People often ask me how I started doing yoga. Basically, I started doing it for exercise. 20 years later my relationship with yoga has evolved, but it sill provides me with my primary outlet for what is essentially exercise – a physical activity that helps me stay healthy. And while I also do yoga as a kind of meditation practice, training my mind to be attentive and present, the many health benefits I’ve experienced doing yoga remain a significant motivation for me.
Yoga can be used as effective therapeutic tool for a wide variety of health issues. Either personally or with my students I have applied yoga as a modality for reducing or eliminating back pain, knee pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, headaches, colds, indigestion, exhaustion, depression and anxiety to mention just a few. And while there is certainly a lot more to yoga than exercise and health, it’s not a bad place to start.
Yet for yoga or really ANY activity or exercise program I am doing for health reasons to be effective I need to be clear about one thing: what is health? The definition of health can be quite broad. For the purposes of this post I’m going to limit the scope of this discussion on health to that of a given individual person. I will also not go into a discussion of digestive health. This is not because I don’t don’t consider it to be important, but because health of the digestive system is mostly related to diet and this is a topic for another post. If I may simply say for now that diet and exercise are the keys to good health and we set aside diet for later, how does exercise contribute to health?
Let’s suppose that I am eating a good diet but I’m still having health problems, what am I missing? We’ve all heard the expression “you are what you eat.” The “you” in this expression is the physical body, which is made up of a variety of different tissues which can be further broken down into a variety of different specialized cells. Each of these cells is like a tiny specialized “you” in that they need food and oxygen to live, work and reproduce. Each cell also produces wastes that it needs to eliminate so that these wastes don’t impair the cell’s ability to function and replicate properly.
A somewhat more accurate expression might be “you are what you eat and the air you breath.” The little “you’s,” your cells, need both nutrients from the food you eat and oxygen from the air you breath and they receive these via blood flow to the tissues. When my blood flow is good and my diet is good, then the cells of my various tissues receive a good supply of nutrients and oxygen and the wastes from cellular metabolism are removed in a timely fashion. When my blood flow is not good my cells are not fed properly and their wastes accumulate and impair the health of the tissue. Therefore if my diet is good but my blood flow is not good my tissues are not necessarily benefiting from my good diet.
Certainly on the physical level, and to a great extent the psychological level as well, the degree to which a person is healthy is determined by the health of that person’s tissue, and the degree to which a person’s tissue is healthy depends on the degree to which that person’s tissue receives good blood and lymph flow. A major function of the muscles in our body is to pump blood and lymph into and out of the tissue. For a given muscle to function well as a pump that muscle must be able to contract and relax well. Therefore the degree to which a tissue receives good blood flow is determined largely by the degree to which our muscles can contract and relax well.
Few would argue with the assertion that for a person to be healthy that person’s cardiovascular system must be healthy and functioning well. In the U.S., heart disease is the leading cause of death. To promote cardiovascular health and therefore health and longevity we are encouraged to strengthen our hearts with cardiovascular exercise. The logic of this view is that if the heart is strong and can pump blood more effectively, then it can deliver more oxygen to tissues and better support the health and function of those tissues.
Unfortunately the above view of cardiovascular health ignores the role of other muscles in the body and their relationship to cardiovascular health. Most of the oxygen carrying blood in our bodies resides in the smaller vessels known as capillaries. The vast majority of these capillaries and therefore blood in general resides in our muscle tissue. When muscles contract and relax they pump blood from these capillaries into and out of the surrounding tissues. In fact our muscles have the capacity to pump much more blood than our heart. For this to happen, however, our muscles need to contract and relax well. The better a muscle contracts and relaxes the better it pumps and the more it helps to support the health of its tissue and the tissues around it.
For each muscle in the body there is a mechanism which involves that muscle, the brain and the nervous system that determines that muscle’s length. The brain and nervous system record and maintain each muscle at a particular length and often, this length is far from optimal. Muscles that are at an optimal length are strong and flexible. Muscles that are not at an optimal length tend to be weak and tight and these muscles don’t contract and relax well and therefore don’t pump blood and lymph effectively. Such muscles and the tissues surrounding them do not receive good blood flow and this impairs the health of these tissues. Cardiovascular exercise will do little to address this issue as most forms of cardiovascular exercise such as running or cycling make our muscles tighter.
My experience doing yoga therapy over years has shown me that, most of us have muscles that are simply too tight to be effective blood/lymph pumps. This leads to degradation of tissues which eventually leads to pain which eventually leads to further degradation and more serious health problems. Luckily with a bit of know how and some reasonable effort we can increase muscle length and improve our pumping system. To do so most of us need to emphasize postures and activities that emphasize increasing muscle length, such as stretching, rather than activities that emphasize muscle contraction such as weight training. The good news for those wishing to be “stronger” is that longer muscles are stronger muscles in that they can contract more quickly and more strongly and also have more resilience and better recovery when subjected to stress.
Furthermore, for a muscle to be strong it needs to be working in the first place. In my practice I see an almost universal tendency for clients to come to me with postural tendencies where simply by virtue of the position they are holding their bones, many large and important structural muscles are not being asked to do any work. If I stand or sit or walk with my bones aligned poorly, that is, in a way where many postural muscles that are designed to contribute to my movement are not working, then these postural muscles are not contacting and relaxing and pumping blood and lymph.
In addition, when important postural muscles whose job it is by design to support me when standing, sitting and walking don’t do that job, then the stress of these activities falls to my joints. When this is the case I put undue stress on my joints and they are subjected to significantly more wear and tear than they would be if my postural muscles were working properly and my bones better aligned.
From the standpoint of those interested in yoga this is good news as much of what we do in yoga involves increasing muscle length and muscular action with an emphasis on alignment. However, when doing yoga we need to be clear that we are lengthening the muscles that need lengthening and activating the muscles that need activating and not using the natural mobility of our joints as a substitute. This is the reason that understanding alignment in postures is so important. Deliberate and intelligent alignment of our bones in a posture will make the difference between a posture that promotes health and one that creates problems.
