Click “Ashtanga Yoga road” above to subscribe! In yesterday’s push, we talked about “soft girl” – what super flexible practitioners should pay attention to when practicing yoga (click the link to see this article).
Today’s theme is also related to yesterday, that is, flexible practitioners will have various “hyperextension” when doing yoga posture – limb joints are easy to hyperextension.
What should we do if they have hyperextension? First of all, we should be aware of a problem.
Many flexible and hyperextension practitioners cannot distinguish their hyperextension state according to the feedback of their own perceptual organs; For example, the teacher said: if you straighten your legs, it may be over stretched, because this is what she perceives as leg straightening; If the teacher asks her to bend her knees slightly, ah, it looks like real straightening.
It is important that people who habitually overstretch do not have a self feedback mechanism.
If they want to train not to overstretch – one should be reminded or corrected by someone (teacher) at any time.
Another way is to practice in front of the mirror for a period of time and observe the state of the joints through the mirror.
In short, we should first find the problem.
Finding the problem is 90% away from solving the problem.
However, there is also an external environmental factor, that is, the current business environment is a “lively” environment, and people pursue new and exciting things in aesthetics, such as powerful postures; In this environment, many teachers themselves don’t know how to teach differently according to people’s bodies, because their brains freeze to an almost perfect position visual image; Many yoga teachers simply can’t tell whether to stretch or not, and even stretch themselves; Therefore, I don’t understand that practice needs to create stability so as to accommodate the natural flexibility of the body; The more difficult the movement is, the better the posture is, and the deeper the posture is, the better the atmosphere encourages more joint instability.
When people realize that there is a problem of hyperextension, there is often only one move: slightly flexing the joint, which seems to solve all the hyperextension problems; Micro flexion is OK, but it should be a phased method, but now it has become a fresh food to eat all over the sky…
I don’t mean “micro flexion…” bad, micro flexion is actually a mirror image of the other side of the super extension; Only when the joints are straight, the energy transmission of the body can be unblocked – both hyperextension and micro flexion end like a rubber water pipe, but the difference is whether the knot is in the front or behind.
The energy transmission of the ended pipe can not be efficient.
For an exerciser whose joints are easy to overstretch, micro flexion can be used as a band aid to bring the overstretch to safety temporarily, but it does not necessarily require a lifetime of micro flexion; It is important to learn how to straighten your joints safely and effectively; Look at the right side of the picture below: only our muscles are activated in balance (the front and back sides of the legs, the outside and inside of the arms, and the front and rear sides of the torso.
We press the floor with our hands to make the body more upward and longer and have more breathing space, rather than like the extended posture on the left.
The body collapses on the foundation and the pressure is unbalanced.
For example, the horizontal pressure has become the vertical pressure.
The right side is not only safe, but also safe An integrated posture brings smooth energy.
So how can we train the body to make the joints really straight? See the vertical line, train your eyes and observe the vertical line of the body: spine, legs, arms If you are a teacher, you can observe others; if you practice by yourself, you can practice in front of the mirror for a period of time.
Look at your mountain pose from the front, pay attention to your knees, and see if your knees are over extended, or if the back of your knees are tight rather than the front, and then look at your mountain pose from the side to see if your hips are forward or your thighs are backward Raise your arms in front and slowly exceed your head.
When you do this, pay attention to whether your stomach will unconsciously move forward? If so, pay attention to gently retracting your stomach.
Imagine a new gravity line in mountain pose.
Try to move forward and backward until you can see that you can see that your hip knee heel is on a gravity line.
Imagine from the heel The vertical gravity line all the way up makes your joints overlap on this line.
For another example, if your gravity falls on the outside of the kneecap and wrist, most of you are like the left side.
The gravity of the four legs of the table is uneven, and the table top must be skewed; if your whole lower leg is stressed, the outward rotation of the palm can change the shape of the whole body Hyperextension posture.
In Trikonasana triangle extension, pay attention to the weight of the foot – if the weight of the front leg is on the heel on the left below, it is mostly hyperextension; at this time, the big toe joint of the front leg should press the floor more tightly, just like the feeling of lifting the heel but the heel is not off the ground (the feeling of stretching the foot) – This will activate the front leg muscles; when the front leg muscles are used, you will feel that the flexion of your hip will become easier.
The same is true for the rear leg.
If the heel bears too much weight, most of the leg muscles are unbalanced.
At this time, the rear foot should open to the side (not really to the side) Activate the muscle balance of the rear leg.
It is basically the same in the parsvottanasan enhanced side extension.
The front leg is the same as in the triangle.
By strengthening the link between the joint under the big toe and the floor, you can feel the energy transmission from the floor to the hip groin and side.
This energy can pull the hip folded groin back to make the forward flexion more full.
At the same time, you can feel the rear Legs, if the weight falls on the heels, most of the rear side of the knee will be over stretched, that is, over stretched; force the heels inward and forward (that is, open the feeling of the feet towards the side, but the feet can not move) , this will make the rear groin face more towards the front and correct the hip swing.
Try it.
If the problem of leg hyperextension is solved, does the spine feel extended and comfortable? It’s not for pressing down, but for upward energy improvement.
When we press down the floor with our hands in the downward dog adhomukha Svanasana, we should know: we don’t want to press down hard; down , is for upward.
The downward of mula’s quality is to stably take root, not to push down.
The left in the figure below: if most of the weight is on the outside of the palm, adjust the force point to the finger root of the index finger; the force of pressing the floor down is transmitted to the chest through the shoulder.
When your energy is right, your over extension problem must have been solved.
At this time, your hand is on the floor It should be very light.
Students with good flexibility can enter the body position at once in many cases.
However, in order to develop strength and train the stability of the body, you can create obstacles to your body position, that is, the power to create confrontation between different parts of the body; for example, the legged baddhakonasana in the figure below, instead of letting it go at once It’s better to press the thigh upward and the hand downward to create the antagonistic force between the legs and hands, so as to strengthen the muscles around the legs and joints.
There are many opportunities in practice.
For example, in sitting and standing forward flexion, you should hook your feet with your hands and bend forward.
You can put your hands on the instep, stretch your feet and push your feet with your hands to create the antagonistic force between the hands and feet in the process of forward flexion In this way, the stretching posture becomes an isometric static strength exercise to build strength..
