Some people often ask: teacher, what should I do if I practice yoga and my legs get thicker and thicker? In fact, every time I encounter such a question, I am very confused.
At least I haven’t met anyone who has coarsened his legs by practicing yoga.
Of course, he has been fishing for three days and drying the net for four days, and the fattening physique that he can eat especially makes his whole body fatter and his legs fatter.
Today, let’s talk about the part about thin legs in yoga practice.
When it comes to a certain part of being thin, it will be mentioned to exercise muscles and stretch.
The combination of these two will make the target part tight and lined.
The relatively large muscles on the calf that can affect the thickness of the leg are at the back of the leg.
Heel lifting is recognized as the best way to exercise the posterior calf muscles.
The so-called heel lifting movement, to put it bluntly, is to step on the ground, tiptoe up and then fall, and practice repeatedly.
In yoga, the most common base of the action of stepping on the ground with the sole of the foot and standing on tiptoe is Ferris style.
Ferris style: stand on the mat in mountain style, with feet as wide as pelvis, knees and toes facing straight ahead, thighs tightened and lifted up, tailbone rolled and abdomen closed.
Raise your hands above your head, clasp your fingers and turn your palms upward.
When inhaling, lift your heels up and enter the pose.
Keep breathing in Ferris pose for 3 to 5 groups.
After breathing, drop your heels back to mountain pose and repeat 10 to 15 times.
Although there are not many heel standing poses in yoga like motiango, as long as you like, you can raise your heel and step on the ground to practice variants of all poses that require leg strength.
In this way, the frequency of calf muscle strength exercise will be greatly improved.
Let’s give a few examples.
1.
In the goddess pose, the feet are separated by two and a half shoulders, and the soles of the feet are rotated outward to their own range.
When the knees and toes inhale in the same direction, the spine is extended, the hands are raised above the top of the head, exhale, bend the knees and sink the hips into the goddess pose.
On the basis of the goddess pose, when inhaling again, lift the toes upward to maintain 5 to 8 groups of breathing.
2.
Stand in the magic chair mountain style, with both feet separated by the same width as the pelvis, knees and toes facing directly in front.
When inhaling, raise your hands above the top of your head and exhale, bend your hips and knees into the magic chair style.
When inhaling again, stand on tiptoe and exhale.
3.
The soldier stands in front of the mat in one form, with both feet separated by the same width as the pelvis, withdraw the left foot and take a big step backward to adjust the pelvic alignment.
Inhale, raise both hands above the head and exhale, bend the right knee and the right calf to pad vertically.
Enter the warrior first.
When inhaling again, lift the right heel up and keep it.
There are many examples like this.
As long as it is a pose that requires leg strength, you can strengthen the exercise of the muscles behind the legs and calves through tiptoe, that is, heel lifting.
I have two questions to answer.
1.
In the process of stepping down on the heel and sole of the foot, be sure to exert even force.
Some people’s calves are not thick, but the calf muscles turn out to look thick.
Such a crowd will exert more force on the outside of the sole of the foot when exerting force on the sole of the foot, which will make the calf valgus more prominent, and will not have the effect of thin legs.
The correct method should be to exert even force on the whole sole of the foot, step down on the ball of the big toe, and retract the calves of both sides to the middle.
2.
Only when using the strength of the back of the calf can the heel be regarded as heel lifting movement.
Sometimes we lift our heels not to stimulate the calf muscles more.
For example, raising the heel in downward dog pose is more because the back of the body is not flexible enough.
Speaking of calf muscle training, let’s talk about calf stretching.
In yoga, we may pay more attention to the stretching of the thigh, but often ignore the stretching of the calf.
The key point of calf stretching is: the sole of the foot is hooked back.
Note that it is not the toe that is hooked back, but the whole sole of the foot is hooked back from the position of the ankle joint.
At the same time, the heel is pushed back to lengthen the back of the calf.
Let’s also give an example.
Demigod monkey, take a look at these two actions in the figure below.
The upper one is the standard demigod monkey style, and the lower one can be regarded as a variant of the demigod monkey.
This is not important, but the key is to see the difference between straightening the legs and soles.
The upper sole of the foot is almost vertically padded, and the whole sole is hooked back from the corner of the foot.
The stretching of the foot to the back of the calf will be more.
In the next one, only the toes are hooked back, and the ankle is almost in a straight state, so the stretching range of the back of the calf will be reduced a lot.
So there are two secrets to practicing yoga to slim the calf: one is to use posture variants anytime and anywhere to strengthen the exercise of calf muscles on tiptoe, and the other is to let the soles of the feet hook back to increase the stretching range of the back of the calf when stretching the back of the leg.
If you want to slim your legs, you can’t do without either! As long as the legs are practiced correctly, they will not become thicker because of yoga.
Yoga will only make the legs straighten, lengthen and look better.
Pay attention to Fanyi and share health and beauty!..