For those who don’t do yoga, alignment is still an important element of any activity, particularly one intended to promote health. In fact, if we practice sound alignment during our regular daily activities then everything we do can be in support of better health. I recommend that everyone, even those who do yoga, practice alignment principles when standing, sitting and walking since these are the activities we spend most of our time doing. If we incorporate good alignment and bio-mechanics into our daily activities then gradually all of our movements become health promoting movements, including those like in yoga that are intended to be.
What is a Hip Opener? (part 1)
in Movement Article, Personal Alignment Training, YogaConsidering how often they are requested, “hip openers” have to be one of the more desirable categories of postures offered at any yoga class, and for good reason. Any student of yoga wants more open hips as the benefits of increasing the mobility of the hip joints are numerous. Increased mobility of the hips can relieve hip, low back and knee pain, as well as improve leg strength, balance and pelvic floor function, to name just a few. More mobile hips are also essential for performing more advanced postures.
But common approaches to opening the hips taught in yoga classes frequently range from ineffective to downright injurious. Considering the fact that hip replacement surgery is becoming commonplace in the western world, the dubiousness of the “hip opening” often offered to yoga students is unfortunate to say the least. Especially when, as you’ll see here, a little knowledge and a bit of know how is enough to allow anyone who’s interested to increase the mobility of their hips safely and effectively.
So what is a safe and effective way of hip opening? It starts with seeing where our body is actually at and understanding where we want it to go and how to get it there. So first we need to look objectively at the range of motion our hips currently have. Next we need to learn to see what is a movement of the hip joint and what is a movement of some other part of the body. Finally, we need to learn ways of increasing our range of motion (ROM) that maintain the integrity of the hip joints and do not place inappropriate loads on the spine or the knee.
The hip joint has 6 different ranges of motion. These are flexion, extension, external rotation, internal rotation, adduction and abduction. Flexion involves the thigh bone or femur moving toward the front of the pelvis or the pelvis rotating toward the front of the femur. This is the ROM that is most crucial for doing a forward bend. Extension is the opposite of flexion. In hip extension the femur moves toward the back of the pelvis. Extension is the ROM used primarily in back bends, but it is also important for walking.
External and internal rotation are the femur rotating away from or toward the opposite leg respectively. Adduction and abduction are the femur moving laterally (as opposed to rotating) towards and away from the opposite leg respectively. Adduction also describes when the femur moves across the midline of the body and beyond the the opposite leg and hip. All of these ROM’s are important in both standing and seated postures.
Of all of the ROM’s of the hip I mentioned above, flexion is the movement our hips do most often. Flexion is the primary movement done in forward bends, but it’s also the hip motion we do every time we sit and we should but don’t necessarily do every time we reach forward to pick something up or use the sink or the toilet (we often bend the spine instead of the hip). Therefore improving our hip flexion will not only help our forward bends in yoga but also help us with the everyday activities that, when our hip ROM is limited, put constant stress on our knees and lower backs.
Let’s start by looking at how much hip flexion we have. Stand with your feet separated about 5-6 inches and parallel. If possible, stand profile to a mirror so that you can see the shape of your spine. If you tend to get lower back pain when bending forward, put a chair or stool in front of you so you can take some support from it. Next, move your hips back just a little, that is, just until you begin to perceive the pelvis tilting forward (see figure 1). Now look at the shape of your back in the mirror. The lower part of the spine or lumbar spine should be somewhat concave. If you don’t have a mirror, you can try feeling the shape of your spine with your finger tips(see figure 2). If the lumbar does not curve in but rather rounds out, lift your sit bones and your tailbone up away from your feet until you’ve restored the concave shape. This is hip flexion.
figure 1
figure 2
Once you have established a concave lumber position in this very modest forward bend, continue to move your hips back and lift your sit bones up to increase hip flexion. Still using the mirror or your finger tips, notice when your pelvis can no longer tilt forward and the shape of your lower back starts to change. When it does you have reached the end of your ROM of hip flexion and have begun flexing your lumbar spine instead (see Figure 3). If you do this enough it will eventually cause back pain and may compromise the integrity of the spinal joints. Conversely, if you can learn to maintain your lumbar curve more often it will help develop the ROM in your hips you need to do deep forward bends safely.
figure 3
Now lift your trunk slightly back up until you have restored the concave lumbar position. To establish a marker, see how far your hands are from the floor. You might use yoga blocks, for example, to see how far you are. Are you one block? Two blocks? A block and a half? Get an objective measure you can use as a baseline you can refer to later and evaluate progress (See Figure 4). Then come up from your forward bend, preferably with your knees straight. If your back hurts coming up with the knees straight then bend your knees to come out. As you hip ROM improves and your legs get stronger you will gradually find it easier to come out of this forward bend without bending your knees. This is another measure you can use to monitor your progress.
figure 4
To work on increasing your ROM of hip flexion, repeat the above but begin to hold the position for a period of time. Start with holding the fully hip flexed position with your still concave lumbar for 20-30 seconds. Repeat it 3-4 times. In time you’ll find you can increase your time in the posture and with increased time you’ll see progress. Your hip flexion with increase and your forward bends will improve!
Stay tuned! Next we’ll look at hip extension.
Tips for Promoting Cardiovascular Health, Part 3
in Cardiovascular HealthAs we’ve seen in the earlier posts on CV health, much of what we can do to promote CV health goes beyond diet, exercise and medications. The way we hold and move our bodies has a dramatic impact on whether our CV system will experience turbulent flow, wall wounding and the subsequent plaque formation that leads to CV disease. Correcting the mis-alignments that distort our blood vessel geometry goes a long way toward minimizing turbulent flow, particularly in the abdominal aorta and the carotid arteries. But what else can we do to reduce turbulent flow and the resulting damage to our CV system?
What else reduces turbulent flow?
