Attend Yogalign (The New Yoga) Teachers Training, October 2011
You may be over-stretching the ligament structures that keep your sacrum in a natural tilt of approximately 30 degrees.
The sacral platform is a shock absorber designed to cushion our hips, knees, and feet as we move.
One of the reasons why chair sitting is so painful is that most of us collapse in the sacrum and round over our computer straining the sacrum and the big blind spot is that many yoga poses affect the body the same way as sitting in a chair does.
I have worked with hundreds of yoga practitioners who have not only a flat butt but also over-stretched ligaments of the sacroilliac joint.
To make matters worse, many are now suffering from SI joint pain, sciatica, and in the long term hip and knee compression that in some cases is requiring replacement surgery. Yogis needing hip replacements? What is happening? Well bending over and reversing the tilt of your sacrum makes your ligaments get too lax and this type of flexibility becomes a liability in the long run.
Try walking with your knees straight and experience how the low back is the fulcrum for the tension. Why are we doing yoga and fitness poses that affect that body like driving with a parking brake on in a car?
Myths that we all have believed in that have created avidyas or avoidances about what is appropriate for the human body and the no pain no gain philosophy still pervade our way of engaging the body in fitness and asana.
One of the fitness myths that has permeated our culture is if one is unable to touch their toes without bending the knees, it means that that person is not considered flexible. The truth is that we are designed to move and in order to do that, we must bend one or both of our knees. So what is the point of trying to stretch to get flexible in body positions that do not even allow one to move?
This may twist your belief systems but the body does not lie. Whether done from standing or sitting, leaning forward while toe touching with straight legs is not a functional measure of flexibility or a means to get flexible. If you do yoga but suffer from SI joint, hip, knee pain or sciatica, you may have destabilized your sacral platform.
If you stand sidewise to a mirror and your sacral bone is vertical and your butt looks flat, I suggest that you stop the forward bending with straight legs and begin to develop muscle strength in your core that supports natural spine alignment as opposed to poses that allow you to "hang" from your ligaments.
YogAlign, Pain-free Yoga from Your Inner Core is coming in the next two weeks. In the book, I will explain to you how to be flexible with no painful stretching and how to protect your ligaments from over-stretching in yoga and fitness.
Please sign in to my website at www.yogalign.com and I will be sending emails to everyone interested in the book.
In 2012, myself and the YogAlign team are planning seminars and workshops to teach and certify others in the YogAlign method in many parts of the US and abroad. Join us for a pain-free life.
aloha nui ,
Michaelle Edwards
