The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › General Hot Yoga Discussion › Hot Yoga *faq* › What body parts do the 26 postures neglect?
The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › General Hot Yoga Discussion › Hot Yoga *faq* › What body parts do the 26 postures neglect?
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I started doing hot yoga a month ago and am really enjoying it. It seems to me that there are several body parts that get neglected, and I’m looking to do some supplemental stretching of them.
1) Groin: None of the poses stretch the inner groin (i.e., working toward a side split).
2) Hip flexors
3) Shoulders: Locust and half-moon do some shoulder work, but nothing seems to help me work toward touching my hands behind my back (where one arm goes up and the other down and you clasp hands behind your back. I’m not sure I described that well.
Are there any other body parts I should think about stretching separately?
hi there sorry I cant help you on this as I have not been doing yoga too long myself… I am new to the site and looking to chat about yoga practise but the site seems a bit quite at the this moment in time …have you been here long ?
Floor Bow and Camel give a pretty big stretch of the entire back/shoulders. I think that I understand what you are describing…Is it more of a diagonal reach across the back, grasping the fingertips together in the center of the back?
You might try doing a You Tube search for Yoga for the shoulders and Yoga for the lower body and see what comes up. I have a video of Yin Yoga that I found on YT that I use for supplemental stretching.
Hello Keith, Carl and Helen 😉
So let me answer about those body parts in a moment. Keith, the poses are a great way for the body to open up. There are definitely ways to improve in certain areas. One way is to do some downward facing dogs, and planks that you find in vinyasa or power yoga. That really makes a difference to one’s shoulders and wrists and core strength. The wrists and shoulders and building of upper body strength is what is missing from Bikram or hot yoga.
For the groin: You do get some stretching mainly in floor janushirasana, tree pose and toe stand. For supplemental stretching go for ‘Pigeon’ pose and even ‘Dragon’. Go to look at yin yoga poses for photos.
For the hip flexors: The ones that stand out are Standing bow, Camel, Floor bow for starters. If you don’t feel it in Standing bow, please take a look around the forum or other of my resources for the way to activate that delicious stretch. There’s Triangle too.
When you activate poses well the progress in those areas is faster. Hunt around the forum for specific techniques not covered in sufficient detail in scripted classes.
The pose for the shoulders you mention is often called Cow Face Pose. It is best practised by using a small hand towel. You can make sure you have the elbows as far back as possible even if the hands are not together. The towel will let you activate the right muscles and not have you collapsing forward because of tightness. Hold the towel in the arm that is going to stay high. Then the rest of the towel will fall towards the other hand. You can grip and then climb the hands towards each other as your shoulders open up. Be gentle! It’s quite an intense pose. Think more about keeping the shoulders down and back rather than how close you can get your hands. It will happen! 😉
Let me know how you go.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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