Besides our blood vessel geometry, there are several other causes of turbulent flow that we have it in our power to correct or minimize. One is sudden changes to the size of our blood vessels. This refers to a sudden dilation of a blood vessel which results in blood squirting through the vessel in much the same way that water in a kinked hose squirts through rapidly when unkinked. The result of this sudden rush of blood through the vessel is turbulent flow.
What causes sudden a change to blood vessel size?
There are several factors which contribute to sudden change in blood vessel size. One major one is biological stress. Biological stress results when we ignore our biological needs to the point that it impacts our health. This is a distinct category of stress from what most of us are referring to when we say “I’m stressed,” although they are often related.
When the word “stress” is used in common language, usually we are referring to the pressures of modern life. Things like work, traffic, relationships and taking too many things on at once can produce a feeling we call “stressed”. Certainly this type of stress can be problematic for CV health as it tends to increase blood pressure, but biological stress is different.
Understanding Biological Stress
If I am working and perhaps on a deadline and I decide to skip a meal to get more work done even though I am hungry, then I am creating biological stress. If I decide to work very late into the night and I fail to get enough sleep so that I return to work tired the next day, then I am creating biological stress. If I need to use the bathroom but I ignore the urge because it’s inconvenient for some reason, then I am creating biological stress.
These types of stressors, while they may very well be related to the “stress” in my life are different in that they trigger the release of hormones in my body that cause my blood vessels to dilate suddenly. This sudden change in the blood vessel size causes turbulent flow. This is similar to the affect that cigarette smoking would have on my CV system if I were a smoker.
What can I do about Biological Stress?
It may seem obvious, but reducing biological stress is as easy as the not so easy solution of eating when I’m hungry, sleeping when I’m tired and using the bathroom when the urge comes. If I’ve been supresssing biological urges for a long time, it may be necessary for me to reaccustom myself to the feeling of these urges to know when an appropriate response is called for. Typically I’ll need to make responding to these urges more of a priority, relative to the activities which are impeding my response. The demands on my time and energy are important, but are they so important that I must neglect my most basic human needs?
What else can I do to reduce turbulent flow?
Besides improving blood vessel geometry and minimizing biological stress we can also reduce turbulent flow by keeping our blood sugar at healthy levels. This is because sugar in the blood causes it to be thicker and stickier and this alters the way it moves through blood vessels. This alteration in blood viscosity in turn leads to turbulent flow, wall wounding and plaque formation.
Decreasing blood sugar goes beyond diet.
How then do I keep blood sugar at healthy levels? Reducing simple sugars in the diet of course helps and is important, but we should also consider something else when addressing blood sugar – how we are moving. Movement that requires more muscles to work will also increase cellular metabolism and decrease blood sugar because the cells of active muscles require more food to do their work. Obviously we shouldn’t be eating a lot of sugar, but perhaps it’s even more important that we move more throughout our day to increase muslce use and cellular metabolism.
In conclusion, let me suggest that movement in alignment and with regular frequency is not optional for our health, cardiovascular or otherwise. Natural movement, like food, sleep and regular elimination is a biological imperative.
Tips for Promoting Cardiovascular Health, Part 2
in Cardiovascular HealthIn my last post I discussed the function of the C.V. system and it’s component parts and I highlighted the imperative of movement to our cardiovascular health. In this post I’d like to discuss what behaviors and circumstances damage our C.V. system and might lead to C.V. disease.
What Damages the C.V. System?
The main contributor to diminished C.V. health and overall health in general is plaque formation in our blood vessels. Plaques are formed from cholesterol and when enough of them form inside a blood vessel they harden the vessel walls. Plaques can also accumulate to the point of blocking a major artery which is clearly a very serious condition. Thus for obvious reasons medicine has aggressively sought to reduce the buildup of cholesterol plaques by recommending diets low in cholesterol and prescribing cholesterol reducing drugs to patients. But is too much cholesterol the whole story?
Why Does Plaque Form?
While the majority of us know about cholesterol and it’s capacity build up and harden or even block our blood vessels, why this happens is typically less understood. Cholesterol plaques forming in our blood vessels are a natural result of tiny injuries to the walls of our blood vessels called wall wounding. When such a wall wound manifests our bodies use plaque to patch the wound in the same way we form scabs when we suffer wounds to our skin. The plaque protects the site of injury so that it has a chance to heal. Therefore plaque and cholesterol are not really the primary cause of C.V. disease. The primary cause is wall wounding.
What Causes Wall Wounding?
Under normal circumstances our blood flows smoothly through our blood vessels. However, when blood flow is not optimal our blood cells can hit the inner walls of our blood vessels strongly enough to leave little nicks in the vessel walls. This pathological movement of blood through the vessels causing wall wounding is called turbulent flow. If we can reduce turbulent flow in our blood vessels then we can also reduce wall wounding and plaque formation.
What Causes Turbulent Flow?
Turbulent flow has a variety of causes, all of which are preventable. Of these causes the one I’d like to discuss here is blood vessel geometry. In the same way that our muscles, bones and joints have an ideal relative alignment, that is, one that optimizes functionality and minimizes wear and tear, our blood vessels also have an ideal alignment or geometry. The ideal alignment of our blood vessels is one that allows our blood to flow freely and without turbulent flow. Misalignment of the musculoskeletal system typically result in misalignment of our blood vessels. Often this places a bend in the vessel where, were the body better aligned, there would be no such bend.
A great example of this is the way a common misalignment of the cervical spine puts a bend in the carotid arteries. Since these arteries are the main suppliers of oxygen to the front part of the brain any wall wounding and plaque formation in these vessels which might impede or even block flow is a clearly not good. But we can reduce or even eliminate damage to these arteries by improving the alignment of our head and neck.
Figure 1
In the photo below (see figure 1) you can see a very common misalignment of the head and neck referred to as “chin forward posture.” Chin forward posture misaligns our cervical spine in a way that excessively loads the discs, contributes to muscle tension, muscle weakness and unnecessarily stresses the spinal cord. It also misaligns the carotid arteries contributing to turbulent flow, wall wounding and plaque formation in these arteries.
