There are some great benefits to practicing twisting poses in yoga.
Physically they can increase spinal and hip mobility, and strengthen your core muscles.
Why is this important?
Let’s take a look at some everyday occurrences that effect your body and then determine how and why adding twisting poses to your practice can be helpful.
The Chronic State of Folding Forward
Are you aware of your posture on a daily basis?
Consider the state of your body in normal activities: sitting at a computer at your office, driving your car in heavy traffic, slumped down on your couch in front of the television, and even the use of your cell phone.
In each of these situations, your body, more specifically your spine, is hunched over in such a way that can lead to pain and stiffness over time. (No one wants to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame!)
Your shoulders pull forward, your head droops downward, your upper back rounds, your core muscles weaken, and your low back can become stiff and painful. (No fun!)
But all of these things are preventable.
If you’re practicing yoga and you’re adding twisting poses to your sessions, you can experience significant changes in your compromised spine.
Here’s how…
Sit Up And Eat Your Vegetables
To reverse the effects of that hunched over feeling, the first thing to do is lengthen your spine.
Remember as a kid when your mother said to sit up at the dinner table? Think of her as your very first yoga teacher; she didn’t want your back and spine to develop improperly. She, like your current yoga instructor, wanted you to have a healthy back and spine.
The first order of twisting is making sure there is space between each vertebra.
Sitting up and standing up tall creates the proper lengthening in the spine before you rotate.
If there is a lack of space between these bones, moving into a twist may feel like driving your car over a set of railroad tracks: rigid and bumpy. Bring length to the spine to make space for a safe and smooth rotation in the body.
You Can Do Laundry on those Washboard Abs
After lengthening the spine, next you’ll engage your abdominal muscles to move into the twist.
When you rotate the trunk of your body, it engages the oblique muscles and contributes to overall abdominal and core strength. This part of the abdominal system assists with twisting and holding the rotation. This holding action is what develops strength and stability in the core.
And as an added bonus, twisting postures tone and condition your abs; they may even get you bathing suit ready in the summer!
You Can Move Again
Twisting not only helps the mobility of the spine, but it can help your hips, too.
With the combination of lengthening the spine and engaging your core muscles before you perform a twist, you stabilize the hips in such a way that, when you eventually rotate, it actually creates greater mobility and flexibility in the hips.
You’ll be able to turn or rotate the trunk of your body with an added ease and grace as you practice twisting poses.
Wash & Rinse
Performing twisting or revolving yoga positions can be a cleansing and detoxifying experience.
When you twist, especially when you rotate the trunk of the body, think about what is happening to your internal organs: your liver, kidneys, stomach, and other organs also get a squeeze when you are in a twist.
Just like a dirty wet towel being wrung out, your organs can experience something similar. They can get a bit of a “rinse” when they are being wrung out; then fresh blood and oxygen can flow in when you move out of the rotation.
Unwind While You Unwind
And like most other yoga postures, twisting can help with the reduction of stress – an emotional detox. Think of wringing out all that stress that’s been saturating your mind a body.
Our organs, bones, and other bodily tissue actually store tension and stress. When you perform twisting postures accompanied by full deep breaths, they massage the internal organs and release the tension when oxygen and other nutrients flood the organs once the twist is complete.
Let’s take a look at a few common yoga twisting postures so you, too, can improve your spinal health and wring out that dirty laundry.
Twist & Shout
Let’s try this first twisting pose called the Revolving Chair Pose:
In this posture, you get to practice stability and balance as well as experience conditioning for your core muscles and hip flexibility. Here’s how you do it…
Start by standing nice and tall. As you inhale, raise your arms overhead. Exhale, and sit back as if you’re sitting into a chair that is behind you.
Bring your hands to a prayer position at your heart. Hold for a moment as you stabilize your body.
Engage your abdominal muscles as you exhale, this will help with the balance.
Now, take a long breath in to fill up your lungs and feel as if you are lengthening your spine.
It might even feel like you’re trying to rise up from your seat, but imagine you’re actually glued to the chair.
As you exhale, rotate the trunk of your body to the right side of the room.
The idea is to keep your hips aligned so that the twist occurs only with the upper portion of your body.
You can check this by taking a peek down at your knees; if they have shifted (one knee jets out farther than the other) that means your hips have fallen out of alignment.
You can easily adjust this by twisting less. Hold the posture for 5 to 10 breaths.
Just so you are sure that you are doing the pose properly, think of a jar of pickles. (Ok, a jar of pickles may have nothing to do with a yoga practice, but bear with me.)
When you unscrew the lid, you hold onto the base of the jar, right? Only the lid rotates. That’s what you want to create with your own body in a rotating posture. Think of the lower half of your body (from the waistline down) as the base of the jar. The upper half, your torso, is the lid. Get it? Oh, be sure to practice the pose on the other side, too.
Here’s another posture you can try that will help detoxify your system, condition your spine, and stretch your hips. It’s called Half Lord of the Fishes (Ardha Matsyendrasana).
Let’s Go Fishing!
Many yoga postures are named after mythical people or demigods including this one.
It is named for Matsyendra, the king of the fish, and a great yoga teacher. You can grab your yoga history books and learn more about him, but let’s focus on the actual delivery of the pose here.
Start by sitting on the floor with your legs extended out in front of you. Next, bend your knees and bring the soles of your feet together so they touch. (Your knees will point to either side of the room in this position.)
Take your right foot and step it over the left shin. Keep that foot flat on the floor. Your right knee will now be pointing toward the ceiling. For some stability and the preparation of the twist, place your left elbow on the right knee. Then place your right hand on the floor behind you. Now you’re ready.
As you inhale, press your right hand down into the floor to help you lift and extend your spine.
Exhale and gently twist the torso to the right. (The left elbow on your knee can assist you with the twist, but try not to force your body into the rotation. Let the breath do the work.)
When you inhale, also feel the breath rise to fill up your lungs. As you exhale, draw your navel inward toward your spine.
This action lengthens and supports the spine as you move into the posture.
Another thing to remember is to allow the rotation to originate as low as possible; ideally below the belly button.
You want to begin the rotation from the base of the spine then gradually move upward. Once there is no more movement available to you in the low belly, rotate the stomach region, then your chest, then your shoulder, and lastly your head.
All of this will create a full and functional rotation that you will hold for 5 to 10 breaths.
When you’re done, slowly unwind, and hold at neutral so that your spine and internal organs can recalibrate before twisting in the other direction.
Join The Revolution
There are many other twists you can add to your yoga practice; these are just a couple of examples.
But the idea is the same in regards to the steps you take to engage the pose: breathe in to lengthen the spine, exhale to move into the twist.
The action is simple, but the results are great: you’ll lengthen your spine, improve your posture, mobilize your hips, gain six-pack abs, and release unwanted stress and tension from your mind and body.
Give it a try!
Namaste.
The yoganum family
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