yoga for core strength and awareness part 5: your front

This blog has been a little quiet for a while – I let coronavirus lockdown throw me off my normal routine and haven’t been writing the blogs that normally accompany our practice in class each week. But I’m vowing that from this week I’m going to keep up with it again…. And to catch up will be writing a blog post a day this week! So to round off our study in March of your core we had one more area left to cover: your anterior (or front side of your) core. For our purposes you can think of your anterior core as the stuff that wraps you up into a little ball shape by bringing your chest and thighs towards each other (so the front of your abdominal circumference and your hip flexors).

I chose to work towards crow/ crane pose or bakasana to make students feel this area of their body work. You can see in the last photo here that the shape of this arm balance means tucking your thighs up near your chest, so asks your body to switch on your anterior core strongly. A technique I use all the time (that I picked up from my teacher Jason Crandell and that he got from his teacher, Rodney Yee) when teaching more difficult poses like this one is to get students to practice making the shape of the pose a less challenging way round. This is great for students because they get more than one opportunity in class to understand the shape of a pose and how it feels. Repetition is key to help people learn. And, from a teacher’s perspective, it’s a tool for making sure that my students feel this area of their core working even if they can’t yet balance on their hands in bakasana. So, in order of how this poses appeared in my class sequence:

Bakasana on your back

This posture teaches the ball shape of the pose, and in this version (with your knees outside your upper arms) teaches the action of squeezing your legs in against your arms. It also (in my body at least) instantly makes you feel exactly what your anterior core feels like when it switches on strongly to lift your chest away from the floor!

Plank with one knee drawn into your armpit

In this pose you’re repeating that drawing my knee into your chest shape, and also practising pointing your top toes and drawing that heel into your bum (which is a cue I’ll give students later for bakasana on their hands). It also adds in having weight on your hands and pushing the floor away from you with your arms.

Bakasana on your bum

Another version of the same shape. In this version I’m cueing students to try and sit tall, which will be firing up the front of their hips (aka their hip flexor muscles), and press their arms out and legs in.

Bakasana on your hands

The same shape repeated, in what (for most students) is the most challenging way round. So your body is already warmed up: - Anterior core (abdominals and hip flexors) to make that ball shape - Hamstrings and calves to bend your knees and bring your heels towards your bum - Arms pushing the floor away like we practised in plank. Plus this version introduces the extra challenge of trying to balance on your hands. If any of you/ your students have any wrist or shoulders issues you also have the on your back or on you bum versions to choose from, which you will already have experience are in no way an easy or cop out option!

Please comment below if you have any questions!

Yoga for core strength and awareness part 4: your back

It feels a little weird to be talking about anything other than COVID-19 at the moment. But in my flow classes, which have continued online, I have been trying to keep consistency for my students by carrying on with the curriculum we were working on together in the studio. This blog post is a little late - it’s about content we’ve already covered in class - but I’m playing catch up a little with this blog after spending all my free time trying to get my tech for online classes sorted! What does that meme that’s going around at the moment say about ‘it’s ok to not be completely on top of things during a global pandemic’….?

So to continue our focus in class on core awareness, we next shift our attention to your back. Even though it’s mainly your lower back that’s in the area I consider your core, because your tissues all blend into each other (and you don’t move like a robot!) during this focus we were also feeling upper back, your bum, and your hamstrings (ie the back of your thighs) work. Here are some of the postures we’ve used, in the order they appeared in class:

Locust pose

Lie down on your front and reach your arms back alongside your body. Lift your hands, chest and thighs away from the floor until you feel your back muscles switch on.

If this feels too much:

• don’t lift up so high, or

• just lift your upper body and lower it, then just lift your legs and lower them

To work harder:

• Start with your palms facing in towards the sides of your body. Slowly turn your palms to the floor and just keep on turning them that same way until they stop. See if you can feel the backs of your shoulders switching on more

• Without actually bending your knees, imagine there’s a heavy weight pressing down on your heels and you’re trying to lift your feet and bend your knees against that weight. With that imagined resistance you might feel the backs of your legs and your bum working harder.

Warrior 3 variation

I like to add a little backbend into warrior 3, as you can see in this photo, because it feels like it switches my back muscles on more (and helps counteract all the rounding forward we do from sitting so much!). In this variation I’ve got my arms in locust pose to also engage the muscles that draw my shoulderblades together and down my back away from my ears.

You can apply the ‘to work harder’ suggestions for locust pose to this posture too (except the tip about engaging your legs only applies to the top leg in warrior 3!).

Lunge with added hamstring strengthening

This pose is commonly practiced by reaching one arm back, grabbing your top foot and using your hand to pull your foot in. That’s a completely valid way of doing it and might create more stretch in the front of your thigh. Doing it the way shown here - without grabbing your foot - means your hamstrings have to do the job of bending your leg, so it’s a more strengthening version of the same posture. If this bothers your back knee, try putting some extra padding underneath it. And beware: this is quite strong for a lot of bodies so might make your hamstrings cramp!

Bow pose variation

When you bend your knees in this pose you might feel your thighs drop down to the floor - keep trying to lift them! The same logic applies to this posture as to the lunge above: if you don’t use your hands to pull your feet in (which is the classic version of this pose) then your hamstrings and bum have to do the work of lifting your legs. You can apply this to any other backbends where you hold your feet (eg natarajasana or dancer’s pose).

Comment below if you have any questions!

yoga for core strength and awareness part 3: your sides (twists)

We’re continuing our look at core in class this week and staying working the sides of your body. Last week we were looking at side bends and side plank (vasistasana). This week we’ve shifted our attention to twists. The key posture we’ll be building towards is parsva bakasana or side crow/ crane pose.

There are a couple of different ways to do this posture – this video shows the variation that I find fires up my core muscles most and feels most buoyant once I’m in it. Differences from how you may have done this pose before include the placement of my hands; resting my hips on one arm not two; and the adjustment at the end to lift my feet higher. If you notice me pausing at different points in this video, the pauses align with the ‘steps’ I’ve written for you below!

The steps I go through in this video are:

1. Start in a squat with your legs together, heels lifted and your hands in prayer. Then twist to your right and hook your left elbow on the outside of your right knee

2. Take a couple of goes to get your elbow as far down the outside of your knee as you can. Holding your right thigh in place with your right hand might help you

3. Keep pressing your left arm against your leg and place your left hand on the floor so that your fingers are pointing in the same direction as your toes. Place your other hand on the floor shoulder distance away from the first hand (not too close together!)

4. Lift your hips

5. Shift your weight over towards your right arm and bend your elbows to a chaturanga-like position (see a post here about the posture chaturanga dandasana if you’re not sure what it looks like!)

6. Lean forwards until there is so much of your body weight forward of your hands that your feet start to get light and maybe lift

7. If your feet lift and you feel steady enough, try to roll your top hip forwards (so for me here that would mean towards the camera). Feel how this creates more twist in your body and lifts your feet higher.

If you can't get through all of these steps first time don't worry. Just pay attention to which step you get stuck on, because that might tell you something about your body. For example, if it's hooking your elbow on the outside of your knee that's difficult, you might need to work on your twists and outer hip mobility to get into this pose. If it's lifting your hips up that's tough it might be a lack of core strength, or if you feel like your arms can't hold you it could be upper body strength.

As always - please just ask any questions that come up!