When listening to the complete works of dream of Red Mansions for free to practice yoga, many people often have a question, that is, “is the hip tightened or relaxed when bending back?” On this issue, some teachers said that they should tighten, while others said that they should try to relax.
In fact, these two statements are not wrong, but they are also wrong.
Why do you say so? Because in the backward bending of yoga, the hips are controlled activities in the positive activation state, which are neither completely tightened nor completely relaxed.
Wrong and right? What do you mean? The reason why the above two statements of teachers are not wrong is that in real life, yoga teaching varies from person to person.
For example, some people are in a completely slack state when doing back bends, without activation or control.
At this time, the teacher needs to give a password to tighten his hips, in order to activate his hips and consciously control his hips.
Therefore, to practice yoga, you need to master more practice principles, rather than memorize the “password”.
Because the “password” will vary according to the different conditions of different Jia people, and even the opposite, but the principle is always the same.
How do the “contractionists” view this issue? The strongest hip extensor is the gluteus maximus, the upper end of which is attached to the pelvis and the back of the sacrum.
The fibers of gluteus maximus lead diagonally downward to one side, and its lower end is attached to the posterior side of the upper end of the thigh bone and the fascia lata, which is a strong band of connective tissue located on the outside of the thigh.
When the gluteus maximus is tightened, there are three actions: stretching the hip joint; Rotate the thigh bone outward; Pull the thigh bone outward to one side (abduction).
In these three actions, only stretching can make you go deep into the backward bending posture; The other two will cause dislocation.
Because the dislocation caused by it has both positive and negative sides, which is the main reason why people don’t know whether they should use gluteal muscles in backward bending posture.
Teachers in the “contractionist” camp seem to only see the positive effect of contracting gluteal muscles in the backward bending pose.
They believe that contracting the gluteal muscles can make the top of the pelvis and sacrum tilt back, which helps to release the tension of the lower back.
By extending the hip joint and strengthening the hip, they can stretch the hip flexors.
Therefore, the conclusion of the “contractionists” is that everyone should contract his gluteal muscles in the backward bending pose.
How do the “slackers” view this issue? “Relaxation school”: contracting gluteal muscles will prevent those very flexible yoga practitioners from completely entering deep backward bending.
To achieve the greatest degree of retroflexion, the pelvis must be tilted backwards.
When you tighten your gluteus maximus, first tilt your pelvis backward.
Once you enter full contraction, the muscles will form a lump between the back of your pelvis and the back of your thighs.
In extreme retroflexion, this block will prevent the pelvis from leaning back further, which makes the flexible practitioner unable to give full play to their abilities.
What’s worse, if the flexible yoga practitioner allows the gluteal muscles to pull the thighs apart and rotate outward, and complies with the natural tendency of the muscles, it will make the greater trochanter (the bulge at the upper end of the outer thigh bone) stuck at the back of the pelvis, further preventing the pelvis from tilting backward.
Therefore, it is no wonder that many people with particularly loose muscles choose to do “relaxation pie” when bending backward: the tightened gluteal muscles cannot enter their favorite posture 100%.
The contradiction of the argument is that the “contractionists” may have to refute: there are good reasons to believe that this is the problem of a few extremely flexible yoga practitioners.
For ordinary yoga practitioners, the tight hip flexor will make the pelvis unable to tilt back too much until it touches the lump of gluteal muscle or greater trochanter.
If you have the opportunity to stretch your hips, why don’t ordinary practitioners have the right to tighten your hips and lengthen your back? The “slackers” also showed no weakness and would retort that for everyone, contracting gluteal muscles in the backward bend pose is not a good thing.
Even if the gluteus maximus stretches the iliopsoas muscle by extending the hip, it will also partially offset the stretching effect of the iliopsoas muscle by separating the thighs and rotating outward (these actions make the lesser trochanter close to the pelvis and shorten the iliopsoas muscle).
Similarly, this abduction and outward rotation action will also waste most of the energy of the hips, because muscle strength is directed to both sides and is not used to pull the thighs directly behind in the direction of backward bending.
In fact, you can choose “neutral school” and “neutral school” agree with the view of “relaxation school”, that is, tightening hip muscles will prevent extremely soft yoga practitioners from giving full play to their full potential in backward bending posture, but the weakness is: every reason is based on the assumption that tightening hip muscles will pull thighs apart and rotate outward.
“Neutrals” believed that tightening the hips could help ordinary yoga practitioners, so they asked: “is there a way to allow the gluteal muscles to contract in the backward bending process without causing external rotation of the thigh? Can this enable ordinary yoga practitioners to enjoy the benefits of muscle strength without negative effects?” The answer is yes.
The specific method is divided into three parts: selectively contract the gluteus maximus and produce the maximum hip extension through the minimum abduction and external rotation; Contract the auxiliary muscles and increase the extension of the hip; Contract the guide muscle to help maintain the adduction of the thigh bone.
The upper fiber of gluteus maximus can produce the maximum abduction and external rotation, and the lower fiber can produce the maximum extension; Therefore, in the backward bending posture, if you contract the hip area, you should focus on tightening the lower half and keeping the upper half soft.
In yoga backward bending, the constant practice principle 1.
The positive position and stability of the foundation take camel pose as an example.
In backward bending, the feet of camel pose are separated by the same width as the hips, the instep of the calf should be pressed hard on the cushion surface, and the thigh muscles should be tightened, so as to lay a stable foundation for backward bending.
2.
The extension of the spine.
The extension of the spine is not only in retroflexion, but also in most asanas of yoga.
This principle should always run through the practice of asanas..