health

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Q:  Here is a question for you.  I was practicing Utkatasana Tuesday and as I sat down into the pose I got a twinge in my inner left knee.  (Slightly forward of the seam line, between the upper and lower leg bones.) I straightened up and repeated the pose squeezing a block between my knees. The little pain was gone. How did squeezing a block between my knees change the alignment of the knee? A:  Utkatasana, mistakenly called �Chair Pose� by some, comes from the Sanskrit root word utkata , which Richard Rosen defines as �exceeding the usual measure, immense, gigantic; richly endowed with, abounding in; drunk, mad, furious; excessive, much; superior, high, proud, haughty; uneven; difficult� (from his book Original Yoga ).  If you have spent any time in this pose, you can certainly get behind the difficult part, but we try to avoid it feeling uneven. (We like to call it "Powerful pose.") Whenever you have pain in a joint in a yoga pose, look not only to that joint...

by Baxter and Nina Viparita Karani, which is often called Legs Up the Wall pose (a more accurate name is Inverted Lake pose), is one of our very favorite poses. Because this pose is a supported inversion, it triggers the relaxation response (see  The Relaxation Response and Yoga ). It is also comfortable for most people, and the support of the wall allows you to stay in the pose for a good long while, making it a perfect pose for stress reduction or pacifying an over-active nervous system. In fact, this is Nina�s go-to pose for challenging times. It can be practiced on it its own, as part of restorative or supported inversion sequence, or as an emotional counter-pose at the end of any other kind of sequence. This pose also stretches your leg muscles using gravity, so it�s a wonderful antidote to taking a long hike and, if you�re struggling with tight hamstrings, it�s a great way to passively let your leg muscles lengthen without engaging the front leg muscles.  And it is a per...

by Nina Last week in my posts about anxiety Anxiety, Yoga, and the Front Body and Soothing Yourself With Supported Forward Bends , I discussed yoga poses to rely on when you�re feeling anxious (supported inversions and forward bends) and yoga poses to avoid when you�re in that state (backbends, twists, and Sun Salutations). It makes sense if you�re in a crisis period to practice the poses that calm you down and avoid stimulating poses that might exacerbate your condition. However, if you�re in a state of chronic anxiety, avoiding backbends, twists, and many of the active poses for a long period of time will move your body toward imbalance. The same is true if your practice is focused on any emotion-based condition, such as agitated depression, clinical depression, or even just chronic stress. In this case, I feel it is better to return to a more well-rounded yoga practice (see A Week of Yoga Practice ) but consider how you end your practices. By choosing an appropriate counter-pose to...

by Baxter We recently received an inquiry about positioning the pelvis in yoga poses that I thought it worth addressing in a general, full-length post. Let�s start with the question: Dear YFHA Staff, The phrases "Tuck in and Tuck out" are very commonly used by several of my teachers. I get so confused listening to those words that these days the minute I hear anything close to "Tuck" my meditative yoga practice goes for a ride. What are the teachers referring to when they use those words? Are they alluding to the movement of sacrum? For eg: in Bridge pose and other supine poses, do you draw the sacrum in (I guess the word is Tuck in) or do you draw it out? Can't we just keep the sacrum in neutral position and still get the benefits of the supine poses? Yes, dear reader, there is a lot of talk about �tucking� the pelvis these days in the yoga world! Although I don�t hear or use the same exact phraseology as you teachers are using, I think I have a sense of what t...

by Ram Thin Branches by Melina Meza Endurance training improves functional capacity while resistance training improves muscle strength and endurance. While the anaerobic system enables muscles to recover for the next burst, aerobic system ensures that the energy demands are continuously met during the exercise regimen. Therefore, training for many sports demands that both energy-producing systems be developed. The question is: where do yoga asanas fit into the above mentioned definitions? The answer becomes very important in terms of regeneration and renewal of muscle stem cells with yoga. After carefully researching several sites, I have come to the conclusion that yoga is both an endurance training system as well as strength training. Before talking about that in detail, let me review some of the terms: Endurance Training: This kind of training is what we refer to as aerobic exercise. It may involve bicycling, walking on a treadmill, swimming, rowing, cross-country skiing and other...

