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yoga, core values
by gabrielle hendrie
using yoga to get in touch with your center |
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Inside Yogi Times
Los Angeles Edition
April 2005 | issue 31
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editor's word
cover story
One Planet One Karma
health
Healthy yogi
The Alternative Approach
yogi lifestyle
Special Feature
Healing the Planet
[PDF] Yogi's OM
The House of Alchemy
[PDF] Yogi Yummies
Saag Tofu by Pradeep
yoga
Deepening the Practice
Yoga, Core Values
community
Community Feel
The Movement
Works Project
for the mind
Meditate on This
Spring Cleaning for
Your Mind
for the soul
Special Guest Interview
Robert F Kennedy Jr |
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| photography by james wvinner - jameswvinner.com - model is Jeanette Green in Parivritta Parsvakonasana |
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The core muscles lie deep within the torso and include the lower back, abdomen and hips. The role of the core muscles is to stabilize the spine, align the pelvis, and provide a solid foundation for all other movement in the body. Weakened core muscles can lead to poor posture, injury and chronic lower back pain. People are much more susceptible to lower back pain when their core muscles are weak. Often, when practicing asanas, people concentrate more on kicking a leg up higher, or straightening the legs, rather than focusing on the core muscles. Even if the muscles in the arms and legs are strong, the body will not move as efficiently if the core muscles are weak. Therefore, it will be much harder to hold postures and will be virtually impossible to go deeper into an asana practice.
Many yoga students, after years of practice, find themselves experiencing nagging aches and pains and a feeling that their practice and their bodies are no longer developing. What is the likely culprit? The core. Many people who begin an asana practice are often already conditioned to tense up and push to a point of pain to attain their goals. While yoga postures require strength and concentration, the focus should always be on the breath and keeping the muscles relaxed but engaged enough to perform the pose. Sometimes we are so focused on going further into a posture that we are not aware of using the stronger parts of the body, such as the legs, to compensate for a weak midsection. When the belly is not engaged, it gets pushed away from the spine. We then compensate by gripping other muscles like the quadriceps, hip flexors and toes. Meanwhile, in the upper torso the shoulder blades will tense upward rather than pulling down the back and the muscles
surrounding the neck become overworked. A strong core allows you to stay relaxed and use only the necessary muscles for any movement, eliminating unnecessary compensation from other muscle groups.
The muscles of the abdomen are divided into two main groups. The first group includes the Internal and External Oblique and the Transversus and Rectus abdominus. The Transversus is the most internal of these muscles and extends from the prominent hip bones found at the belt line, to the lower six ribs and all the way down to the pubic bones. The Rectus is long and flat, and extends down the whole front of the abdomen. The Internal and External Oblique are situated on the front outside part of the abdomen, either side of the “six pack” muscles. The External Oblique is the largest of all the above-mentioned muscles, while the internal oblique is smaller and lies beneath the External Oblique.
Two postures that develop these muscles are Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (Revolved Side Angle Pose) and Paripurna Navasana (Boat Pose). When you lift your legs in Navasana you are contracting your rectus without tension, trying to build strength in the muscle without losing your flexibility. Engaging the upper part of the Rectus keeps the legs stable, while the lower part enables you to lift your legs higher without moving your torso. In Revolved Side Angle Pose the pelvis is anchored and the legs are strong, whilst the rotation in the torso engages the Internal and External Obliques. Kapalahbati Breathing is an excellent way to engage the Transversus.
It involves alternating pulling the navel toward the spine as you exhale and letting the belly completely relax to allow the diaphragm to completely descend.
Although it is important to build abdominal strength, it is of equal importance to maintain flexibility. Therefore, a balanced practice should include postures like ustrasana (Camel Pose), dhanurasana (Bow Pose) and bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), which all allow the abdomen to stretch.It is very common in yoga to find many who cannot grasp the idea of working from the core, or perhaps they think they already are, but are really overworking muscles like the trapezius, quadriceps and hip flexors. Using these muscles rather than the core muscles to achieve what is perceived as greater depth in a given pose or moving to a more advanced class in order to practice more challenging poses can be counterproductive or even dangerous if the necessary quality and technique are not present in the practice. Learning to engage our core is not easy. Many students have barely moved in a posture for close to a year, but their bodies and attitudes have changed dramatically, over others who seem to be charging ahead. The reason for this is that they are willing to go through many days, months and oftentimes years of breaking through frustration and cultivating patience, until they are able to reconnect with the center of their body.
Yoga classes like Ana Forest and Bikram include additional sequences or poses to specifically target the core muscles. An innovative practice called Rope Yoga uses a pulley system to help you disengage your quadriceps and hip flexors to gain access and strength in the core. Pilates is another practice that focuses solely on the strength and flexibility of the core. Pilates trains the body to generate all movement from the core, through precise body alignment, the breath and a sequence of exercises. If you are struggling to work from your core, then don’t be afraid to complement your practice with another method of core strengthening. It is not there to compete with your yoga practice, but to be used as a tool to teach you to awaken the center of your body and take your yoga practice to a whole new level.
Working with a good knowledgeable teacher is imperative in learning how to move correctly in any discipline. Once you find a teacher you trust, their knowledge combined with your commitment, perseverance and patience, will help you to reconnect with the center of your body. In tandem with the breath, the core can take you out of your head and become the intelligence behind your yoga practice.
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