Comparing this photo to the one below it (see figure 2) you can see the head and neck brought back into a healthier alignment. This not only reduces stress on the neck muscles, cervical vertebra and spinal cord but will also be a better alignment for blood flow to the brain and will reduce turbulent flow and wall wounding. This is clearly a good thing.
While there are other causes of turbulent flow, blood vessel geometry is an important one and one that is often overlooked as a contributing factor in C.V. disease. The next post will look at the other causes of turbulent flow and discuss other ways we can avoid it and avoid this important contributing factor to C.V. disease.
Figure 2
Tips For Promoting Cardiovascular Health, Part 1
in Cardiovascular HealthIn our recent workshop on “CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH” Tiffany and I discussed a variety of ways to keep our cardiovascular system healthy. While we felt satisfied with our efforts to cover most of what we’d wanted in the workshop, we also realize that it was a lot of info to pack into a 2 hour workshop, especially when we were simultaneously teaching a posture sequence new to many of the students who attended.
So I wanted to post some of the content we presented during the workshop to serve as a review for those who attended and as a reference for those who weren’t able to make it. Here is the first part of that content.
What does the C.V. system do?
Before we can understand how to keep the C.V. system healthy, we need to be clear about what it does. The most essential role of the C.V. system is to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all of the tissues of the body and to help move cellular wastes from those tissues back into the lungs and into the lymphatic system for removal. The C.V. system is also important in maintaining consistent body temperature and fluid balance.
What makes up the C.V. system?
The C.V. system is made up of the heart, blood and blood vessels. Most of us think of the heart as the primary worker of the C.V. system, but this is an oversimplification. The vast webbing of aortas, arteries, arterioles and capillaries is a prolific network that fills up a great deal of space in the body, mostly within our muscles. It is therefore difficult to separate our cardiovascular system from our musculosekeltal system. The two systems are interrelated.
What moves blood through your C.V. system?
The heart is not the only muscle that pumps blood. Our blood is moved by the pumping of ALL of our muscles!!! In fact if our heart had to do all of the work of moving blood through the body we would wear this muscle out very quickly. Most of the work of pumping blood through the body is done by muscles other than the heart.
When we perform different movements the various muslces in our body contract and relax to move our bones and generate those movements. This contracting and relaxing of our muslces is what pulls blood out of the blood vessels and into our tissues and pulls blood out of our tissues and into our blood vessels and lymphatic system. Therefore the more muscles we move on a daily basis, the better our cardiovascular health. If we don’t move our bodies in a variety of ways most our cells don’t get fed and cannot excrete their wastes. This leads to degredation of our tissue and eventually disease.
“Sitting Kills!” i.e. “Being Stationary So Much of the Time Kills”
If we are not using our muscles, either because we are not moving very much or our exercise of choice is repetitive and does not vary, then our heart ends up doing all the work. This puts undue stress on the heart. We could run for 1 hour a day and sit for 8 hours and have used very little of our cardiovascular system. Yet sitting in and of itself is not the problem, it is being in one position, using very little muscle, that is the problem. The more muscles we use the healthier the cardiovascular system. Thus the more movements we perform with frequency the healthier our C.V. system.
Keeping our cardiovascular system healthy is achieved through frequent & varied movement throughout the day, not just exercise!
There is a big difference between movement and exercise. A great analogy is that this difference is like the difference between food and vitamins. We can easily understand that we need a varied diet of different foods to live and thrive. If we only took vitamins, regardless of the need we might have for those vitamins, we wouldn’t survive. The same is true for movement. We need varied movement to live and thrive. Exercise is like the vitamins of movement. There may be some benefits to doing a repetitive movement for short periods of time that is challenging specific parts of the body, but it isn’t a substitute for a varied diet of movements.
What should I do to increse the variety of my movements and therefore promote my C.V. health?
Some simple things we can do include setting up a standing work station and alternate using this with our sitting work station. If this isn’t practical then just getting up and standing and walking a bit periodically before sitting again for work would help. Also, we can learn how to sit and stand in ways that use more muslces and decrease the load on our joints. When standing, for example, the most important thing we can do is make sure we are standing with a neurtral pelvis and if we are not, backing our hips up to align vertically over the outer ankle bones to bring our pelvis to neutral (see the photo below).
(See my earlier post titled “The Importance of Sending the Right Message” for more on aligning the hips.)
Stretching periodically throughout the day is another good way to promote C.V. health, especially when we emphasize muscles that tend to shorten when sitting. Simple stretches for the calf muslces, hamstrings and hips are very helpful as these are big muslces that can hold a lot of blood and can move blood into a lot of important tissues. The “Double Calf Stretch” (see photo below) is a good example of a stretch that addresses these areas.
*Note – Avoid this stretch and seek the help of a skilled teacher if you get back pain when attempting it!
Finally, walking is a great way to increase the variety of movements in our movement diet. Walking is one of the most complex movements we do as human beings. If you have taken one of Tiffany’s and my “Balance & Gait” or “Hiking” workshops then you are aware of how complicated walking in a deliberate way can be. Therefore, the notion of walking as providing quite a lot of variety of movements to our movement diet will make perfect sense. If you haven’t had the opportunity to work on how you walk, consider doing it. It will surprise you how complex and difficult walking actually is and you will really appreciate it as perhaps the most complete form of cardiovascular exercise!
(See my earlier blog titled “Are we walking or falling?” for more on walking.)
Balance and Yoga
in Balance, YogaIn part one of the introduction to B.K.S. Iyengar’s classic book ‘Light On Yoga’ Iyengar spends 2 1/2 pages offering various definitions of yoga. One that I particularly like describes yoga as “…a poise of the soul which enables one to look at life in all it’s aspects evenly.” Considering this definition some other words come to mind which further suggest the meaning of yoga – “balance”, “control”, “calm”, “equanimity”, “grace”. Of these, I’d like to suggest that “balance” is the most fundamental component of any yoga practice.
