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 Downdog with bent legsModerators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 2 Now viewing page 2 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Ashtanga Yoga | Message format |
Nick |
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    Location: London, England | Hi Glenda, Well, I'd have to study the calf muscles a bit to ascertain that-but I think whoever told you that is a bit confused-often, you can see hyper-extension is taking place because the lower leg is pushed backwards, so the calf muscles become prominent-not contacted. I think that sometimes the calf muscles are the culprits in knee hyper-extension-in dancers, so that the shape of the leg is more pleasing to the audience, and in yoga students, they savagely stretch the two muscles on the back of the calf to get the heel down to the floor in down dog, or to perform other postures. And true hyper-extension is a whole different thing-but we can use the research done on hyper-extension to find out what will happen to the normal knee if it experiences the same stresses as a more mobile knee-they're the same joint, it's just that the hyper-extending knee has a bigger paddock to run around in  But they are the same animal. The therapy for each is exactly the same-you increase the good function of each type of knee through exactly the same rationale. Maybe we could call it pseudo-hyper-extension? Nick | ||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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| TampaEric |
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| iandicker |
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| TampaEric |
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| iandicker |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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| ollie |
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| Thanks! Actually, I kept looking for a reply and didn't see it until now. I wasn't being indifferent! And thanks, I do see what you mean. I am going to have to have someone take a photo of me being in down dog so I can see if my back is doing what it is supposed to be doing. I am not pregnant however. | |||
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| iandicker |
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| Might take a pic of my downdog just to scare you all! How about everyone posting a pic of their downdog! Make a good rogues gallery! Ian | |||
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| joscmt |
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I like the idea of a downdog gallery!! It'd be cool to see everyone's.  | |||
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| iandicker |
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| Here's mine. Not enough pelvic tilt I'm thinking. Maybe explains the bent knee theory? Ian (Downdog.jpg) Attachments ----------------  Downdog.jpg (85KB - 49 downloads) | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian, I think you are right-not enough pelvic tilt-but I think getting anterior pelvic tilt would be very hard, due to your whole-body posture. Even if you were to tilt your pelvis, your body posture is such that your pelvis would tend to tilt posteriorally. In order for bandhas to be effective, you have to have good body alignment-imporper alignment is like having an inaccurate sight on a rifle-you always miss the target-in this case, feeling the abdominals contract as the corect alignment is sought. As you can see, your lumbar spine is over-flexed (too flat), so that your middle spine is locked into forced extension-this shouldn't happen in any yoga posture-instead, you are trying to align the vertebra one above the other, in a way that usually distributes pressure on the spinal discs in a more uniform manner. By spreading the pressure over a wider area, you don't get specific points of pressure which might lead to 'slipped discs,' schnorl's nodes and other such pathologies which are aggravated by bad posture. In anatomy, we talk about 'prime movers'-the main muscle responsible for a movement-bending the elbow and bringing your hand to the shoulder would cause biceps bracchii to be the prime mover. In astanga yoga you are trying to develop the core muscles so that they become the prime movers of the rest of the body, whilst ensuring sufficient stability of the lumbar spine-otherwise each posture creates a force which tends to destroy the low back. What I was trying to get to with that statement was to get you to do the pose in such a way that you feel stretch in the correct muscle-latissimus dorsi-at the moment, this isn't happening-in fact, it looks like the muscle is contracting and that the flexion in your shoulder joint is therefore reduced-I would like you to try to increase the angle between latissimus dorsi and your upper arm-you can see the lat on the side of your torso, just next to your shoulder. I'm hoping that if you use bandha properly, you will feel that their contraction induces a stretch in this muscle, often causing the stretch to be felt where the tendon inserts into the arm. If you cannot feel this stretch as a result of bandha, re-think the pose. What I will sometimes do is assume a press-up position, with the arms straight-now, I think most people will just press down on their hands to hold this position-but I would like you to act as though you were pulling your hands back towards your feet-they won't move, obviously, but the effort is there. The prime mover is now latissimus dorsi. You should, if your alignment is good, feel the