Yoga practice, often hear the teacher’s command, extend your spine, try to create a sense of space spine, do not arch back
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Sometimes, I hear the teacher say, relax your spine and let it bend naturally What should we do? Before answering this question, let’s take a brief look at the anatomy of the spine
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Spine includes: cervical spine, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, sacrum and coccyx
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And between the vertebrae of every two adjacent vertebrae, there is cartilage connection, which is called intervertebral disc
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Each region of the spine has its own specific curvature and range of motion
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The thoracic spine is anterior and posterior, while the lumbar spine is anterior and posterior
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Therefore, the whole spine can not only bend and stretch, but also lateral bend and twist Yoga flexion, if the arch back flexion, will make the front of the spine in a state of compression, resulting in the front of the disc thinning, back thickening, loss of balance
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If the pressure on one side of the spine is too high for a long time, it will lead to disc herniation, herniation, or even prolapse
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Therefore, in general, in the practice of Yang Yoga, students will be asked to extend the spine, not arch back
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One or two wrong exercises have little effect on the body, but we should also take preventive measures
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Students who suffer from scoliosis or thoracic and lumbar discomfort need to pay attention to it
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The practice must be carried out with the permission of doctors and the guidance of professional teachers, and try to avoid the forward, arched back, backward bending and other postures
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The back should not be arched when you bend forward in yoga
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Because the tendons and muscles of our back are connected with our buttocks and hamstring muscles at the back of our thighs
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Whether we sit and bend forward or stand and bend forward, if the muscles of our thighs, buttocks and back are not over stretched, the trainees who can stretch effectively should present the natural curvature of the spine, which is the standard forward bending posture
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However, if our back, buttocks or thighs are tense and can not be fully extended, and we just push our legs straight to make our body forward, we will arch our back
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Why does “as shown in the figure below” arch the back? From an anatomical point of view, our dorsal muscles, the muscles at the back of the thigh and the gluteus maximus are in a state of competition when we bend forward
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If the Yoga person’s own muscle tension, the body can not fully forward, but also adhere to the forced bending folding, the back muscles and thigh muscles will be like two villains pulling in different directions
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“The arrow shown in the figure below is the direction of force.”_ (in) for people with weak hamstring and gluteus maximus and back muscles, when the hamstring and gluteus maximus are tightened and pushed straight, the back muscles can only give way and arch to tighten, so that the legs can be pushed straight
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If we analyze the structure of the spine, we can find that this forced forward flexion will make the back muscle bear too much pressure, and the position of the lower lumbar muscle will appear curly state
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At the same time, it also needs to bear the weight of the human body under the gravity, which can easily lead to the symptoms of “lumbar disc herniation”
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If you look at it from a skeletal point of view, you can see that the lower back, the spinal joints that bend more deeply, and the front (abdominal area) are seriously squeezed, and the back side is open
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In standing forward bending, affected by gravity, plus the exerciser’s barely stretching to make the body close to the shin, if combined with some external force, it will lead to excessive opening of the posterior spine
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In the long run, the disc will be pushed back, causing strain and injury, thus leading to “disc herniation”
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Therefore, even in forward flexion, our spine should maintain its physiological natural radian, but in fact, the natural radian of everyone’s spine is different
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Generally speaking, women’s thoracic vertebrae will be relatively flat, and the lower lumbar lordosis arc is larger
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In addition, women’s back muscles are not so thick and strong than men’s, so when women do forward bending, visually, their back will be flat
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But if we take an X-ray at this time, we will see that she is in a natural extension of the curvature of the spine; But if we look for a man, because of the difference of body shape, the visual effect will be different
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Even for a man who has strong flexibility and can enter deep flexion, because the thoracic kyphosis curve of the man is larger than that of the woman, and the back muscles are thick, so in the flexion, they will more or less show the feeling of slightly arched back, but this is not true It stands for “including chest arch back”
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If a person is standing with his back arched and his head tilted forward, we call it “hunchback” or “hunchback”, which also needs to be avoided in our daily standing and sitting posture
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In forward flexion, the back arch will transfer all the weight of the body to the spine, which we need to pay close attention to
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It needs to be reminded that if you find that you will have this kind of arched back after pushing your legs straight in the process of practice, it is called “hunchback” rather than “mellow”
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In this case, we need to bend our knees slightly, stretch our back by inhaling, bend forward by exhaling, keep our abdomen close to our thighs, and keep our back extended
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Stay here for a while to let our back have time to stretch
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In this way, we can relax the stretching of the muscles at the back of our buttocks and thighs, and let our back muscles have a chance to stretch
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Through this practice, we can make our legs stretch in time Push straight and stretch your back
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On the contrary, if you continue to practice this forward bending posture by pushing your legs straight and arching your back, it will lead to: first of all, the practice of posture will be stagnant and there will be no progress; and the longer-term adverse effect is that if you pull forward and press forward too reluctantly, the problem of intervertebral disc herniation may occur at any time, so this is a very important safety code
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The criterion of judgment can not only rely on the visual effect, but should be judged according to the distance between the abdomen and the thigh
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If the back is too arched, and there is a large gap between the abdomen and the thigh, then the student will have the problem of chest arched back
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When checking the posture, we should avoid judging its correctness only from the vision
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We should observe it from multiple angles and make judgment based on various knowledge
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No matter standing and sitting at ordinary times or practicing the posture, we should follow the principle of maintaining the physiological natural curvature of the spine
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This is the instruction of guru krishnamachaya all the time, and it is also the rehabilitation of every kind of movement Key elements of practice
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Therefore, in forward flexion, we have two criteria to judge: one is whether the abdomen can be close to the thigh; the other is whether the spine maintains natural physiological curvature..
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