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| Hi,
I am wondering if there are people out there who share my problem and what you have done to alleviate it. Just some background, I have recently changed teachers and am now practising in a new shala mysore style. I do up to kapotasana in the second series.
I have a very flexible lower back which bends way too much in all asanas. I try to consciously engage my core in all backbends, keep the knees close together and try hard not to overbend from the lower back. However despite all this, I often have some achiness and stiffness after every class or self practice. I don't think its a very good sign.
Is there anything else I should be doing? I have backed off doing the full poses both in backbends and leg behind head types of asanas as I think they aggravate things. My teacher however thinks that with practice, things will improve with time. I just want to know other people's experience and what they've done to address this?
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Location: London, England | Hi Simmi,
"I am wondering if there are people out there who share my problem and what you have done to alleviate it."
This is so common it's practically normal-well, not quite. But it's not just the backbends of the second series-if you are not careful, every vinyasa, and every sun salute, has several opportunities to hyper-extend the lumbar spine. So even though it appears to be the backbends of the second series that is causing the problem, you are probably setting up the problem with the repeated up-dogs. In a normal class, you are doing lots of them, and the fact that they are only one breath long actually increases the problem-the posture is often done automatically because of the short length of time, so any mistakes in posture are then repeated in the backbend postures-the bad posture has become a habit.
"keep the knees close together" This is not always a good thing-if it disengages the joints of the lumbar and SI joints, then they are unstable. When you look at what happens when you cross one thigh over the other, which is basically bringing your knees closer together, you can see that the action has the capacity to separate the SI joints. As an example of what to do, the SI joint is often unstable in pregnant women-the ligaments stretch out. They are sometimes given something called a trochanteric belt, which is slung low, and squeezes those bony lumps you can feel on the outside of the upper thigh. This compresses the SI joint-so you can see that bringing the knees together is a completely different action (one that was invented by anatomically ignorant yoga teachers (sorry, I'm a bit truthful this week), and will often result in the SI joints being levered apart-I know you said its your lumbar, but an unstable SI isn't going to help-not a good foundatiopn for the posture of the spine.
" My teacher however thinks that with practice, things will improve with time."
However well meaning your teacher is, this simply is not true-remember the following maxim which is used in motor neuron circles-"Perfect practice makes perfect." Simply practicing will not resolve anything. Sometimes these scientists get really excited and say "Praxis makes perfect." One way of taking revenge on a world which views them as nerds  Praxis is our ability to know and command our movements (think dyspraxia). I would guess that your praxic command of your lumbar spine is a bit off-kilter. perhaps if you send a photo in, of kapotasana, I can take a look, as can others. Up dog would be a good one too. I cannot emphasize how important it is that this posture is done with perfect praxis. See, now I'm doing it. What a nerd.
Nick |
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| Me again, sorry Nick! Can you go through down dog please? I promise not to send a pic this time!
Edited by iandicker 2007-03-28 12:03 PM
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
Oh, but I insist on a picture- Also, do a search on down dog nick and you will find a few posts where this posture has been discussed. It's a good posture to look at, because we do it so much, and also, you will find that the same principles apply to it that apply to the other postures that we have talked about, and more besides.
I'm a bit of a bandha fanatic, and use downdog to emphasize the whole core concept. So when you pull nito down dog, your abdomen should feel braced, as though you were resisting a punch to the stomach. If this doesn't happen, alter your sun salute so it does-too many students hollow their abdomen. The effect should also sort out ujjayi breathing- because the stomach muscles resist the pressure created by the contraction of the diaphragm, both the bandha and breathing then start to form a symbiotic relationship-then it becomes easier to observe both happening at the same time whilst you carry out yoga postures, which are changed by the application of these two essential componenets of astanga yoga. so you then get a triad of activities which help to accentuate each other-this then catches your concentration, so that you dwell within your practice-I'm sure that you and everyone else has experienced this, otherwise you wouldn't be practicing.
Will go into the posture itself more later-let me know what mystifies you about this pose-if you don't get this right, the practice is downgraded, health-wise.
Nick |
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| Actually I meant up dog! |
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| Simmi, I have same issue. From what I understand, as we build more and more core strength it will be easier to keep the pelvis neutral and avoid lumbar compression....but yes, just one bad updog and I'll feel it the next day. I'm gonna end up with an arthritic back if I don't watch it. |
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| Thank you Nick.
I may have a pic of some other back bends, but nothing in kapotasana. Would that be ok?
shalomOM, so as your core strength increased, have you found less compression in the lower back?