The word “balance” can have very different meanings depending on how it’s used. For example, if “balance” is used as a verb it suggests something we do to acheive stability. . .poise. If I say to you, “balance on one leg!,” your mental and physical effort is directed into maintaining your position with one leg lifted. Standing on one leg can be challenging for many of us, but sometimes the effort to do it results in something very different from stabiltiy or poise. In fact, our effort to “balance” often results in an increase of tension in the body and mind that not only doesn’t help with balance but in fact impairs it. When we try to “do balancing” rather than recognizing and rectifying the cause of our instability our ability to balance remains elusive.
Recognizing and rectifying the cause of our instability requires that we train the mind not just to see what we need to do to acheive stability, but also to see what we are already doing that is promoting instability. As a human being with a mind I am very prone to habits. Perhaps I have a habit of standing with my hips pushed forward. I may do this so often that I don’t even see that I’m doing it until I have occasion to stand with my hips backed up over my ankles. Then my mind sees that I was pushing my hips forward and likely has been for some time. This recognition is the essential step to breaking the habit and changing what I do.
From the standpoint of balance, standing with my hips pushed forward is perhaps the most reliable thing I can do if I want to have difficulty balancing. Standing this way turns off the lateral and posterior hip muscles that are built and positioned for supporting my full weight without undue stress on my joints. Try standing and putting your hands on the lateral and posterior hip with the hips pushed forward. You can easily feel that the muscles are not working to hold you up. This helps the mind to see objectively what you are doing and how it is affecting your ability to stand with stability. In other words, this recognition by the mind is essential for you to balance.
The word “balance” can also be used as a noun in which case the meaning will be quite different. “Balance” as a noun means not something I do but rather something I have. Taking the earlier example, if I simply say to you, “stand on one leg,” it suggests something very different than “balance on one leg”. If you stand on one leg, your effort will be directed toward standing rather than balancing. This will automatically lead to greater stability.
In the earlier example of standing with the hips pushed forward, the word “standing” is really the wrong word. Standing with the hips pushed forward is not really standing but rather falling forward and being held up by the quadraceps. Before you can have the quality of balance you must first stand. If your ability to stand, whether it be on one leg or two, is well developed then the whole notion of “balancing” is a non-issue. Your standing is stable and therefore you are stable. You have that quality.
In yoga we seek to move beyond balance as something we do or something we have and realize that is it something we are. We seek to reveal balance as simply one aspect of our nature. Discovering correct alignment of the body through recognition by the mind (such as seeing that we habitually “stand” with our hips pushed forward and then backing the hips up and actually standing with the hips aligned over the ankles) is an important part of this.
As a human being with a body and a mind, I am subject to the universal laws which govern life, including the laws of physics which govern my physical movements. In practicing yoga I am teaching the mind to recognize these laws and the body to express itself with respect to them. When this happens, I am doing yoga, and control, calm, equanimity and grace manifest automatically.
Are we walking or falling?
in BalanceWalking is one of the most basic human functions and one that we tend to take for granted. That is until we sprain an ankle or break a toe or god forbid break a leg and we’re either not able to walk or our ability to walk is hampered. In these circumstances we’d do almost anything to “walk normally” again.
Walking is essential to our health and longevity. A 2010 study of 428 hip fracture patients age 65 and older showed a 3 fold increase in mortality risk compared with the general population. And that included every major cause of death. It seems reasonable to surmise from these statistics that a sudden suspension in the ability to walk can lead to a rapid decrease in overall health and longevity. Clearly we don’t want to stop walking.
There are any number of studies and medical opinions that indicate that walking is perhaps the best form of exercise. Regular walking has been linked to a decrease in risk of several serious diseases including cardiovascular disease and Type 2 Diabetes. But are we really walking? This depends on how we define walking; and realizing an accurate definition of walking is greatly enhanced by some understanding of the biomechanics of human gait.
Most definitions of human walking are characterized by 2 things: a moderate or slow pace and never having both feet off the ground at once. In other words, not running or jumping. But what about falling? Do we need to completely fall down on the ground for it to be considered a fall? Might we simply be falling from one foot to the other at a moderate pace rather than actually walking? The fact is, most of us are ambulating by way of a somewhat controlled fall.
Figure 1
This is illustrated by understanding one very key feature of walking from the standpoint of biomechanics – walking should be posteriorly driven. This means we must push backward to move forward. For this to happen we need to have our center of gravity under our trunk and not out in front. Human movement where the center of gravity (about where our hip joints are) stays under the trunk is walking. Human movement where our center of gravity is pushed out in front of our trunk is falling.
Seeing the truth of this is easy. Stand up, push your hips forward (see figure 1) and then lift one foot off the floor without bending your knees. Notice how the lifted foot moved forward. In fact, you may have felt you needed this lifted foot to catch you from falling forward. This is the way most of us are ambulating – falling from one foot to the other.
Try the following instead. Stand and deliberately back your hips up such that your hip joints are aligned vertically over the outer ankle bones (see figure 2). Now lift one foot off the floor without bending your knees. What happened to the lifted foot this time? Chances are it didn’t go anywhere. That’s because you needed to push your standing leg thigh and hip backward in order to move your body forward. Try it again and see what happens if you lift the leg and then push your standing leg heel down and push your thigh back. Viola! That’s walking.
Figure 2
Actually, walking is much more complex that this. It involves a rather staggering number of muscles (600), joints (230) and bones (200). But it can be broken down into 2 basic motor skills. The first is what I described in the previous paragraph. That is, ‘posterior push off’. The second is called ‘pelvic list’.
If you tried the experiment above and succeeded, you’ve just done a pelvic list. A pelvic list is basically using the downward force of one straight leg to lift the other (see figure 3). This action recruits the lateral and posterior hip muscles which are a big source of stability for us when standing and walking. But this is only true when the hips are not pushed forward. If the hips are pushed forward then we’re not able to effectively recruit the lateral and posterior hip and we’re forced to use the quadriceps, forefoot and toes to hold us up. Not only will this lead to foot, knee and hip problems, this will also produce a gait pattern that is far from optimal.
