anatomy of hollow body hold and back arch

Transcript

Namaste somebody sent me a question on a hollow back and Arch back and uh the movement of the scapula the scapula and the lats go very much together and and then it would also work into urana and Mand okay so I'm going to talk about all this in that position and obviously this question just makes me think what these Hollow back and Arch Back how this actually helps your practice why would this be a question and so it might be quite a a long answer okay so first hollow body hollow body is very important you know um we often hear about banana back especially in gymnastics terms they the kids must banana in their handstand generally the reason we do banana back is because the shoulders and the L the shoulders are closed and the lats are short so let me explain that quickly so hollow body position I call it boat it really really resembles um the there's your boat pose navasana and there's your half boat pose it really resembles half booat pose um or if you've ever done Kundalini Yoga we call this the stretch pose now the body position Arch Back is like that a banana back a round back is like really there and um when you're sitting up straight it's in between the two but people often myself included that's why I know it is don't know what the lower pelvis is doing or the lower pelvis is not connecting and that's the only connection your legs have to your torso is right in the lower pelvis so when you're doing your boat so for example we do navasana and we're trying to lift on the sit bones we're trying to get up tall but like there's so to get from boat navasana to Arda navasana you um can you work first with the pelvis turn lift the pelvis so I teach it like this you hold the legs soften the shoulders there's a bit of the the retraction already that we're going to talk about so the shoulders there is in protraction pushing your legs away from you will protract the shoulders but feel how nice that is for the lower belly then hold the lower belly there and retract so all you're really doing is lifting the heart and relaxing your shoulders and the shoulder blades start to move back onto your back again so now ready I'm in a much more controlled feeling position in the front of my body into navasana so I'm not necessarily on my sit bones and later on as we get stronger it will be able to move to the sit bones and not lose the belly but for now I'm just sitting a little bit back behind the sit bones to start the lift of your hip bones to start to push the pelvis forward you push it forward to come into the navasana or the the dish yeah that's what we called it in gymnastics the dish it's a hollow body then you start working in that position so if the um so that's where you find the length in the shoulder blade it's the length in the whole lat taking you into that position there okay really really strong pulling in the core and it's pulling in and lengthening up and out so you yes exactly that way where your transverse muscles and your obliques and all these muscles are lengthening rib cage udand going down and lifting up under the rib cage okay so that's a hollow body position um so if you try it from here you put your lower back on the floor stretch your leg and that will determine whether your stomach is actually strong enough to do it because your pelvis is not in the right place and your chest is down ribs are down and you can stretch your arms out then you start working towards the hip flexs are nice and Open start working towards the shoulders open if you want because that's really where you are preparation for handstands okay let's talk about the the Arch Back position it's really a salasana in yoga okay um the first thing is people often go think up so all you're doing is uh thinking up so when you go there arching drawing the shoulder blade back and closing out the lungs so I do make sure I feel the Press through the legs and again I'm doing that same thing in the pelvis the udana Bund the lower rib cage comes down and the hips go forward and you squeeze your bum and lift the legs okay so you got really more glutes lifting the legs then lower back so it's is said that it strengthened your lower back so I think of the lower bum muscles making a triangle into the center of your bum and you're lifting the stomach muscles up off the floor and lengthening the feet the big toes can pull away now I've got much more grip in the bum start lengthening through so this is interesting um the shoulder blades will come back back on your back your ribs down your tummy up and you pull and you lengthen through that's salasana uh I think in gymnastics they might do something like that or yeah they do exercises very very good for the shoulders just to lift kind of a physiotherapist exercise that one okay so again I'm not thinking up I'm thinking long you see my pelvis pushes into the ground and lifting the tummy again the same shape of lifting the hipbones same shape as Hol we go into hold there Arch and that works throughout for me everything I do in yoga so let's start protraction and retraction protraction and check in the description below I'll put some exercises of other great guys that have done great work and that actually that's their job to to um drawing the shoulder blades down the back okay so protraction is where the shoulder blades spread apart now we use that but we don't ever I find I don't ever use it in isolation I use it with the retraction so retraction is where you draw the shoulder blades on the back um so the protraction nice EX exercise here to see the shoulder is out then drawing back out drawing down and for me the drawing down is not just a a dropping of the shoulder because then then my back just Kinks so it's a drawing injust the shoulder thinking of the shoulder blade on your back drawing into the center into the center into the center like that but I don't do it without the protraction so protraction is there then all I do you can think of dialing out your hands or outer rotation of your upper arm also a lifting of your lat and a lifting of your armpit and then putting the shoulder blade in the cuz that's where I really want to do my push-ups it's also where you want to have uh any any elevation like you going from bassana to handstand you're going from any anywhere you're lifting the body up and you're needing your shoulders to carry and bear the weight you want that shoulder girdle to like stabilize and it stabilizes by the protraction I mean just even take a back bend we think oh back bend and really back bend is going to go pull back so now I'm in protraction then I take the retraction without losing the feeling of the protraction so my chest is back that's really a lifted chest and then I go into the back bend so my shoulder blades and are are on the back underneath on the the shoulder blades pushing the back up same as a a lengthened arm back bend you you don't want to be too extended okay you want to hug it in lengthen it out so there I'm elevating the shoulder and then I'm going to not depress them by drawing them down but bringing them down by doing the outer rotation and the retraction so there and then I draw the retraction down so now say you're doing Sur Nam mascar or just standing back bend or backdrop you're lifting from the pelvis and then drawing the shoulder the blades down stretching out and then opening the shoulders there or Cabo tyer anything there the shoulder blades so out first re protraction then retraction without and so the only way I do it it's very simple just do it without popping your rib cage so you got the protraction lifting the tummy then you draw your shoulder blades back there so you'll notice there's a bit of an outer rotation and the shoulder blade sometimes the rids are weak the muscle between and they if they're weak they're tight you can just use two tennis balls uh put it in a sock you can put two two higher balls put it in a sock and you roll them between your shoulder blades you put them between the shoulder blades that's where the rum boids are and you massage that part out so just going to do that quickly and then you'll see my shoulders pop much better okay you can do the standing up against a wall okay because I think that's also the tightness that causes the ribs then to pop instead of doing the back bend without so again I first make sure I got the front of my body and the chest lifted so that's not a lifted chest that's just a that's actually a drop chest let me quickly explain that so we're going into a handstand and if I say to you lift your chest okay before we do handstand I say to you lift your chest so people do things like great I'm lifting my chest now watch it in a handstand is if I drop my chest which was the lift that I thought before it's going to and it's not going to lift up but now comes the the protraction you're putting uh you're pushing out then leaning into your hands you rotate you get the shoulder girdle strong with the outer rotation and the uh retraction and that will depress the shoulder again so if you watch sometimes we have down dog like that with an elevated shoulder blades I don't want to just drop them because that made my back Dr okay so I'm going to lengthen bring my chest up now you see it this is actually lifting my chest up and then bring the shoulder blades on the back pressing and strengthening and that made the space between my ear and the shoulder open up again that brought the shoulder down not trying to push it down in any way lifting wrapping you wrap it around from the back so that you're hugging into the center line and that is where the handstand will happen it really is back to your hollow body position stretching hugging and strengthening in the shoulder girdle from the pelvis but I think for now I've answered the question I think good I hope so thank you for watching namaste