This entry was posted on Might 29, 2024 by Charlotte Bell.
Do you knees splay out to the edges in Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)? That is one thing I’ve noticed so much, each in myself within the earlier years of observe, and in lots of yoga college students. Is it an issue? Over time, I’m guessing it may very well be, particularly, in your knees and sacroiliac (SI) joint. There are a number of methods to treatment it. The one I’ll focus on at this time includes inserting a Yoga Block between your knees in Bridge Pose to strengthen your adductors.
What Are the Adductors?
The adductors are the muscle groups of the interior thighs. They embody:
- Pectineus
- Adductor longus
- Adductor brevis
- Gracilis
- Adductor magnus (the biggest muscle within the group)
The adductors draw the leg towards the middle line (adduction) and internally rotate the thigh on the hip joint. This muscle group stabilizes the pelvis, serving to to stability the pelvic place throughout strolling. In addition they help “explosive” actions, comparable to leaping and working. Whether or not we all know it or not, the adductors help almost all our day by day actions.
Once we spend lots of time sitting, each the adductors and abductors (outer thigh and hip muscle groups that transfer the leg away from the middle line) can weaken. Over time, this will destabilize the knees, resulting in knee ache and dysfunction. In my very own casual “research” of adductor energy and weak spot, I’ve discovered that strengthening the abductors has helped hold my SI joint extra secure.
How Can You Strengthen Your Adductors in Yoga Apply?
How are you going to inform in case your adductors are weak? Do this easy inquiry: along with your toes somewhat wider than hips-width aside and parallel, bend your knees about 90 levels right into a standing squat. Do your knees wish to splay out to the edges? If that’s the case, your adductors usually are not pulling their weight. Nonetheless, even when your thighs simply keep parallel, it’s nonetheless a good suggestion to strengthen your adductors, particularly if you happen to sit so much in the course of the day.
In yoga, there are many poses that stretch the adductors—suppose Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Upavista Konasana (Large-Legged Seated Ahead Bend), Baddha Konasana (Certain Angle Pose)—however not lots of poses that strengthen your adductors. Squeezing a Yoga Block between your thighs in Bridge Pose is one solution to defend your knees and SI joint whilst you’re within the pose. Working towards with a block may also strengthen the adductors, which is able to assist stabilize your knees and SI joints in the long term.
Urgent your thighs right into a Yoga Block in Bridge Pose additionally helps defend your hip joints. Once we observe Bridge, it’s frequent to push up with the glutes with a view to get as a lot peak as potential. This will trigger us to push into hip joints, which might trigger the femur heads to push in opposition to the sides of the hip sockets. Once we do that repeatedly over time, the joint’s cartilage and labrum can put on down. Within the directions under, I’ll recommend a special method of transferring into Bridge Pose that can assist you keep away from doing this. The Yoga Block between the thighs will give further help to hip joints as effectively.
Find out how to Strengthen Your Adductors with a Yoga Block
- Lie in your again on a Yoga Mat. Have a 4-inch Yoga Block shut by.
- Bend your knees and place the soles of your toes on the ground. Draw your knees in towards your chest and place the Yoga Block between your thighs, simply above your knees. Place your toes again onto the ground.
- Draw your arms in near your sides. Bend your elbows in order that your forearms are vertical. Press your elbows into the ground and concurrently arch your again away from the ground. Then lengthen your arms alongside your physique.
- Now press your toes into the ground whereas urgent your thighs into the Yoga Block.
- Lengthen your knees outward, away out of your pelvis, to provoke the raise into Bridge Pose. Then proceed that motion as you raise your again all the way in which into the pose. All through the period of the pose, keep this extension of the thighs. It will assist stop you from pushing into your hip joints. It additionally helps hold your legs parallel relatively than splaying out to the edges.
- Maintain urgent your legs into the Yoga Block and lengthen your knees out away out of your pelvis.
- Maintain for five to 10 deep breaths.
- Lengthen your arms out alongside the ground, overhead. Stretch out via your arms and lengthen your backbone as you slowly decrease your again down onto the ground.
- Repeat two or extra instances if you happen to like.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards in 2010.
