Core strengthening?

One of my pet peeves when in a yoga class is hearing the teacher use the phrase “engage your core”.

Why? Simply because it is so vague. What exactly does that instruction mean? I don’t see it as being helpful to the yoga student. It would be like if instead of saying “lift up your bum and your hips to come into bridge”, I say “lift up”. Lift what? How much? Why?

There is even a debate in the movement world about whether we should be cueing for core strength at all. That having someone tell you to ‘engage your core’ is taking away the body’s natural intelligence, and you become reliant on being told when to engage your core. So when it comes to the real world, and you want to move a heavy box, or lift up your kid who has fallen, you won’t be engaging your core because there isn’t someone telling you to do this.

I don’t quite fall into this camp. But I do think that as an instruction ’engage your core’ should be thrown out. It is vague and overused.

But let’s dial it back and start with the root of the matter: what exactly is core strength?

From Collins dictionary: “The strength of the underlying muscles of the torso”.

In actuality, what does ‘core strengthening’ mean? Basically any muscles on your torso can be considered ‘core muscles’. They all have a role to play in protecting and stabilising the spine.

Most people think of core muscles as abdomen muscles. So ‘engage your core’ translates to people sucking their lower abdomen in. The cue “draw navel to spine’ focuses primarily on transverse abdominus and multifidis. But there is a lot more to ‘core strengthening and stability’ than those 2 muscles. (Also, that cue of keeping lower abdomen drawn in inhibits proper diaphragmatic breathing. But that is for another days post. 🙃)

Your abdominal muscles actually just make up part of your core .When we think of core muscles, we tend to think of the 6 pack. That someone with a strong core is someone who has a 6 pack.But someone with a 6 pack might not have a strong core. Someone with a strong core might not have a 6 pack. That 6 pack is a result of a very low percentage of body fat, and a well defined rectus abdominus.

Your functional “core” is actually made up of all of the muscles which stabilize your spine as you move - also often referred to as your “core stabilizers”. Depending on whom you talk to, this can mean up to 40 different muscles. The whole topic of ‘core work’ has undergone a huge change in recent times. We used to equate a strong core with a stable spine. So if we had back issues, we thought we needed to strengthen our core. Studies have since shown that to be an overly simplified conclusion. Yes, core strengthening will probably help with back problems, but actually, movement of nearly any kind will help. Our bodies and our pain perception is a lot more complex than simply strengthening your core to fix your bad back.

The good news with all of this is that if you hate core work (as I do), then you have other options. A lot of the work that I already do can be considered ‘core work’. All the strength practices I do help increase core stability and overall strength. You don’t have to do a thousand sit ups to get a strong core. (thankfully!). Resistance training (lifting weights) is a brilliant way to increase core strength and all over body strength. But the bad news is that more specific core work is also a good thing to do. 😭. Especially if yoga is your primary practice and you are inclined towards hyper mobility.

Oh and if you are wondering what cue to use other than ‘engage your core’, well ask yourself, do you really need to replace it? Do you need to use it, or are you just filling up space with those words?

Here is a video of some core exercises that kill me. In all of them there is strong core containment needed, front ribs drawing down, lower back flattened to the floor. When moving from then ground to the more upright position, I try and ensure that the movement is happening with this containment.

Hamstring lengthening…

Supta hasta padungusthasana

Hamstring work….

When I first started yoga, I couldn’t touch my toes. I used to see other people in class who could do it, and I’d think “I wish I could do that. If could do that, I’d be happy”. 😂🙄. And we know the moral of this tale (happiness does not come from having lengthened hamstrings, in case your brain is one a go slow today).

But over time, with a lot of practice, my hamstrings got longer. My forward folds improved.

I know that to some people my flexibility is possibly a result of a gymnastics or dance background. Nope. Years of the ashtanga primary series with all its forward folding, practised daily, then years of second series with all it's leg behind head poses resulted in longer hamstrings.

But I feel it is only in the last couple of years that my hamstring flexibility has increased again. Accumulation of years of practice for sure, but also I feel the way that I practice them has helped.

My focus is more on engaging with the hamstrings before stretching them. On warming up around the joints. On activating their antagonistic muscles to help me go deeper into forward folds.

In this video I've included some of my favourite ways to do this.

- 1.Romanian dead lift wannabe

- 2.low lunge to ardha hanuamasana - focus on lengthening spine and driving front heel into floor to engage back of leg

- 3.malasana to forward fold. Again driving heel into floor, feeling glutes and hip flexors engage, then stand but keeping torso to thighs for as long as possible

- 4.padungusthasana: I like to tilt pelvis at staring position, then imagine I'm trying to drag feet away from each other to help get outer hips and inner thighs switched on.

- 5.in uttanasana, standing on blocks (or in pashimottanasana having a block at end of feet and holding onto block.

I am also a fan of PNF stretching , and have been doing this for the last couple of years. I think this has really helped in increasing flexibility also. The technique is simple enough and incorporates well into a yoga practice.

