Engagment Vs. Alignment

There are so many opinions about how to do each posture in yoga, and they each of their benefits and their draw backs. The major confusion however comes from not understanding the difference between a muscle engagement and an alignment. Alignment is a placement of your bones or a set of joint articulations. A muscle engagement within a static posture is what we would call isometric – engagement without movement. To help you understand, get into chair pose with your knees bent. Ask yourself if your quads are active? Yes, of course they are, but the quads are the muscles that straighten your legs and yet your knees are still bent. THIS is why so many get confused, you can engage muscles that support the alignment, and you can engage muscles that appose the alignment.

Balancing Action Vs. Fundamental Action

In Chromatic Yoga I created two terms to help understand isometric engagements. Balancing action is the muscle engagement that apposes the alignment – Quadriceps activation in chair pose is the perfect example. Fundamental Action is an isometric engagement of same muscles as the joint alignment, so in the case of chair pose you would have to engage your hamstrings which is challenging due to the relationship to gravity in that posture. An easier example is plank pose, you have to activate your triceps in order to keep the elbows straight. To clear up the how to of chaturanga I have created the following video. 

See the full blog and chaturanga part 2 on theyogimatt.com/free

The Chaturanga Breakdown

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Gluteus Maximus

In the practice of yoga, I often hear well meaning teachers use the cue “relax the butt” positions that require hip extension, like backbends.  While I get the intention is to decrease the risk of lumbar spine compression in back bends, my question is, Does it really do that, or is it simply reinforcing a weak back body chain

After many years struggling with pain in my lower back and an avoidance of any kind of back bends, I have begun to realize, it is the mechanics themselves that were causing me problems. See the video above to gain a better understanding of the movements caused by engagement of the Gluteus Maximus, and see how firing up these muscles can decrease pain and improve your strength and range of motion.

 Get Your Glutes Engaged with These Simple Steps