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Location: London, England | Hi Simmi,
We all repeat the mistakes made in one posture in other poses, at least, we usually do, so any backbend will tell the story-post it up! In fact, kapotasana is so easy to get wrong, that I could probably count the number of times I've seen it done well on one finger! Not just one hand!
nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
I'm glad I didn't write a book on downward dog! I vote a new rule-all questions must come with a picture. I've got more to say about downward dog than any other posture-all other postures carry the influence of a well performed downward dog. a badly performed downward dog either conbtributes nothing, or actually gives us a messed-up kinaesthetic awareness-our impression of good posture is wrong. Of course, you could say this about any posture, but down dog is key in many ways. Anyway, upward dog it is! I think what I'll do is describe the sun salutation, if that is ok with you. If there are any moderators present, how would yoga.com feel about actually making this an article on this site? I'm repeating myself constantly, and then miss out something vital on another post, because I've already answered it a hundred times-it's getting a bit dispiriting, and i could do much better-a sun salute sutra! (I find if I promise great things, then I'm forced to live up to them ). The upward dog is part of the sun salute, I cannot describe upward dog without describing the postures and movements before and after it-the sun salute is one of the most important components of astanga yoga.
Nick |
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| Good idea, we should have done sun salutations first really.
I think I'm getting down dog pretty well, but my jumps forward and back are still a bit shaky. I can't always get both feet to move together! Any tips?
should this be on a seperate thread? : |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
It's often a good thing that your feet are not moving together-you are being made aware of assymetry in your body alignment or muscular balance. When people use the power of the legs to jump forwards or back, they disguise assymetry. Now the work should be on finding out what is causing it, and eradicate it. Will think about it, but I would like to make it a permanent fixture as part of the sun salute article-otherwise, I'm setting up my own site, otherwise I'm going to spend the rest of my life answering the same questions, and not doing an excellent job of it-I would imagine that the sun salute could be quite a long-winded story to write about, and life's too short to spend it repeating oneself
Nick |
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| Good idea, then you can just refer us newbies to the resource they need.
I know there are assymetries in my body. My left hip is more mobile than the right, due I think to driving long distances and my spine may still be a little out of whack due to carrying a hand held camera on my left shoulder for what seems like years!
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| Nick - 2007-03-28 2:45 AM
...This is not always a good thing-if it disengages the joints of the lumbar and SI joints, then they are unstable. When you look at what happens when you cross one thigh over the other, which is basically bringing your knees closer together, you can see that the action has the capacity to separate the SI joints. ...Nick
Given that I tend to have SI issues (although not so many recently!), should I not sit with my legs crossed in this fashion, as I sometimes do? 
--Jason
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Location: London, England | Hi Jason,
Well, life is movement, and you are probably not going to be able to avoid putting stress on the SI joint. Best to learn to use bandha. When I sit cross legged, or any sitting posture for that matter, I tense my glutes-they cross the SI joint, and therefore stabilize it through tensing. This also makes your spine sit up and take notice. You will also see that the knees are drawn up towards the ceiling-now the weight of the legs is not opening the SI joints, but the muscles that cross the SI joint are suporting the leg posture-so you could say that sitting cross-legged is now rehabilitating the SI joint-it ain't what you do...
Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
Don't worry about assymetry too much-it's unavoidable from the moment of conception. The way you lie in the womb will have an early impact on the orientation of each joint. The heart itself usually creates a slight side-bend in the thoracic spine. Then life itself, being right or left-handed, which foot you use to put on the first step on a flight of stairs, etc. So you can start off by blaming your parents They make you assymetrical, your mum and dad, to paraphrase a quote
Nick
p.s. didn't know you were a newbie, thought you looked like you had done a fair bit of practice, so congratulations-not often people can pull a fast one on me as far as yoga goes-it's a doddle in other aspects |
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| I suppose it all depends on the definition of newbie. I've been doing ashtanga since September and teaching myself from Erich Schiffmann's book for 18 months previous to that. I still feel like a newbie, there's so much left to learn.
how about an article on vinyasas?
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
Well, if I did one on sun salutes, that would cover most of vinyasa-apart from the difficult bits, that is I think I'd better hurry up and write that book, otherwise it's all going to go on this website. I have to confess to being slightly worried that some evil git could actually take it all and publish a book themselves, which would cause me to jump off a very high building
You are doing well for someone who's been doing this for only two years-and by the way, the feeling of newbieism doesn't go away-in fact, it gets stronger as you start to find out how much you don't know-just keep those eyes wide open, it's fun-like being a kid who can just suck up experience and learning.
I ran a workshop in Oxford last year, did a couple of handouts, am going to e-mail them to you, hopefully that'll keep you occupied for a couple of minutes while I do something on sun salutes. Were you always the first in class to put their hands up?
Nick |
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| No, but I'm always first in the queue asking questions at the end!
Ian
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian,
Luckily there's no queue-will try to do this sun salute over the weekend.
Nick |
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| I wrap my hands around my floating rib area and manually help this area to elongate. I used to compress way too much in my lower back.. after a few months of manually lifting and elongating my spine... I can do it without manually moving it. Does that make any sense? For me, I found my problem of compressing is that I was doing my backbend JUST in my lower back instead of using my entire spine |
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Bending too much in lower back
