

Work in the Pose:

• Press your outer arms inward and firm the bases of your index fingers into the floor.
• Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then spread them away from the spine. Spread your collarbones away from the breastbone.
• Press your front thighs up toward the ceiling, lengthen the tailbone toward the wall behind you.
• Lift the base of the skull away from the back of the neck and look straight down at the floor, keeping the throat and eyes soft.
• Hold for 5 seconds building up to 1 minute.

Namaste,

When you hear the term strength training, you probably think weight training but you can increase muscle tone, definition, and even muscle size with yoga.

How does yoga build strength? Different types of yoga poses build muscle tone in different ways. Holding standing poses strengthen the legs. Inverted poses are effective for building core and upper body strength because they flex groups of smaller muscles — not just the major muscles you work with weights— to support the body’s weight during the pose.

There are several reasons to include yoga in your workouts. Integrating yoga into your weight training regime can break up the monotony so you don’t feel like a slave to weight machines, dumbbells or resistance bands. Additionally, including yoga in your workouts will continue to test and push your body in different ways, and you’ll keep growing as a fitness enthusiast. You can also practice yoga with a partner which can infuse your workouts with fresh energy and fun!

A word of caution: because you are lifting your own body weight in yoga, it may take a lot more skill, time and determination to build muscle than it would with lifting weights. Don’t rush into advanced poses thinking you’re fast-tracking to “cut” arms. If you have questions about the poses below, check with a registered yoga teacher in your area.

Warrior III

Benefits: Strengthens the ankles, legs, shoulders and back; improves balance and posture; tones the abdomen

Instructions:

From a standing position, bend forward and step your right foot back into a lunge, fingertips perched on the floor on both sides of your left foot. With your chest on your left thigh, raise your
arms forward, parallel to the floor and parallel to each other, palms facing each other. Simultaneously, (1) bring the hips and body weight forward onto the left leg, (2) straighten the left leg, (c) step the right leg in and raise it to the level of the right hip. As best as you can, keep the right hip down. Stay in this position for 5-10 seconds. Bend the left knee and release the right leg back to the lunge as you bring your hands to the floor on either side of your left foot. Step your right foot forward. Repeat on the other side.

Handstand Preparation

Benefits: Strengthens the core, shoulders, arms, and wrists; improves balance

Instructions:

Kneel down on the floor on all fours with your back to a wall, facing away from the wall. Crawl backwards toward the wall until your toe tips touch the base board. Flip your toes and press the balls of your feet into the baseboard. If your shoulders are tight, turn your index fingers out slightly. Firm your shoulder blades against your back torso and pull them toward your tailbone. Then rotate your upper arms outward, to keep the shoulder blades broad, and hug your outer arms inward. Finally spread your palms and press the bases of the index fingers firmly against the floor.

On an exhale, lift your knees away from the floor and the sitting bones toward the ceiling. Push your top thighs back and stretch your heels  downward onto the baseboard, straightening your knees. Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward slightly.

If this 90 degree angle feels too intense, spend a few weeks practicing it.

Next bend one knee and step first one foot and then the other on the wall so that your legs are parallel to the floor and in line with your buttock bones. Press your heels strongly into the wall. Lift one leg into the air in line with its sitting bone as you continue to press the opposite heel into the wall. Stay for 5 seconds, breathing deeply. Switch sides.

Slowly walk down the wall and rest in Child’s Pose.

Namaste,

We often measure our level of success in yoga by the technical skill and level of difficulty in the poses we practice. In concentrating exclusively on the poses themselves, we often neglect the space between any two given poses, the transition.

The transition between poses may seem irrelevant. The temptation is to hurry through these periods of time. However, transitions are a hidden treasure in your yoga practice. By honoring them and giving them the attention they deserve, you can advance your practice to the next level of awareness and strength.

To mine these gems, resist moving from asana to asana using momentum. Cultivate a graceful slowness of movement when transitioning to and from poses. Consciously moving in and out of poses can help you to maintain focus and avoid injury.

If moving slowly through the yoga asana proves to be difficult, the core needs some attention.  Click here to read more about our February Core Workshop.

Namaste,