Yoga Talks: Core Strength: Anatomy and Energetics

Transcript

[Music] hi and welcome to yoga talks live I'm Ashley Sargent I'm your host and I am today here with Gina Caputo and today we're gonna be talking about the anatomy and the energetics of the core which I mean could mean so many things indeed and also I almost forgot we also here with Jacqueline Jacqueline is here to help answer questions directly coming in from members so Gina I know this is a topic that's really kind of near and dear yes your heart quite literally core right below it so why don't we just start off a little with you know what's your spiel on the core core all right so I actually like to think of my core I love the word but I think that it's been used and adopted in a way that would for a lot of people not everyone but would suggest that it means your abdominal muscles yeah and I actually like to think of it being like a whole department and not just like a certain set of muscles so for me when I say core or when I teach about core I really mean like the hub of your body and in the context of yoga asana it's really the hub of every pose so for me core is really absolutely a 360-degree department so we've got our abdominals on the front and a bit on the sides you've got your pelvic floor you've got some of the deeper muscles of your trunk like quadratus lumborum on the back the iliopsoas really deep in the front and then I really also think of all of your erector spinae those are the muscles of your back so I really just think of core as being this did I say bottom pelvic floor yeah top you've got like your diaphragm right right so truly 360 and I that's that's beneficial in my opinion to understand your core as that both anatomically as well as energetically yeah and I think one of the things also as well as again not everyone thinks of it this way but there has been so much kind of emphasis on like this strong physical like from the abdominal region yeah and you know I love always the analogy of what doesn't Bend breaks you know and this concept I think of having a strong core more like literally like tight core tight your abs especially for women pull it tight yeah for sure is a total you know misnomer out there because again you know if we think about an you know we know more and more as we start to dive into the deeper things that concepts of Anatomy is that we used to kind of think of the anatomical structure as this kind of like brick and mortar type stackable thing that we also think about buildings and we know more so now that as the concept of like bio tensegrities keeps coming bigger the idea of fashio and connective tissue right that is but actually it's more like our our bones and our organs and everything are actually kind of more held inside of this like elasticy floaty very watery structure right including the muscles as well right and so any place where something is so tight rich or strong or rigid is going to cause all sorts of issues and other planned heed I like to think of when it comes to the health of your nervous system like a healthy nervous system and here I'm talking like your autonomic nervous system that's freeze fight-or-flight and the rest and digest response a healthy nervous system is one that can activate when need be and relax when need be and I apply the same logic to like the health of your core is I love the idea of your core being able to be strong when the moments call for it like if you're destabilized you're about to fall you're lifting something heavy you know you've gone to Costco and you're getting all your groceries out of the car torn or whatever like I love the idea of being able to engage but I also think that it's equally important to be able to also soften kind of to your point where everything is connected and if we overemphasize you're going to end up with like hypertonic muscles hypertonic pelvic floor right where you don't have the ability to really relax and soften when appropriate and you know where we see this in yoga I'm sure you have to as a teacher is when we do pranayamas like kapalabhati yeah which is the skull shining breath or you're pumping your abdomen and over the years I've noticed that folks who have really cultivated this very tight core in the sense of it's always drawn in Ludhiana bandha emphasis to the extreme that actually for some of them the relaxing part well it's not really relaxing but the part of kapalabhati where you have to relax your abdominal muscles to allow your diaphragm to drop yeah is the hardest part where the pushing out the is less hard because that's their their normal now yeah but you see it in the inability to like fluctuate your abdomen so I always say like get in touch with your inner Ganesh and kind of let it hang yeah yeah every part of ourselves should be able to ultimately in a healthy way engage and then lengthen exactly oh yeah I'm interested to hear what some of the y'all are asking for some of the y'all somebody tell us y'all Jacquelyn what are people asking so we have a member unbound who's asking more about the energetics of the core they're asking about the energetic and chakra implications of strengthening the core muscles and he's also wondering if they all relate to the same energies or do different muscles relate differently to these energies hmm I think that's a really great question and I think we can say a lot about it you know I'll chime in first by saying that I think it's an awesome question and I think there's so many ways to kind of dive into this in so many ways that we can take the different maps of different systems you know for example so the chakra system is a system that is found in yoga traditions and there's lots of yoga traditions that can't even really agree necessarily on the chakra system so we can start with that and then we have the muscles and then we have Chinese medicine that kind of does all this mapping and I think there's I think it's beautiful and I love it and I kind of also want to start by saying that there is this very kind of Western mindset technology that like everything needs to like fit together in this like exact way and this desire for this exact thing to correlate to this thing and this thing to correlate to that thing so that it all fits in a pretty little box and like the deeper I study yoga like the more that concept gets completely blown apart and so I just want to kind of state with that because I think there's as we can dive into some of these ideas you know in my experience different traditions say different things and I experienced the energetics of my body shifting different energy centers differently all the time so I think if we were to talk about the chakras specifically I think of kind of like the core chakras would be swadisthana chakra so second chakra sacral chakra montipora chakra in the core in the belly in the navel Center and the heart chakra and there's all sorts of implications I'm going to let you dive into a little bit of like that the anatomy around it but when I think of that I think that having these energies activated is very different than having these muscles activated not to say that they don't interact or they don't intersect sometimes but we absolutely can you know Anna day a Judith wrote a beautiful book that I love called wheels of life if no one's checked it out I think it's a great book and she really gets into kind of talking about how each energy center can be kind of inactive or or excessive and then there's a bunch of other there's a lot of other traditions that even go into all of these other different energies that can be happening in the chakra that it can be spinning too much it can be Placid too much it can be stimulated too much it can be spinning too much as all these different things so it's not quite as simple as just as it turned on or is it turned off and so I think when we start to talk about energetics a little bit more a healthy or kind of dynamic and moving core from an energetic aspect is really a harmonious balance and an interconnection between your your creative selves right the second