How I use this technique is: when about to go into a forward bend, standing or seated, I bend the knees to get the pelvis to tilt forward, front hip bones towards tops of thighs. Then I drive my heels into the ground to engage the back of my legs and try and drag the feet away from each other. This gets glutes, outer hips and inner thighs all switched on. . Inhaling, lengthening the spine, reaffirming the engagement with the back of the legs. Then exhaling folding forward, straightening legs if possible. I keep the lower abdomen and lower ribs drawing in, chest reaching forward and the thighs rolling inwards and pressing down into the floor.

All of these., plus consistent practice, has helped me hugely over the years.

And I have found that no, happiness does not come from longer hamstrings. But I did find happiness. 💞

"Facilitated stretching involves contracting a muscle that you are lengthening. This increases the tension at the muscle-tendon junction and recruits more Golgi tendon organs than does stretching a muscle alone. Facilitated stretching causes the spinal cord to signal the muscle to relax, in essence, creating "slack" in the muscle. You can then take up the slack to move deeper into the pose. For example, in Paschimottanasana, slightly bend the knees and squeeze the trunk against the thighs. Then gently press the heels into the mat as if you are trying to flex the knees further. This engages the hamstrings and stimulates the Golgi tendon organs at the muscle-tendon junction. Hold this steady contraction for five to eight breaths before releasing it. This produces relaxation and increased length in the hamstrings. Then contract the quadriceps to straighten the knees and take up the slack created by the reflex arc. This has the added effect of producing reciprocal inhibition, which further relaxes the hamstrings into the stretch." From Bandha Yoga by Ray Long

Hip Flexor Strengthening in Yoga

If you’ve been doing yoga for a while, you have probably heard the expression “hip openers”. Maybe you have tight hips, or have a love/hate relationship with traditional hip opening poses, such as baddha konasana, pigeon pose etc. Once you’ve been in the yoga world for a while, you know that opening hips is a popular topic and often a goal in the yoga world. As a yoga teacher I teach them, as a yoga student I practise them.

However as with so much in the yoga world, our conversation on this topic has become more complex and nuanced. As our knowledge grows, not only of our anatomy but also how the human body works, we are realising that it is not as simple as ‘open your hips’.

To go to the beginning of it all: what are the hip flexors?The iliopsoas muscle is often referred to as one, but is really two different muscles; the iliacus and the psoas. Other muscles assist with flexing the hip, but the iliopsoas is the primary and major hip flexor.

The hip flexor muscles work on the front of the hip helping to bend it forwards. If the torso is held stable then the hip flexors can be used to lift the leg forwards. If the leg is stable then they can be used to tilt the pelvis forwards relative to the leg. Sitting for much of the day — something almost all of us are doing — contributes to tight hip flexors. Tight hip flexors can contribute to lower back pain, hip pain, and injury.

In yoga we have traditionally focused on hip flexibility, ie ‘opening our hips’. However, as we are slowly coming to realise, we need to balance flexibility with strength, mobility with stability. So even if your hip flexors feel tight, focusing on only stretching them isn’t the answer. In reality, most yogis’ hips are ‘open’ enough. In most cases, the hip flexor muscles need mobilizing and strengthening more than they need lengthening.

Personally I have been incorporating hip flexor strengthening in my practice, as a way of building more strength into my arm balancing posers, namely pincha mayurasana and handstand. I tend to rely on my lower back flexibility to take me into these poses, when I should be using my hip flexor strength (can also be called core strength, as hip flexor strength is a part of 'core’ strength). This results in an over arch of the lower back. What I have been doing to ‘train’ my body to rely more on my hip flexors to bring me into these poses, is to practice coming into them with a block pressed between my thigh and torso, as seen in the image below.

However, this move in the image below is one of my favourite hip flexor strengtheners, and an easy one to incorporate into your practice.

-have 1 knee on the floor, 1 leg stretched out in front. Hands on floor by front leg.

— focus on keeping front leg straight and trying to lift foot from floor.

-nothing may happen, except strong cramps in front leg hip flexor! This is normal. Not fun, but normal. 😝

-over time, it gets possible to lift foot from floor.

Throw it into your practice and see how you get on!

Different types of hamstring stretching

In yoga, we often stretch statically, holding a pose as such as hanumanasana (splits) or holding a forward bend. However we can also stretch dynamically, moving in and out of a pose repeatedly and exploring a complete range of joint motion. Research shows that both of these methods are effective at increasing range of motion, but Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretches may lead to greater and faster progress. PNF is a technique in which muscles are intentionally contracted, then intentionally relaxed. The exact method by which PNF works is unclear. It may be due to an increase in tolerance, or because of an underlying neurological effect. (Interestingly, even the opposite limb to the one being stretched appears to benefit from PNF techniques, which suggests that there is a neurological component to the release.) Other research hints that PNF techniques may decrease the reflex that usually inhibits a deeper stretch.

In my practice and my teaching I like to incorporate all of these type of stretches. Static, dynamic and also adding in PNF techniques. I personally have found a greater range of motion since incorporating these into my practice.