entire abdominal wall brace as you start to pull on your hands. Now, flex your hip joints so that you move into down dog-you should feel the brace increase in intensity-now it's easy to hold bandha because the muscles are shouting at you, clamouring for attention. And, as a double whammy, you are getting stretch on the lats, so that they can contract more strongly and more readily for the lift forwards. I think that most people will find that what they do in down dog is completely different, and that they push down on the hands at all stages into the movement, reducing the likelyhood of bandha being helpful or effective. In downdog, you should feel that if the floor was shny and oiled, that you hands would slde back towards your feet-this should be the case in every single pose of the sun salutation where the hands are on the floor-and most other poses as well-can't think of any exceptions-updog, parsvakonasana, scorpion, urdvha dhanurasana-all of them benefit. With respect to the legs, looks like you have heavy foot pronation as you try and get your heels to the floor-no one's ankles are that flexible, and you are basically doing something less than therapeutic for your foot architecture-you've taken all the available range of motion of your ankle, the only thing left to do is lose the arches of your feet. With foot pronation comes internal tibial rotation, which is causing the internal hip rotation, which then cause the lumbar spine to flex, in the case of this posture (not in standing). I think that's part of it, anyway, and it makes me look clever, at least until you figure out what I'm saying, so I'm going to stick with it for a bit As regards your head postion, I wouldn't try to tuck your chin into your chest-I think this is also making it hard for your to bring the lats into your sights-the forward head movment is resulting in a backward shoulder movement which is bringing the elbow forwards, and the hands back-result? You press down on your hands so that you don't fall over, then you don't get the pull. Just to encorage you, the lats are siad to form part of a sling which crosses the body-the latissimus of one shoulder will interdigitate with the gluteal muscles of the opposite hip-if you look at any anatomy chart, you will see that the muscle fibres of the latissimus are aligned in exactly the same direction as the opposite gluteal (http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/e-books/viewbook.cfm?ID=394). This is going to give you the pelvic tilt that you require Take care Nick | ||
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442   | That's a lot of reply there, Nick! Ian - if you were in my class (and you aren't - and I don't teach ashtanga style, but still....) I would tell you to move your hands and feet at least 6 inches away from each other and my bet is you would have a much better experience in this pose. If you went to up dog from here, your shoulders would be way past your wrists. Get into up dog with toes turned under (ie. NOT toenail side on the floor) and go directly from there, without moving your feet or hands, into down dog. See how that feels. Oh yeah - head in line with the spine, too.  | ||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi, Thought this might be interesting for those of you interested http://www.anatomytrains.com/uploads/rich_media/ATDiss.pdf Nick Edited by Nick 2007-11-26 10:35 AM | ||
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| TampaEric |
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| iandicker |
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| Wow! Enough for me to go on with for a while. Excuse me while I print out Nick's reply and read it carefully. The anatomy pdf will also be a big help. Thanks a lot, Ian | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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| iandicker |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian, Yes, I remembered from before that you didn't have time to get into the poses So I didn't think you were being a slacker Nick | ||
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| iandicker |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Ian, I've kind of evolved this pulling idea from lots of different sources-all designed to help the human function better-I'm glad you are finding it helpful. You will be able to feel your muscles, because of the increased tension, so that the muscles are adapting to the higher demand-this is a continual process, so, theoretically, poses such as those found in the sun salute will always be demanding-as you increase in skill and strength, then you increase the demand-otherwise, very quickly, students simply 'go through the motions.' Yes, you are right, all the backbends should also benefit-try it in up-dog, if that's not the one you were talking about-do your hands press down on the floor, or do they feel like you are trying to pull them back over the floor-you have to start doing this from uttansana, to chaturanga, to up-dog, to down dog-then your shoulders don't go forwards over your hands in up-dog, but the shoulder blades are instead being depressed, medially rotating, and retracting. I have a vague memory of us talking about this somewhere Well done on the headstand, let's meet up again, maybe come to my house this time if it's convenient, if you're lucky I'll make some lovely bread and water Nick | ||
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| iandicker |
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442 | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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