Figure 3
If you tried the experiment above and found that you weren’t able lift one leg up with both knees straight, particularly when your hips were backed up, then you are currently unable to do a pelvic list. This means that whatever you might call how you ambulate, it isn’t really walking, not from a biomechanic standpoint. You’ll want to work on this regularly until it’s easy for you. Then you can actually start walking again and begin to get the many cardiovascular, strength and bone building benefits of what is arguably the most important and health promoting of human functions.
The importance of sending the right message
in BalanceAs a teacher of yoga and restorative exercise, a big part of my work is communication. To be effective, I must convey my instructions clearly to my students. To help my students achieve their goals, I must also teach them how to communicate with their own bodies.
The human body responds perfectly to the messages we send it. Our muscles, for example, being the means by which we move our bones, will always respond to the position we place our bones. One bone position will tell a particular muscle to contract while a different position of the same bone will tell the same muscle to relax. One relative position of two bones, such as the bones at the two ends of a particular muscle, will require that the muscle increase its length. A different position of the same two bones won’t require such an increase or may even require the muscle be shorter.
Understanding how our muscles respond to our bone placement will help us better understand how to effect muscles in the way we desire. If for example I want to strengthen a particular muscle, I need to position the bones that muscle attaches to in a way that loads that muscle against gravity. If I want to stretch a particular muscle or, increase it’s length, then I want to make sure that the bones at the two ends of that muscle are moved in opposite directions.
Figure 1
When standing upright, for example, the position of my thigh bone will have a big effect on the muscles that contract to support my upright posture. If I stand with my hips over my knees and ankles and therefore with the thigh bones completely vertical, my hamstrings and gluteal muscles will contract in order to help hold me upright (see the photo to the left). This alignment of my thighs and the corresponding support of the posterior muscles of my hips and legs helps to keep the “load” of my head, trunk and pelvis firmly on the bones of my legs. The loading of these bones against gravity minimizes the impact of the load on my knees, ankles and feet and helps to improve circulation and stimulate bone growth in my legs.
If however I stand with my hips and thigh bones forward of my knees and ankles, my quadraceps on the front of my thighs must contract to help prevent me from falling forward, I am sending my muscles a very different message. This alignment transfers the load from the back of my legs and hips to the front of my hips, knees, ankles and feet. In contrast to the “load profile” described in the previous paragraph, this “hips forward” alignment puts much more stress on these joints. This alignment also sends the message to the hamstrings and posterior hip muscles to relax, robbing the hips of a great deal of important muscular support and placing a further load on the hip joints (see the photo just below).
Another significant effect of placing my hips forward of my knees and ankles while standing is the resulting posterior tilt or “tuck” of the pelvis. When the pelvis tilts backwards this way, the sit bones, a primary attachment point of the hamstrings, are brought closer to the back of the knees at the other end of the hamstrings. When these two attachment points of the hamstrings are brought closer together, the message to the hamstrings is “get shorter”. This effect, provided very willingly by the hamstrings on my request, serves to anchor the pelvis in this backward tilt, placing a greater load when standing or bending forward on the spine and further exacerbating the undesirable effects described above.
If I recognize this effect on my hamstrings, I may take the very correct and intelligent course of deciding to stretch the hamstrings to increase their length. A standing forward bend can be an effective way to increase the length of my hamstrings. And if I’m to successfully increase their length, I want to make sure the message I’m sending to the hamstrings is a clear message. It is therefore important that I start by bringing the hips back and allow the pelvis to tilt forward. I thus remove the conflicting message of allowing the pelvis to tuck and the hamstrings to maintain their shortened length. If I “un-tuck” the pelvis first my message to the hamstrings is very clear, “get longer!” But without this first step of backing the hips up and un-tucking the pelvis, the message I’m sending is either very different or at the very least diluted, and I won’t succeed in my efforts. This effect is highlighted in the two forward bends depicted in the photos below.
The above scenario is just one example of the many ways that seemingly small changes in the alignment of my bones dramatically changes the message I am sending to my muscles. It also highlights how the corresponding effects on my health and function can be just as dramatic. If I want to improve the health and function of the body, it’s not enough to just know the correct course of action. I also need to make sure I send the right message.
The Importance of Alignment
in Balance, Health Article, Movement Article, YogaI was first introduced to alignment in the context of yoga. The Iyengar Yoga system in particular is often characterized as emphasizing “alignment” in postures. It’s only recently, however, with the study of biomechanics, that I have begun to understand better what alignment really means and why it’s so important.
Katy Bowman, M.S., whose work I’ve been studying describes our alignment as being distinct from our posture. She points out that posture is cultural while alignment is based on objectivity. For example, some women I have talked to about posture and alignment have told me that their parents encouraged them not “to stick their butts out.” This view of posture is purely subjective as it is based a particular point of view. Alignment must be objective and must therefore be based solely on identifiable objective markers.
One such marker is the alignment of the hips relative to that of the knees and ankles. When standing in a bio-mechanically functional alignment the hip joints must sit directly over the center of the knees and the center of the outer ankle bones. Most of us tend to stand with the hips pushed forward of the knees and ankles. This tends to rotate the pelvis back (posteriorly) such that the pelvis sits a little “tucked”. To correct this misalignment we must back our hips up until our hip joints align over the outer ankle bones. When the hips are backed up this way it not only brings the pelvis and hips into a more functional alignment with the legs, it also tends to correct the “tuck” of the pelvis and rotate the pelvis back to neutral.
Figure 2
When I ask students to back their hips up this way, they usually say they feel like they are “sticking their butt out,” something some have been deliberately trying NOT to do! This is partly because they’ve gotten so accustomed to having their hips forward and their pelvis tucked that this misaligned position feels normal and the new position feels “strange” or “wrong” relative to what they are used to.
This example is a strong argument for using objective markers when aligning our bodies. We cannot rely on what “feels right” to us. When it comes to our own bodies we are not all that objective.
