Top 5 Poses for a Strong Core

By now the news has spread: a strong core is in. The ancient sages have known this for centuries; it just took us a while to catch on. Here are the top five yoga poses that can strengthen your core, help you improve your posture, avoid back pain, and enhance your yoga practice......Read More

To learn more about me check out www.stayactive.ca

Inspired: The connection between our shoulder girdle and our rib cage, my weekend with Susi Aldous

Last weekend I was lucky enough to study again with my therapeutic yoga teacher, Susi Hately Aldous. Every time I study with her I learn something new about my own practice.

Shocking
This time I made a shocking discovery: I have very limited movement in my shoulder joint. I am referring to the motion of my humerus (arm bone) in the shoulder socket (glenoid). I discovered that as I moved my arms overhead in forward flexion, I could not get above shoulder height without hinging in my lower thoracic spine (mid back) and jutting my rib cage out. This is a classic example of our bodies adapting to enable motion. When we are limited in motion at one joint, the motion will get transferred to the joint above or below. Or if we cannot create the true motion (arm bone flexing in shoudler socket for example) we find a way to mimic the motion (creating extension in my spine).

The Relationships within our own bodies
The shoulder girdle (humerus, clavicle, scapula) has an intimate connection with our rib cage. The scapula glides on the ribcage moving in protraction (wrapping around the ribs), retraction (shoulder blades squeezing together), elevation (moving upwards) and depression (moving downwards). The rib cage, in turn, has an intimate relationship with the spine. The ribs attatch at the transverse process of each vertebrae (the wings of the vertebrae) to wrap around and either connect with the sternum, or with the rib above. If there is a restriction in the spine (ex. stiffness, lack of motion) then this will affect the ribs, which can change the relationship to the shoulder.

Try This: Susi has a great exercise to bring awareness to the relationship between the shoulders, ribs, and spine. Roll up your yoga mat and place it so that when you lie back on it, the bottom is just below your shouler blades and your head is supported. Lie with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Raise your arms to shoulder height so that your fingers are pointing up towards the ceiling, bringing thumbs to touch. Slowly, without hiking your ribs, without pinchy, or funky motions, begin to lower your arms overhead - stopping if you do feel a pinch, or strange motion. Slowly go back to the start and repeat. Only go as far as your ears. Repeat for 2 minutes or so. Then remove your mat and lie flat on your back. Notice what you're noticing.

To learn more about Dr. Robin and Yoga Therapy in Vancouver visit stayactive.ca

Keeping the Ouch out of your Om: The top 5 Yoga injuries

Check out my February article for Joyyoga.ca

The yoga community has many things in common – a respect for the earth and those around us, an appreciation for inner calm and a quiet spirit, a love of clothing that enables us to stand on our heads without restraint. Then there are the less glamorous things we share – our injuries. Here are the top 3 yoga injuries, and how to avoid sharing them.

Yogi Butt – Although this might sound appealing initially (picture Madonna in your favorite skinny jeans), this is an injury that is best to be avoided. Yogi Butt is actually small tears of the hamstring that attaches at the sitting bone. With overstretching in forward bends, little tears can develop and start to cause a nagging pain in the butt – literally and figuratively.

Try This: To avoid this injury, before moving into forward bends, gently draw your lower belly in and up to stabilize your core and tilt your pelvis downwards at the sitting bones. Always keep a micro bend in your knees to take strain off the hamstrings, and to support the knee joint.

Yogi Shoulder – The local swim clubs might argue they claimed this one first - a.k.a. Swimmers Shoulder or Shoulder Impingement – but yogis too can experience this shoulder problem. Aching or sometimes sharp pain can result when we close down the space at the front of our shoulder. Often this injury shows itself in a Vinyasa style practice, with lots of chaturanga/push up poses. You can avoid it by visually creating space at the front of the shoulder.

Try This: Practice by standing with the elbows bent by your side, wrists flexed like you are in a push up. Round your shoulders forward and see how the space between your arm bone and your collar bone closes. Now open your shoulders so that the shoulder blades slide down the back, the tops of the arm bones move up and back and you can see more space at the front of your shoulder. Notice what you had to do in your body to create this space. Now take it to your mat!

Yogi Knee – This injury is a simple one to avoid if you understand how the knee works. Basically your knee moves like a door – hinging open and closed. Try to force your door to twist and you break it off its hinges. Try to force your knee to twist and ‘ouch’! Remember the classic song, “The shin bone’s connected to the - thigh bone…”? If our hips are tight, the motion gets transferred to the next available joint – the knee.

Try This: Move with awareness and respect into your hip openers, avoid any strange sensations at the knee (Would you open your front door to a stranger?), and use your other connection -your ankle- to keep your knee alignment by flexing the foot and toes up.

Dr. Robin Armstrong is a Chiropractor and Yoga Instructor in Vancouver, BC. Learn more at www.stayactive.ca.

Leg bone's connected to the thigh bone....

