Forward Bends and Stretching

Michael Sutton works @ Pure Yoga SG

Developing and lengthening to progress into your forward bends can be extremely frustrating if your beginner and even if your a regular practitioner as many find they reach a plateau and then they continue on their plateau without progressing any further.

How come? Because when we look at all yogic postures as a whole we only every see the final posture.  Granted, there are basic postures which help to strengthen and lengthen our muscular system and prepare us for the more advanced poses but with all yogic practices, regardless of styles or lineages: they all involve asanas which focus on stretching many muscle groups all at once, to make things even more challenging, within the individual muscle groups are lots more muscles. i.e. the hamstring muscle is not just one muscle but made of 3 individual muscles - Semitendinosus and Semimembranosus and Bicep Femoris (long head and the short head, which are classified as one muscle as they share the same insertion points and orgins), .

Therefore, when we try to stretch by doing Seated Front Bend (Paschimottanasana) which is the final pose, we are effectively trying to stretch many muscle groups all at the same time.  So how many muscles is that?



            
               Gluteus Maximus
               Gluteus Medius
               Gluteus Minimus
               Bicep Femoris
               Semitendinosus
                    Semimembranosus
               Gastrocnemius 
               Plantaris
               Soleus
               Achillies Tendon
               Connective Tissues




The more muscles involved in the stretch the more resistance needed to overcome.  Imagine you are holding lots of elastic bands, the more you are holding the harder it is the pull them apart.  But if you only have one or two elastic bands there is only a little bit of resistance and therefore they can be lengthened much easier.

When we breakdown the muscle group to their individual muscles and we understand the actions (some muscles have more than one muscle action) we then use the action/s of the muscle against itself to "Create Space" in the individual muscle and then once we have created the space we move into that new space which takes us deeper into the stretch without pain.

For Example:

In Yoga, if we want to stretch the Rhomboid major muscle located in the upper back we would move the arms into Eagle pose (Garuda).  This is a great stretch for a beginners but for someone who has relatively good flexibility they will release from the pose after 10-30 seconds and feel nothing regardless of whether we raise the arms to the sky or lowering the arms down by pulling them close to the chest.

Figure A

So lets look an the anatomy of the muscles:

Figure A

Both rhomboids (major and minor) also act to retract the scapula, pulling it towards the spinal column

(1) From a protracted position (shoulder is forward) it pulls back into a retracted position

(2) pulls the scapula (shoulder blade) up.

(3) We also need to note the position of the muscle which is approximately 45 degrees in a downward direction.

Now that we understand the action of the muscle and its position, we can then reverse then actions of the muscle to get maximum effective stretch.

If we continue with the eagle arm stretch, we know the rhomboid is stretched the more we take the shoulder blade away for the spine therefore the more we take the arm across the body the deeper the stretch instead of keeping the arms in the traditional mid-line of the chest.(1) If we are stretching the right rhomboid and we bought the right shoulder forward as much as we get by taking the arms to the left side as much as we can then to then increase the Stretch. (2)  We pull the right shoulder downward towards the floor as the muscle action pulls the shoulder blade up.(3) To make the stretch even more effective we can start to bend forward by hunching the upper back which lengthens the upper back and so increases the stretch once again due to the angle and position of the muscle.

This year is a wonderful opportunity for us to grow and learn together and discover the incredible journey of "Creating Space".  Series 1 is the first in the series of 5 planned for this year.  Understand a new scientific concept to stretching. Enjoy a series of in-depth workshops on how to isolate and lengthen individual muscles using unique techniques that increase your flexibility without pain. 

Namaste,
With Metta,

Michael

"Putting the Science Back into Yoga"
























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