Yoga Explained: Reciprocal Inhibition

Transcript

[Music] hello there welcome to diogo with me's yoga explained this episode is on reciprocal inhibition before i get into that my name is david precision i am the founder of the yoga with me and this series of videos are tutorials on how to understand yourself yoga and different aspects of yoga better like anatomy and whether you're a student or a teacher learning as much as you can can benefit you in your daily life in your practice and when you're teaching so reciprocal inhibition is one concept of a yoga teacher training program it's concept within ours it's in fact it's part of a couple courses the anatomy of muscles and connective tissue and anatomy of the nervous system and you'll see links to those reciprocal inhibition is described as the one muscle that's activated causes its opposite to release so an easy example you can do this anywhere in your body but easy example would be the wrist you contract it this way the muscles on the other side release so these muscles contract those release you can do it with your fingers your neck all different directions your arms so whatever bone is moving the muscle that's making it move it's opposite the nervous system releases okay so we're going to apply this to the lunge and also describe why this is important in terms of stability because when you're in when you're in a certain pose and you want to maximize your potential to stretch while doing it safely creating stability for your body you want to know what muscles to optimally have on and which muscles are ideal to release okay so lunge is a good example it's a pretty simple pose right you're shifting forward into the lunge you feel the stretch in the front of your thigh so your hip flexors are stretching and they aren't always on but ideally you have the muscles at the back on so your glute in your hamstring okay in my classes often before people even move into a lunge or warrior one is the same i get them to poke their butt cheek on the side of the the leg that's down or back poke it to make sure that muscle's on so the muscle's clenched and the same idea with your hamstring so you do that by squeezing the glute you're actually pushing the leg bone back it's like you're you're running you're pushing off of that foot that's the feeling that you want that leg is pushing back before you move into the lunge before you move into warrior one okay so don't even move into the lunge poke your glute turn it on push the leg back now a lot of people start to feel a cramp here and that is an indication that you're doing it right so that's number one you're doing it right number two these muscles are not used to turning on that's why you're getting a cramp so you can kind of work into it every time you do warrior one or a lunge or any pose like this turn it on until maybe you feel like a cramp is coming on then turn it off and then over time you'll be able to turn it on for longer and then you'll just be able to turn on for as long as you want okay so turn on sorry if this is lasting too long and then move into the lunge and see if you can keep it on the whole time okay and then come back out so reciprocal inhibition is you're turning these back muscles on which releases the front muscles and prepares them gets them ready to stretch then you move into the stretch keeping these muscles on and you allow the hip flexors to let go okay why don't we switch sides so that we give the legs break and try it again don't move into the stretch yet turn on your glute turn on your hamstrings like you're pushing off that foot and then keep it on keep it on keep it on as you move into the lunge and then come back out and again keep it on keeping on keeping on as you move into the lunge and then come back up okay let's apply it to a slightly different pose really simple transition just move that front foot forward a little bit so this is going to be a hamstring stretch now so it's the exact opposite of what we're doing so you flip the muscles around okay and then we're bringing the calf into this as well so straighten that leg i should have told you you could hold on to something if you're quite precarious with your balance here so to stretch the back of your leg back of the thigh back of the calf you engage the muscles in the front okay so let's start at the bottom just because it's easier so you do that by lifting your toes so the shin muscles engage toes lift and that releases the calf and then to do it in the front of the thigh you lift your kneecap press your leg bone down okay lift the toes press the leg bone down i'm having trouble balancing here too place your hand on your thigh to get your balance and then come forward over that leg and that's how you get the stretch okay and make sure that you keep it on so you keep lifting the toes keep pressing the thigh bone down and then come back up again okay let's switch to the other side and just do the hamstring stretch feel free to position yourself differently pause the video if you need to sometimes i'll put blocks there or a chair for my students okay straighten that leg engage the front of your leg so lift the toes press the thigh bone down lift your knee cap so the quadricep lifts your kneecap that's the muscle of the front and then come into the stretch oh feeling a little wobbly it's a good stretch keeping those muscles at the front on the whole time and then come back up come back up okay reciprocal inhibition see if you can apply that in a yoga practice just identify i mean it's going to happen 100 times more throughout one class hundreds of times throughout a class where you're moving into something you're recognizing the muscles that are moving you into the pose and the muscles that you need to release okay or the muscles you need to create stability and creating the stability which muscles are stretching over and over and over again see if you can recognize that and see if you can turn on those muscles to create the stability the movement holding the body in that position and the release thank you for joining me there's a link to our teacher training program yeah if you want to check it out click on it and check out more of our yoyx plane i look forward to seeing you again