The Answer Is Plank
/Dear Yogis.
As usual I’ve been thinking about back ache. The Standard said recently: ‘If you didn’t emerge from lockdown with a sore back, a cricked neck, a gammy leg, an aching hip, a stiff shoulder… then truly, you are one of God’s chosen children.’
You were designed for standing and running and squatting. As the CEO of your body, you have various methods and approaches to keep this sophisticated operation running smoothly… and you have the all the power in the world to get it wrong! Yup! Sitting is the new smoking.
The natural curvature of the spine, the ‘S’ shape, is for shock absorption and to allow us to move in all sorts of ways. Muscles hold it all together and keep us balanced. However, when we sit, we are getting rid of the ‘S’ shape and using the muscles to fix us in an unnatural posture. On top of that, gravity is making us shorter and working on the computer is pulling the heavy 12lbs head (balanced on 7 of the smallest vertebrae) forward.
Back ache is easy peasy to get. What can we do? Elongate and decompress the compressed spine, stretch the pecs to unround the shoulders, plank pose of course for the unused abs, engage the back muscles to strengthen weakened scapular muscles, stretch tightened hip flexors, strengthen weakened gluteus muscles… but mainly plank pose!!!
Zoom Classes
What a disaster Wednesday’s class was! I checked the joining code that the system automatically sent out and it bore no resemblance to the actual joining code and password. Alone in my studio, I was surprised that no-one joined out of nine people who signed up! I did a little yoga-with-Pilates-bal. See pictures. Have a go!
You can join me at 4.30 this afternoon for some Ashtanga. I tend to depart from the Ashtanga sequence here and there to get in extra stretches and strengtheners in. You can book/click here. See you later.
Yoga in the news
The Irish Examiner has: The sound of silence. If you can train yourself to retreat into quietness for two hours a day, it could boost your cognitive ability. Researchers at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and other centres found that two hours of silence helped to create new cells in the hippocampus region of the brain linked to learning, memory, and emotions.
The Los Angeles Times has: If you practice yoga, thank this man who came to the U.S. 100 years ago. ‘Yogananda’s influence can still be felt on popular culture — his face and the faces of his three gurus appear on the cover of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album — and on contemporary thought; Apple founder Steve Jobs requested that everyone who attended his memorial service be given a copy of “Autobiography of a Yogi.”’
