When practicing yoga, we often hear the teacher say, “if you do this posture wrong, your body will compensate.” what is compensation? How to avoid it? # What is compensation# The muscles that should exert force do not exert force correctly, but let the muscles and even joints around the body replace the task.
But the muscles or joints pushed out do not have such ability and function.
You don’t think twice about compensation, but over time, it will change from quantity to quality, causing physical damage.
Compensation in yoga practice, especially for beginners without professional teachers.
Although compensation can not be seen, it does cause injury, and because this injury is an accumulation process, it is too late when the body feels pain.
Therefore, Xiao Bian (official account yoga) reminds beginners to train under the guidance of professional teachers, so as to avoid compensatory phenomena in every practice.
# Three ways of compensation in yoga# The first kind: compensation between muscles.
Many students practice yoga to improve their temperament, improve their posture and make their body practice more linear.
So yoga teachers often hear such questions: teacher, I’ve been practicing hip warping for a while, but I find that my hips are not warped and my legs are thick? Teacher, I want to practice my back and arms and eliminate butterfly sleeves, but recently I found that my neck is getting thicker and thicker? These problems are actually caused by muscle compensation.
The main reason for this compensation is that the synergetic muscle compensates for the excessive participation of the active muscle.
Yogi Xiaobian recommended reading: how do girls practice the exercise method of raising their hips without thick legs and raising their hips without thick legs? Term explanation: synergetic muscle and active muscle first of all, we should understand that every action we do is not completed by a single muscle, but by a group or several groups of muscles.
When multiple groups of muscles are required to work together to complete a group of actions, one of these muscles will play a major role.
This muscle that plays a major role is the active muscle, and the other muscles only assist the active muscle to complete the whole action.
These muscles are called synergetic muscles.
After you understand this concept, you must understand why you want to practice raising your hips, resulting in thicker and thicker legs; If you want to practice your back, your neck is getting thicker and thicker.
Because when practicing hip lifting, your hip muscles exert too little force, from the active muscle to the cooperative muscle, and your legs exert too much force, from the cooperative muscle to the active muscle.
For example, in yoga, one of the postures to practice hips – Magic chair pose.
The correct way to force is like this.
When the action is done in place, you will really feel the force of the hip.
The main muscle for exercise is also the hip, and the thigh is only used to cooperate with the muscle group of the hip.
When your posture is wrong, there will be muscle compensation.
For example, how can you avoid such muscle compensation? Taking gluteus maximus as an example, we need to “activate” it before practice.
This activation is divided into three steps.
Step 1: be warrior 1 and warrior 3 before doing magic chair pose.
Let the center of gravity come to the heel and the middle line of the sciatic bone clip, keep the feeling of retraction, start the gluteus maximus, and let it actively participate in the next action.
The second step of Soldier 1, soldier 3: put the consciousness on the gluteus maximus (pay attention to the active muscle).
In the process of practice, we should maintain a high degree of attention and don’t think about it.
We should put the consciousness on the active muscle, that is, our arms, and always pay attention to the feeling of the hips in this action.
Step 3: feel the maximum that the active muscle can bear.
Take the magic chair as an example.
When the hip drops to a certain angle, you will feel that the hip uses a lot of force, which is the maximum that the active muscle can bear.
If you go down again and your gluteal muscles are relaxed, it means you’ve done too much.
At this time, you need to adjust back a little and keep it where the active muscles feel most strongly.
Second: compensation between joints.
1.
Small joints compensate for large joints.
The most common joint is the knee to compensate the hip.
The arm can’t twist the thigh, the knee can’t twist the hip, and the small joint can’t twist the big joint.
For example, Warrior II: in War II, the requirements are: the hip joint is facing the front; Micro internal buckle of left foot palm; Rotate the palm of the right leg outward 90 degrees; The right knee is not buckled in the direction of the leg toe.
Many beginners will have this situation because their hips are tight and their external rotation ability is not enough: when the hips are facing the front, the knees cannot be in the same direction as the toes, but buckle inward; If you align your knees, your hips can’t face straight ahead.
At this time, if all the key points must be adjusted to the positive position, the knee of the straight leg will be squeezed and worn, and the compression of the knee joint will exchange space to compensate for the lack of external rotation ability of the hip joint.
Solution: reduce the difficulty and put the small joint in the right position first.
For example, the Warrior II above.
Increase the internal rotation angle of the left foot palm and rotate the left foot palm inward a little more, that is, reduce the external rotation amplitude of the hip joint, so as to ensure that the knees on both sides are in the right position and in the same direction as the toes.
It mainly depends on the changes of the feet.
At the beginning, it reduces the difficulty, but put the two knee joints in the right position.
With the deepening of practice, the external rotation ability of hip joint increases, and it can be completely in the right position.
2.
The most common of flexible joint compensation and stable joint is the compensation of lumbar spine.
Whether bending forward or backward, let the lumbar spine compensate.
Forward flexion: it should be folded from the hip joint.
But the hip joint is tight and the lumbar spine is flexible.
From hip folding to bending down from the lumbar spine.
Retroflexion: it is a retroflexion extending from the thoracic spine.
But because the thoracic spine is more stable than the lumbar spine, the lumbar spine is more flexible than the thoracic spine.
From the thoracic vertebra to the lumbar vertebra.
yogini (yoga_in) solution: correctly master the practice methods of asana and step by step.
The third is the compensation between muscles, bones and joints.
Sometimes when the muscle strength is not enough, we transfer the strength to bones and joints.
Let’s take the goddess pose as an example: the positive position requirement of the goddess pose: roll the tailbone and keep the upper body upright.
The purpose of this requirement is to let the leg muscles bear the strength, To achieve the purpose of exercising leg muscles.
But when doing goddess pose, you often make two mistakes: 1.
Collapse your waist and raise your hips.
You will find that after the collapse of your waist and raise your hips, the pressure on your legs will be reduced, and this pose will become very labor-saving and can be maintained for a longer time.
This is because the hip will change the direction and transmission of the whole body force, so that the lumbar spine compensates for part of the body strength.
The result is Yes, although it has been held for a long time and seems to be working hard, the leg strength has not been exercised, but the waist has been injured.
This is that the lumbar spine compensates for the leg muscle strength.
It is similar to this kind of waist collapse 2 and knee buckle.
For the same reason, after knee buckle, you will find that this action becomes very easy and can be maintained for a longer time.
This is that the knee joint compensates for the leg muscle strength The result is that the leg strength is not exercised and the knee is injured.
The solution: do the action within the range of ability for as long as you can.
If you find that the body is shaking and the action is about to deform, retreat.
Don’t be arrogant and make meaningless comparison with your peers.
Similar principles include: Magic chair (we wrote it above) For example, when the elbows and knees are over extended, the joints are used to compensate for the muscle strength.
For example, the alignment requirements of the supporting legs under the battle three pose: tighten and straighten.
However, when the leg strength is insufficient, it is easy to make the knees over extended, and after the knees are over extended, you will find that the legs are not like the original ones So tired.
Because when part of the force is transmitted to the knee, it is shared by the knee joint..