Wednesday’s Favorite Find

Week 1: Yoga’s Missing Nutrients

What you’ll learn:

• Don’t know what the posterior chain is? You’ll find out in this post.
• 4 poses you can easily incorporate into your yoga practice/class that weaves in the posterior chain.
• Note: when she lists the muscles of the posterior chain, she mentions the biceps. I’m assuming she’s talking about the biceps femoris, which is one of the hamstring muscles. Just pointing this out in case we have any anatomy nerds reading this. 🙂

Pam’s notes:

• If you take a look at the pictures of the author in Malasana pose and see how she incorporates the posterior chain, I mean…perfection. Because forward folds have a tendency to aggravate my back, my regular forward fold/uttanasana looks a lot like the last picture. The only difference is, I keep my hands on my shins so it looks more like Monkey Pose.
• If you know you have herniated/bulging disc issues and you’re well enough to go to yoga, you may want to consider practicing your standing forward fold this way.

Week 2: Breathing

What you’ll learn:

• How to use a scarf to preach everyday breathing into your upper back ribs

Pam’s notes:

• You can also use a yoga strap to practice.

Week 3: Foundation Training 

What you’ll learn:

• A series of foundation poses for back strength and health and exactly how to practice the exercises.

Pam’s notes:

• I have been doing this video off and on for years. When I practice it consistently, my back feels better.
• Dr. Eric Goodman made this video a while ago, and I’ve noticed he’s incorporated compression breathing into most of his poses. I’m guessing he’s done this because, for some people, extension in the back may create discomfort. Decompression breathing helps to create space in the low back as well as prevent you from overextending in the low back. If you missed it last week, here’s a 4-minute video teaching you decompression breathing.