The second part of my recent article on myyogaonline.com
Special Considerations for Standing Twists
In standing twists, such as the revolved poses, we often add an element of flexion at the waist. When we are moving purely from our hips joints, and maintaining the natural front to back curve in our lower spine, twists are a healthy and satisfying pose. Problems begin to develop if we start to also flex or round in our lower spine. This might be due to tightness in our low back, our hips, or a compensation for stiffness further up the spine – and this
predisposes us to injury.The most likely position for your disc to herniate - or bulge out pressing on a nerve - is in flexion combined with rotation. As the spine flexes forward, the disc moves backward, and as we move backwards, the disc moves forward. So when we put the disc in a position where it is moved to the back of the vertebrae, then increase the pressure by adding rotation – we leave it vulnerable to injury.
If you know you are at risk for a disc herniation – such as suffering a previous injury to your discs – stick to seated twists, or significantly decrease the amount you twist in your lumbar spine and focus on your thoracic spine. All of us can be mindful of sticking to flexing at our waists, and avoiding rounding into our lower spine.
Special Considerations for Seated Twists
Depending on the flexibility of our hamstrings and lumbar spine,
when we come to the floor we may find our pelvis tipping backwards, resulting in flexion into our lumbar spines. An easy way to check this is to find the top of your pelvis - your iliac crests - with your hands. Sitting with knees bent, feet flat on the floor, place your hands at your waist and press in slightly, so that your thumbs are towards your back, your fingers wrapping towards your front, with the space between your thumb and first finger is fitting into your waist. Move your hands down until they come to rest on a ridge – this is your iliac crest. Play with tilting your pelvis back and forth by tucking and sticking out your tail, and notice how your hands move. When you tuck your tail under, your fingers start to point upwards, stick out your tail and your fingers point downwards. The pelvis is in neutral if the hands are making an arc on the crest, fingers arcing down at the front, and thumb arcing down at the back.In addition you can observe how the lumbar spine adapts with these motions – rounding and removing the lumbar curve with a tuck of the tail, and increasing the low back curve as we stick out the tail. Now extend your legs out and notice what happens to your pelvis. If it starts to tip backwards (fingers up) then you would benefit from taking some height under your sitting bones by sitting on the edge of a folded blanket or foam block. Take enough height that your pelvis moves towards neutral.
Just as in standing twists, in seated twists we want to eliminate the addition of flexion into the lumbar spine so as to protect our discs and receive the full benefit of twists.
Enjoy the curves
Twists can take us deeper into our practice by lengthening and strengthening our spines in ways that allow us to venture further into other poses. When we become aware of our antomy we can practice safely and with confidence to receive all the benefits that twist hold.
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