Q: You sometimes suggest staying in a pose for about 90 seconds. Is there a way you tell that it�s 90 seconds? Sometimes 90 seconds is a long time and sometimes it is fleeting. I don�t want to stare at the second hand of a clock � which seems to negate many of the benefits. I set my cell phone alarm when I mediate but I don�t want to reset it every 90 seconds for this purpose - again, there goes any peace. While I don�t want to obsess about time, I don�t want to stop at 20 seconds when I can do more. I�m not talking about working through pain or discomfort. It�s not my body as much as my mind. I�m having difficulty articulating my question clearly; I hope it makes sense to you. A: Fortunately, there is any easy answer to your question! If you don�t want to use a countdown timer to time your poses, you can count your breaths. This is not only simple but has the added benefit of focusing your attention on your breath, making your practice a more mindful experience. The first thing to do ...

by Nina As I discussed yesterday in Anxiety, Yoga, and the Front Body , supported forward bends can be wonderfully quieting and soothing. You can use these poses to calm yourself when you�re feeling anxious or to turn inward when you�ve been over-stimulated. However, you do need to set up for them properly. By that I mean that the poses need to be completely comfortable. If they�re not completely comfortable for you, they�re going to be irritating and maybe even aggravating, which defeats the whole purpose of practicing them. To be comfortable in these poses, you need to: Pick the seated position that is best for your body (crossed legs, straight legs or wide angle legs). Experiment and see which of the three poses described below are most effective for you. Choose the propping (bolster, pillows, stack of blankets or chair) that is truly comfortable for you. Be honest with yourself about the height you need to be comfortable, rather than imitating a photograph. Crossed-Legs Forward Ben...

by Nina I�m going to be tackling the subject of anxiety in the coming weeks, and I thought that I�d start today by addressing an aspect of yoga for anxiety that is rather, well, subjective. Much of the information we have on the blog is science based, whether we�re citing scientific or medical studies, or exploring anatomy as Baxter did yesterday in Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go? . However, when it comes to the yoga and the emotions, there is very little science that we can turn to for guidance. Fortunately, when working with our emotions, our own experience is key. I mean, with emotions, it�s not like, say, cancer. As Andrew Solomon wrote in his book about depression, The Noonday Demon : "It is my absolute belief that in the field of depression, there is no such thing as a placebo. If you have cancer and try an exotic treatment and then you think you are better, you may well be wrong. If you have depression and try an exotic treatment and you think you are better, then...

by Baxter Let�s talk about the shoulder blades today. Recently, while evaluating my newest batch of teacher trainees during their teaching intensive, I was surprised to hear the instructions to �move the shoulder blades toward the pelvis� when the arms were in the overhead position, such as in Urdhva Hastasana. I heard it in Warrior 1, in Utkatasana, in Downward-Facing Dog, and virtually anytime my young wards had the arms overhead. And I flinched each time they uttered it, which just about every one of them did for the four classes they taught. Without naming names, I should mention �always move your shoulder blades down your back� is an instruction that I have heard on many occasions from very experienced teachers. These trainees did not hear me utter such words, but I realized that some of their instructors were still using this outdated understanding. This is too simplistic, as it is not what actually needs to happen for healthy movement of the arms overhead and it can actually res...

Grasses in the Forest by Melina Meza "If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present." �Lao Tzu

SI Joints for Female and Male (look for the red lines!) Q: I'd like to know more about Janu Sirsasana and Trikonasana and the sacroiliac joint. Is there a post you can point me too? thanks! A: It turns out that we did a few posts last year on the SI joint and the challenges it presents. You can take a look at a post Nina and I wrote on Friday, Dec 7th 2012 , as well as two posts that Shari wrote on Dec. 19th and Dec. 20, 2012. Those will give you some good information about the sacrum and the SI joint to start with. Regarding Janu Sirsasana and Trikonasana, I find that if you have a problematic SI joint, these two poses can both be particularly challenging. In both cases, I try to keep a sense of evenness in the movement of the entire pelvis and sacrum as I go into, maintain, and exit from these two poses.  Each pose has the potential to create a torque-ing action in the pelvis, which could then destabilize a loose SI joint on one side. So, especially as you enter the poses, move...