Besides the fact that it just feels right to push the hips forward, there’s another reason we tend to stand with our hips pushed forward – it’s easier! Standing with the hips forward is essentially us sitting loosely into the front of our hip joints. We often do the same thing to one side, swaying the hip out to act as a fulcrum to support our weight. This puts a great deal of stress on our hip joints and will eventually lead to pain. It takes a lot less effort to stand this way because the bones are in a position that doesn’t require (or to some extent even allow) important stabilizing muscles in our hips to work. When we back the hips up and align the hip joints with the outer ankles bones, it suddenly takes a lot more effort to stand!
This alignment of the hip joints helps a great deal in yoga with many of the standing postures. In the posture “samasthithahi,” for instance, where I am standing with my feet “hips width” apart (as opposed to “tadasana” where the feet are kept together), judging the position of the hips relative to the knees and ankles can be done by using a belt with a buckle as a plum bob to tell if my hips are lined vertically up over the outer ankle bones (see the diagram above). When I get the hips aligned I can feel that I’m anchored through the heels and the legs and hips are active and alive while I have a distinct sense of depth and space in the groin. Re-establishing neutral pelvis also does wonders for the function of the pelvic floor and is an essential step in the practice of the mula bandha.
Most importantly, aligning the hips properly in a yoga posture brings life into the posture. And this is not just true for samasthitahi but can be applied in many of the standing postures including trikonasana, parsvakonasana and ardhachandrasana to name just a few. In fact, this bringing of life into the postures can be manifested in just about any yoga posture when I can establish a better anchored and neutral pelvis.
Bio-mechanically sound alignment in yoga postures not only makes them better postures, it also helps us avoid injury and derive more benefit from our postures. So it’s worth the time and energy in a yoga practice to improve our alignment.
But ultimately, it’s our day to day activities that have the biggest impact on our health and function. Therefore alignment should not be limited to the domain of yoga but be a feature of how I stand, sit, walk and move throughout the day. In fact, the better my alignment in these every day activities the better my yoga postures will also become.
Yoga, Exercise and Health
in YogaPeople often ask me how I started doing yoga. Basically, I started doing it for exercise. 20 years later my relationship with yoga has evolved, but it sill provides me with my primary outlet for what is essentially exercise – a physical activity that helps me stay healthy. And while I also do yoga as a kind of meditation practice, training my mind to be attentive and present, the many health benefits I’ve experienced doing yoga remain a significant motivation for me.
Yoga can be used as effective therapeutic tool for a wide variety of health issues. Either personally or with my students I have applied yoga as a modality for reducing or eliminating back pain, knee pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, headaches, colds, indigestion, exhaustion, depression and anxiety to mention just a few. And while there is certainly a lot more to yoga than exercise and health, it’s not a bad place to start.
Yet for yoga or really ANY activity or exercise program I am doing for health reasons to be effective I need to be clear about one thing: what is health? The definition of health can be quite broad. For the purposes of this post I’m going to limit the scope of this discussion on health to that of a given individual person. I will also not go into a discussion of digestive health. This is not because I don’t don’t consider it to be important, but because health of the digestive system is mostly related to diet and this is a topic for another post. If I may simply say for now that diet and exercise are the keys to good health and we set aside diet for later, how does exercise contribute to health?
Let’s suppose that I am eating a good diet but I’m still having health problems, what am I missing? We’ve all heard the expression “you are what you eat.” The “you” in this expression is the physical body, which is made up of a variety of different tissues which can be further broken down into a variety of different specialized cells. Each of these cells is like a tiny specialized “you” in that they need food and oxygen to live, work and reproduce. Each cell also produces wastes that it needs to eliminate so that these wastes don’t impair the cell’s ability to function and replicate properly.
A somewhat more accurate expression might be “you are what you eat and the air you breath.” The little “you’s,” your cells, need both nutrients from the food you eat and oxygen from the air you breath and they receive these via blood flow to the tissues. When my blood flow is good and my diet is good, then the cells of my various tissues receive a good supply of nutrients and oxygen and the wastes from cellular metabolism are removed in a timely fashion. When my blood flow is not good my cells are not fed properly and their wastes accumulate and impair the health of the tissue. Therefore if my diet is good but my blood flow is not good my tissues are not necessarily benefiting from my good diet.
Certainly on the physical level, and to a great extent the psychological level as well, the degree to which a person is healthy is determined by the health of that person’s tissue, and the degree to which a person’s tissue is healthy depends on the degree to which that person’s tissue receives good blood and lymph flow. A major function of the muscles in our body is to pump blood and lymph into and out of the tissue. For a given muscle to function well as a pump that muscle must be able to contract and relax well. Therefore the degree to which a tissue receives good blood flow is determined largely by the degree to which our muscles can contract and relax well.
Few would argue with the assertion that for a person to be healthy that person’s cardiovascular system must be healthy and functioning well. In the U.S., heart disease is the leading cause of death. To promote cardiovascular health and therefore health and longevity we are encouraged to strengthen our hearts with cardiovascular exercise. The logic of this view is that if the heart is strong and can pump blood more effectively, then it can deliver more oxygen to tissues and better support the health and function of those tissues.
Unfortunately the above view of cardiovascular health ignores the role of other muscles in the body and their relationship to cardiovascular health. Most of the oxygen carrying blood in our bodies resides in the smaller vessels known as capillaries. The vast majority of these capillaries and therefore blood in general resides in our muscle tissue. When muscles contract and relax they pump blood from these capillaries into and out of the surrounding tissues. In fact our muscles have the capacity to pump much more blood than our heart. For this to happen, however, our muscles need to contract and relax well. The better a muscle contracts and relaxes the better it pumps and the more it helps to support the health of its tissue and the tissues around it.
For each muscle in the body there is a mechanism which involves that muscle, the brain and the nervous system that determines that muscle’s length. The brain and nervous system record and maintain each muscle at a particular length and often, this length is far from optimal. Muscles that are at an optimal length are strong and flexible. Muscles that are not at an optimal length tend to be weak and tight and these muscles don’t contract and relax well and therefore don’t pump blood and lymph effectively. Such muscles and the tissues surrounding them do not receive good blood flow and this impairs the health of these tissues. Cardiovascular exercise will do little to address this issue as most forms of cardiovascular exercise such as running or cycling make our muscles tighter.
