High Plank Pose, - Phalakasana: Yoga Tutorial Plus Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Transcript

Hello my loves, welcome back. In today's video we're going to talk about plank pose. So we're going to talk about how to do the pose, some common errors and some fixes along with a few tips and tricks along the way. So plank pose is a great pose for building upper body strength and stability and working the core and we think about working the core as the whole of the musculature around the trunk. It's a common pose that's used in yoga flows transitioning from down dog into up dog. But quite often it gets kind of funky part way through because people for whatever reason just want to kind of fumble their way through the pose. So today we're going to stop the fumbling and we're going to start working. All right so come over onto your hands and knees and we'll go over plank pose here. And the first thing that I want you to do is to walk the hands a little bit further forward of the shoulders. So traditionally here as you come onto all fours you'll be hands underneath the shoulders, knees underneath the hips. This is not a great position to start your plank pose in. I want you to take the hands about six inches further forward. Shift the weight forward so that the shoulders are more over the hands but the hips are forward of the knees. Pull the navel to the spine, push the floor away so that you feel a little activation through the musculature of the chest here. Push the hands into the floor, feel the upper back rise, tug the toes, keep drawing the navel to the spine and just extend the legs. Now there should be a nice line from the head to the heart to the hips to the heels. And this is your plank pose. Keep drawing the navel up towards the spine. Now if you stay here long enough you should start shaking. You'll feel the arms start to shake. You'll feel the legs maybe start to quiver a little and you'll feel yourself going to get a little bit out of breath. It's a strong pose. You're holding your body weight. However, there's always a however isn't there? It's very easy to do plank pose and not feel anything or feel things in the wrong places. So let's look at some common errors in plank pose. And the first one is that people will start off in this little box position, tuck their toes and then try and come into plank pose. And a couple of things can happen here. One, you'll find your shoulders are forward of your wrists and then you'll end up with more compression in the wrist joint. Not ideal. So typically your wrists don't have 90 degrees of extension. They don't come into this very flat position here. There are some exceptions. And for us, when we come into this kind of squished, contracted position, we tuck the toes, we extend, we can lengthen out because we have this extra little bit of extension in our wrists. So now my shoulders are in front of my wrists. That is not the case for most people. So what most people will end up doing is then they come into this box position, they'll tuck their toes, draw the navel to the spine, extend the legs and then have to lift their bum up because there's nowhere for their wrist to extend them forward. Or they'll start pushing away into this kind of hybrid down dog plank variation. Lengthen. Again, take the hands further forward. And the further forward position is actually your modification. So you'll take the hands further forward, draw the navel to the spine. And this is your modified plank. Knees on the floor, navel to spine, tug the toes, push the hands into the floor, extend the legs. That's your plank pose. If your bum is lifted up, the quick fix is to take the hands and the feet further apart. Now the flip side of that is that maybe your bum isn't lifted, but maybe your bum is just sagging and you're doing some weird kind of up dog plank variation. And you're here and you're just working so hard. Your back's killing you, but you just feel like something's wrong. Something is wrong. You're not working your core. If you feel anything in your lower back, pinching, the effort is all transferred to your lower back, you're doing it wrong. Come back to your basic on your knees. So as soon as you start to feel the hips drop, the shoulders sag, the chest sag, you've lost it. Drop the knees, take a break if you need to, pull the navel to the spine, push away into the floor, take your break here, and then lengthen again through the legs. Drop the knees again when you need to rather than dipping the butt down. Other tips and tricks in our plank pose come in the transitions. And typically we transition to plank from downward facing dog. So let's look at that. As you come into your downward facing dog, I want you to just see if the same kind of problem is occurring. As you take your down dog, are you coming into plank and getting stuck? Are you coming into plank and not finding that you have this nice line from the head to the hips to the heels? Is this butt thing happening again? If so, your downward facing dog needs to change. Take the feet further back, set up your plank, and then lift the hips up because the transition should be smooth and effortless. Lengthen your plank, lengthen your downward facing dog. Now, another common thing that I get about plank pose is it's all about the wrists. My wrists hurt in plank pose. If you find that your wrists hurt in plank pose, check out this video on some alternatives on using props to help in your plank pose. It could also be that you just need to drop the knees in plank pose, walk the hands forward, and then just take knee plank pose and be here. Again, same things apply. Push the floor away, draw the navel to the spine. If you really find that you still have wrist issues, it's fine to bring the forearms to the floor. This is a different variation of the pose. Now, I could talk about planks all day. They're one of my favorite poses, but to make this video more succinct and not take an hour long, I'm going to discuss one more tip and that is duration. If you can hold your plank, proper plank, core engagement, pushing the floor away, pulling the navel to the spine, head, hip, heel alignment, and everything is engaged and you can stay here for a minute, fantastic. However, if you're staying there for five minutes, I would advise that instead you think about challenging the pose in different ways. There are a ton of ways to do plank, a ton. Again, I could literally do a whole hour long video just on variations of plank. It's one of my favorite things to do in a yoga class is to build in different plank variations. Think about moving your feet. Think about moving your hands. Think about different ways that you could move your body. Maybe you're going from plank to side plank. Okay, my loves, I hope you found that useful. If you did, give me a thumbs up. And remember, my loves, that karma is only a bitch if you are. So be nice, be kind, and be the change that you want to see in the world.