Knee Safety in Hip Openers: My latest article for www.myyogaonline.com

Remember the children’s song: With the leg bone connected to the knee bone and the knee bone connected to the thigh bone…? This could be a yoga anthem worth chanting before class. Our bodies function as a whole, and no one action goes without a counter action, reaction, or complementary action in another part of our anatomy. This is especially important to remember when it comes to hip openers, which can unfortunately lead to the non-existent ‘knee opener’ which is yoga code for a painful and long recovery from an injury to our knee.

The Anatomy
The knee joint is actually composed of two joints: The femur bone of the thigh as it meets the tibia bone of the shin, and the patella bone of the knee cap as it lies on top of the femur. The patella is held by the tendon of the quadriceps, the main muscle that acts to extend / straighten the knee. If we contract our quadriceps, our knee cap rises.

The femur and tibia are connected by four major ligaments: Two cruciate ligaments (anterior and posterior) and two collateral ligaments (medial and lateral). These ligaments help prevent excessive motion at the knee. There is another important structure at the knee that is unfortunately one of the more common sights of injury in a yoga class – the meniscus. There are two menisci, medial and lateral (inner and outer), which are thin pieces of cartilage that act as spacers in between the femur and tibia, evenly distributing weight at the joint. The meniscus becomes prone to tearing when the knee is in full flexion combined with twisting.

The Biomechanics
This brings us to the biomechanics of the knee. The main action of the knee is flexion to extension. It is known as a hinge joint, meaning it hinges open like a door. Try to twist open a door and it rips off its hinges, try to twist at the knee and you leave it vulnerable to injury. There is a slight amount of tibial rotation on the femur between 0 degrees and 20 degrees of flexion, known as the screw home mechanism. This action is so the bones glide on one another as we unlock the knee from extension.

Yogi's Knees
Twisting at the knee is not something we generally try to do in yoga. When it does come into play, however, is in hip openers. If our bodies meet resistance at one joint (limited rotation at the hip), the motion is transferred to the next joint (the knee). Except, we know the knee does not twist. There are no poses in yoga that ‘open’ the knee. You may feel tension at the back of the knee in forward folds (stretching the hamstrings which attach on either side of the knee), maybe some slight tension at the outside of the knee with poses that lengthen the iliotibial band (a band of connective tissue that runs from the knee to the hip), but in hip openers we should never feel sensation in the knee.

Meet Your Hip
In order to achieve hip opening a few things need to occur. First, our femur bone must rotate in the acetabulum (hip socket). This is an aspect that is sometimes overlooked. We all have different shapes to our bones. Some of us have shapes that allow a large freedom of movement in the hips, and others among us will be limited by our bony architecture. No amount of stretching can change the shape of our bones.

The other action that needs to occur is lengthening of our hip rotator muscles (the piriformis and friends, and the gluteus group). The irony of our western lifestyle is that we spend our days sitting in a chair, tightening our hips ,so that we have come to a yoga class to sit and open our hips. This is an aspect we can change with patience, acceptance, and grace. A lot of emotions can be stirred up when we start to open our hips.

Let’s take a closer look at two popular hip openers.

Thread the needle pose. This is a safe and effective hip opener that is accessible to all yogis from beginners to advanced. It also takes out gravity, decreasing the risk of injuring our knees. Have a strap near by as you lie on your back, knees bent feet flat on the floor. Pick up your right leg and cross yourankle just above your left knee on your thigh. Remember the other connecting joint – the ankle. When we dorsi flex the foot (toes towards shin) this places the ankle in neutral and aids alignment at the knee. Allow your right thigh to spiral out, inner thigh moving towards you, outer thigh moving away. If you feel sensations at the knee, back off and allow your body to naturally soften into the pose.Using your strap or your hands, wrap around the under side of your right thigh, pulling it towards you. Your head should comfortably rest on the mat. Continue to rotate your hip outwards. This is an excellent prep for other hip openers as you are always in control of how much opening is actually happening.

Pigeon Pose / Eka pada rajakapotasana. In this advanced hip opner, we sit with one leg extended behind us, and the front leg folded in front of us, knee slightly wider than our same side hip. Our bony anatomy comes into play here. Our front hip needs to deeply externally rotate which means our femur bone must be a certain shape that it can achieve 45 degrees or more of rotation in the acetabulum. If this rotation is limited by either our bony or muscular anatomy, the motion starts to transfer to the knee. Just as we did above, dorsi flex your foot to neutralize the ankle and align the knee. Start with your foot close to your pelvis. This placement requires less opening at the hip. As your hips open, you can move the foot further away from your pelvis so that your shin is moving towards perpendicular to the mat. This might take a few lifetimes of practice, so be patient. You should not feel any sensation in your knees. If you do, back off, or slowly remove yourself from the pose. If you have a history of knee pain, or very tight hips, Pigeon pose is not for you. Stick with thread the needle pose.

Yoga can be a wonderful way to strengthen and support our knees. Knowing a little more about our anatomy, and the connections between our different parts can allow us to safely move deeper into our yoga practice with confidence.

Dr. Robin Armstrong is a Vancouver chiropractor & Yoga Instructor. www.stayactive.ca.