WELCOME TO the MONTHLY THROUGH LINE

Hey Chromatic family, it’s Simon here from Chromatic Yoga. July has flown by for me and here we are in August for the Monthly Through Line.  We’re still on anatomical exploration, focusing on muscle engagements and joint actions. This month we are going to the outer edges of our body… to the EXTREMITIES, in other words our HANDS and FEET. 

For anyone who is new here, read on about what the CHROMATIC MONTHLY THROUGH LINES are, for you regulars, skip on to the juicy stuff! 

In Chromatic Yoga, we keep things straightforward. That’s why we’ve being doing this “Monthly Through Line” community initiative for over a year now. It’s designed to help you – our Chromatic Teachers – focus and intelligently design your classes to best support your students. If you’re not a Chromatic Teacher yet, and are simply here out of interest, that’s great too, as you’ll be able to apply these through-lines to gain more insight in to body biomechanics and potentially access the poses in a deeper and more intelligent way.

WHAT IS A PHYSICAL THROUGH LINE? 

• A Physical Through Line is a term we use in Chromatic Yoga that is defined by the muscle engagement (e.g. engaging the glutes in Warrior 3), or the joint action (e.g. hip extension in Warrior 3) that we focus on through the duration of the yoga class. Certified Chromatic Teachers construct their classes around a PTL (Physical Through Line) in order to create a more effective learning environment for students. As a student you can expect that each Chromatic class will include a PTL. Of course, you will do other postures and other muscle engagements within a Chromatic class, however there is a strong emphasis on the PTL.

FOUNDATIONS – OUR HANDS AND FEET

Building Stability from the Ground Up

This month we shift our attention to the two parts of the body that connect us most directly to the world around us: our hands and our feet.

Every standing posture begins with the feet. Every arm balance and inversion begins with the hands, and many transitions use both.

They are our foundation.

Yet despite their importance, we often overlook them. We stretch our hamstrings, mobilise our hips and strengthen our shoulders, while our wrists and ankles quietly do thousands of repetitions every single day without much attention.

Chromatic Yoga encourages us to develop intelligent functional sequences and practices. Strong, mobile hands and feet don’t simply prevent injury, they create better force transfer throughout the entire kinetic chain. A stronger foot creates a stronger leg. A stronger hand creates a stronger shoulder.

This month we’ll explore four fundamental joint actions and their associated muscle engagements that form the basis of almost every yoga practice:

• Week 1 – Wrist Flexion
• Week 2 – Wrist Extension
• Week 3 – Ankle Plantar Flexion
• Week 4 – Ankle Dorsiflexion

Rather than simply stretching these positions, we’ll also investigate active mobility, isometric strength, and resisted loading, helping the nervous system gain true ownership of these ranges of motion.

Week 1: wrist Flexion 

What It Is: Wrist flexion occurs when the palm moves toward the inner forearm. Make a fist, and curl your fist inward toward your inner forearm to feel your wrist flexors light up. I remember this by a visual of Popeye’s forearms and alliteration – F fingers to F forearm for F flexion. That might help you also 🙂 

Key Muscles:  Flexor Carpi Radialis, Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, Palmaris Longus, Flexor Digitorum Superficialis and Profondis .

Why It Matters: In yoga we spend enormous amounts of time loading the wrist into extension – think Downward Dog, Plank, Chaturanga, Crow and Handstand. Ironically, very few people might actively train the opposite movement of flexion.  While flexion may appear less glamorous than extension, flexion plays an very important role in balancing the musculature of the forearm, maintaining healthy tendons, and improving grip strength. And with out active flexion and engaging those muscles through the action of pressing your palm in to your mat and gripping your fingers, arm balances would most likely leave you flat on your face! 

Where it shows up: Literally any time your hands are on your mat your have the opportunity to work on the muscle engagement of flexion to oppose the joint action of extension. Think Downdog, Plank, Chaturanga, Cobra, Updog, Side Plank… the joint action of the wrist is in extension, however by pressing the palm down and dragging the palm and fingers tips toward the inner forearm, the muscle engagement is wrist flexion.  

Week 2: WRIST EXTENSION 

What It Is: Bringing the back of your hand toward the top of your forearm is wrist extension. 

Key Muscles: Extensor Carpi Radialis Longus (ECRL), Extensor Carpi Radialis Brevis (ECRB), Extensor Carpi Ulnaris (ECU) 

Why It Matters: Every time we place our hands on the floor, the wrists become weight-bearing joints. Healthy wrist extension requires more than flexibility, it requires joint mobility and muscular endurance. Rather than collapsing in to the base of the palm, one of the biggest improvements we can give students is to help them distribute pressure evenly through the fingertips, knuckles and heel of the hand. 

Where it shows up: Crow, Side Plank, Handstand, Downward dog, Wild Thing.  

Week 3: ankle plantar flexion

What It Is: Simply think pointing your foot, or planting and pressing the ball of your foot down and away from you. Like when you “plant” your foot down on your mat and imagine you are pressing the ground away. In every day life, think pressing the gas peddle of your car, or the brake or clutch if you drive stick! If you are in to high heels, your ankle is definitely in plantar flexion in high heels.   

Key Muscles: Gastrocnemius, Soleus,Tibialis Posterior, Flexor Hallucis Longus, Peroneals

Why It Matters: Plantar flexion helps create propulsion during walking, jumping and running, while in yoga it contributes to stability, balance and control. 

Where it shows up: Literally any time you heels are lifted or you are pressing the ball mound of your foot away from you or down in to your mat, you are automatically in plantar flexion. So any time you rise to standing, or lean in to any standing balance postures, we’re in plantar flexion. It shows up in many transitions, think moving from Downdog to High Plank, or anytime you are stepping forward from Downdog to a lunge prep, or jumping forward to the top of your mat. The back foot is generally always in plantar flexion in a Crescent Lunge/High Lunge position, and if we are actively cueing pressing the front foot ball down mound into your mat, then we are doubling up with back and front feet plantar flexion.

Week 4: ankle dorsi flexion

What It Is: When you pull the top of your foot up toward your shin. It also happens every time the tibia (shin bone) travels forward over the foot, for example during walking, squatting, and lunging. Often also thought of as a flexibility issue, dorsiflexion is equally a matter of strength, motor control and load tolerance.   

Key Muscles: Tibialis Anterior, Extensor Hallucis Longus (EHL) [+big toe extender], Extensor Digitorum Longus (EDL) [+toes 2-5 extender], Fibularis (Peroneus) Tertius

Why It Matters: Restricted dorsiflexion can lead to compensation elsewhere in the body, including excessive pronation of the foot, knee valgus (bowing) and reduced squat depth. 

Where it shows up: Think Yogic Squat – Malasana, Chair Pose, Warrior 1 and 2, Pyramid Pose and standing transitions. 

Simon’s RECAP AND TIPS

As always with Chromatic, how you want to apply to joint actions or muscle engagements in your class starts with your intention. I always ask myself this before teaching.  

Chromatic Yoga is a global community. No matter where you are in the world, we hope you’ll join us this month for a deep dive into the possibilities of flexion. Share/tag/collaborate your poses and teachings on Instagram. 

 Wishing you an intentional and transformative practice, 

~Simon Darroch, Director of Projects and Initiatives

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