My experience doing yoga therapy over years has shown me that, most of us have muscles that are simply too tight to be effective blood/lymph pumps. This leads to degradation of tissues which eventually leads to pain which eventually leads to further degradation and more serious health problems. Luckily with a bit of know how and some reasonable effort we can increase muscle length and improve our pumping system. To do so most of us need to emphasize postures and activities that emphasize increasing muscle length, such as stretching, rather than activities that emphasize muscle contraction such as weight training. The good news for those wishing to be “stronger” is that longer muscles are stronger muscles in that they can contract more quickly and more strongly and also have more resilience and better recovery when subjected to stress.
Furthermore, for a muscle to be strong it needs to be working in the first place. In my practice I see an almost universal tendency for clients to come to me with postural tendencies where simply by virtue of the position they are holding their bones, many large and important structural muscles are not being asked to do any work. If I stand or sit or walk with my bones aligned poorly, that is, in a way where many postural muscles that are designed to contribute to my movement are not working, then these postural muscles are not contacting and relaxing and pumping blood and lymph.
In addition, when important postural muscles whose job it is by design to support me when standing, sitting and walking don’t do that job, then the stress of these activities falls to my joints. When this is the case I put undue stress on my joints and they are subjected to significantly more wear and tear than they would be if my postural muscles were working properly and my bones better aligned.
From the standpoint of those interested in yoga this is good news as much of what we do in yoga involves increasing muscle length and muscular action with an emphasis on alignment. However, when doing yoga we need to be clear that we are lengthening the muscles that need lengthening and activating the muscles that need activating and not using the natural mobility of our joints as a substitute. This is the reason that understanding alignment in postures is so important. Deliberate and intelligent alignment of our bones in a posture will make the difference between a posture that promotes health and one that creates problems.
For those who don’t do yoga, alignment is still an important element of any activity, particularly one intended to promote health. In fact, if we practice sound alignment during our regular daily activities then everything we do can be in support of better health. I recommend that everyone, even those who do yoga, practice alignment principles when standing, sitting and walking since these are the activities we spend most of our time doing. If we incorporate good alignment and bio-mechanics into our daily activities then gradually all of our movements become health promoting movements, including those like in yoga that are intended to be.
What I’m Teaching Now
in Balance, YogaAfter teaching yoga now for nearly 20 years my teaching has undergone quite a few changes, but there have been 2 major shifts. The first was when I stopped teaching Ashtanga Yoga (as taught be Pattabhi Jois, may he rest in peace) and started teaching in a way that most students have characterized as “Iyengar Yoga.” I have never received any formal certification in this system, but for about 13 years my teaching has drawn heavily on my studies with Ramanand Patel who holds a senior level teaching certificate in Iyengar Yoga and studied closely with B.K.S. Iyengar for many years.
The second major shift in my teaching started over a year ago and is continuing now. For more than a year I have been studying bio-mechanics and the work of Katy Bowman, MS. I have found that what Katy teaches, which incidentally I consider to be somewhat out of the realm of yoga, has a lot to say about how to practice yoga and how to teach it.
Those of you who take my classes have seen this shift happening. It has not been easy as it has forced me to reconsider nearly every instruction I give in every posture. It has, however, begun to transform my work in a profound way. This has been especially true when doing therapeutic work. I am seeing much better results working with the wide variety of health issues that clients present to me every day. I am also better able to help clients translate the work they do with me at Sadhana Therapies into better health and function in their daily lives.
Part of the challenge with this change is to begin to describe what I’m doing, perhaps name it. I’m not going to rush into this as the name is very important and will no doubt contribute to setting the tone for the future of our business. For now, I am just going to call what I”m teaching “yoga” and leave it at that. But here’s a bit more info on the kind of “yoga” I’m teaching now.
The yoga I am currently teaching focuses on “Yogasana” or the study and practice of yoga postures or “asana” for promoting optimal physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. While any number of a vast array of classical yoga postures may be employed this way, it is the more basic, foundational postures that are the most essential for success.
Foundational postures tend to be the most similar to the postures we use in our daily life and can therefore have the greatest impact on health and function. Simply standing, walking and sitting in a well aligned, mindful way can have a huge impact on our health on a variety of different levels. When sound bio-mechanics and mindful awareness are applied to daily activities it can mean the difference between an activity that builds our strength, stability and flexibility and one that damages our joints, weakens our muscles and bones, degrades our function and shortens our lifespan.
Any activity that we take up for the purpose of our health must therefore be bio-mechanically sound. Bio-mechanically sound posture and movement must also have the effect of either reducing the impact of stress on our health or support our ability to better respond to and recover from it. This is especially true of yogasana. Yoga postures can be approached, modified and sequenced to enhance alignment and support function and therefore reduce and even reverse the effects of stress, both on and off the mat!
Of course, the impact of stress is not limited to the physical body. Very often the mental effects of stress are an even bigger issue. It is with respect to managing mental stress that yogasana really shines.
Above all else, yoga is a tool for training the mind. Yogasana is an important part of this as it begins to develop our mind’s ability to pay attention to and perceive the feedback it receives from our body through the senses. Yogasana also builds our capacity for discernment which helps us to act willfully and intelligently, rather than simply Re-acting. It is by way of this attentiveness that the mind can begin to see itself more clearly and through discernment that it begins respond in situationallly appropriate ways.
Discernment also enables the mind to see its patterns which is the first step toward changing those patterns. This leads to the kind of growth which we might call “spiritual.” Whether we want to cultivate this kind of growth, or not, is a question each of us must eventually answer at some point when doing yoga. This kind of growth requires a lot of honesty with ourself. And this may be a subject for a different post.
At the very least we should be honest with ourselves about why we are doing yoga. If health is the reason, alignment and bio-mechanics have a lot to offer any yoga student.