chakra is our ability to kind of create in the world to interact with others balanced with our power you know our personal strengths our will right because if our will is kind of over an overdrive than my ability to be able to create with you would be I'm just talking over you all the time and so those would need to be in harmony we kind of have that collaboration and also in the heart center you know and this is something that our culture is desperately learning and needing to learn right now is this balance between the heart space the heart as being the core which is something so strong and its power of love and unconditional love and yet really soft and gentle and open and how do we co-create with others in a way that is loving and honoring our own will and our power and hearing other people's power and it's a really complex and really intricate thing yeah so I could go deep into that one but I you know if I think about it energetically that's that's kind of an aspect that I think of it's this harmonious engagement between different energies yeah how about you well I think you just really proved your own point when you open good yeah like when I can through my own point you said that it's hard like we have a bit of an attachment to knowing the answer and making everything fit but ultimately this is a question about the subtle body and the subtle body can't be dissected yeah and there's really no way to know for sure like scientific evidence peer-reviewed like it can't is this chakra on right it's so it's experiential and so everything that you just said I was really following you along on that journey and I was really feeling it but for me without reiterating everything you said it's less heart and for me it definitely includes the root chakra so unbalanced question of do different muscles correspond to different chakras you described three going upward this way and for me you spoke about the third or montipora solar plexus chakra as being one associated with sense of self will do termination ability to manifest in the world and experientially for me I can't do that without clarity like around what I stand for so if we're talking anatomically I would even go so far and these you're not gonna find this in anatomy books so yeah give me but I would go so far as in my own experience to include even my inner thighs in quarter and so thighs legs would be part of root chakra so you imagine let's say you're doing something with a block you squeeze it between your legs and it kind of just lights up for me experientially you know this channel I suppose for our friends out there in just in case it's been a while since you had this download the anatomy of your core I said you know it I think it includes a lot of muscles but just to be really clear there's a deep muscle of your abdominals so it's called transversus abdominus or ta or TVA pilates folks are really into it and I love it because it's job primarily well it has a lot of jobs of course but it serves to stabilize us and that's again the connection with yes I think that that I feel that to stabilize us as well as compress your abdomen again so when we think of postures any of the standing balance poses things like pointer dog or any other things that you do like on a BOSU ball or one of those what are they called endo bores yep totally yeah where you destabilize you are doing some really great TVA or transversus abdominus work so that one's great I had a teacher once that called that she was a Pilates teacher called that your superhero Underpants and I've always loved that image cuz you're like yes okay I can feel it on right now and then over that you've got your internal and external obliques and then on top of that is the one we all know because it's the most superficial meaning close to the skin and it's the most visible which would be your rectus abdominis and that would be we call it the six-pack but it's actually an eight-pack goes all the way and it goes all the way up to your heart which is why even anatomically speaking I was totally going along with what you're saying and then it's got there's counterparts on your back bot sure as well but to Unbounce Quest I think absolutely though though there's this hub that I would say is predominantly third chakra once we start looking at like let's call them the course synergists mm-hmm right then you've got your pelvic floor maybe even your inner thigh you've got all your spinal erectors and extensor muscles so I think they can definitely correspond down and up probably unlikely to go all the way to let's say throat or third eye or crown but definitely the lower chakras yeah awesome we could go on and on let's have another question though so we have a question that was actually written in Spanish from Sicilian um she's asking about the fact that she's 53 years old and she generally goes to the gym about twice a week and she done it likes to do weight training and cardio she's never practiced yoga but she's hoping to start her question is is it possible to gain flexibility and tone her muscles by only practicing yoga considering her age and she would like to just stop going to the gym and just dedicate herself to one practice and she's wondering if yoga is the one I think that's a great question you want to take I would just say I'm not that far from is 53 it's in quint database okay I'm not about far from 53 and I would just say this it depends and that's a totally annoying answer but I would say it depends on which yoga you choose to practice so for example now I'm outside my wheelhouse a little bit but I don't think that there there are some limits just say it this way there's some styles of yoga where there's not as much weight bearing as other style yoga and I would say if osteoporosis is a concern which I think it is for most of us that are you know well first of all women or over a certain age that we really do want to make sure that we have some weight-bearing exercise involved in our regiment so there are wonderful yoga practices as you know for your nervous system primary like restorative yoga or like yen and those don't involve nearly as much weight bearing so for the for osteoporosis and bone density I would say it's possible if you are practicing a style of yoga that involves weight bearing but ultimately I think one has to look at like what is really serving them his bone density an issue is it a concern is it something you care about is maintaining your functional mobility something you care about because then you might want to really be increasing strength in diverse ranges of motion which you can do in yoga but it always depends and for someone who's never practiced before I would just say please know that there are so many different styles that you may try one and you think oh no way could I give up the gym for yoga because this is yoga and I would say keep looking and you may actually find that hybrid that feels like all of my needs are being served I'm not I'm not neglecting my muscle strengthening by practicing yoga this particular yoga and I'm still getting to do diverse movements and diverse ranges of motion yeah I think an important aspect as well as having been a mover for my whole life for a lot of different reasons pain strength needs my mom was a aerobics instructor and then a yoga teacher I've found and it's been my experience that many different types of movement are really beneficial for us you know and kind of this desire that we have I know I have it inside of myself I think I'm slowly like scraping away at it like to find the thing the one thing that's gonna answer it all and do it for me it's not really the way that these beautiful complex systems that organisms that we are in and are a part of really work you know and so I'd say that just like Gina said trying different types of styles of yoga but also finding you know what these different types of movements do for us you know like you I get a very different experience and a very different feeling from going to the gym I like to lift weights sometimes I do a little bit of cardio me but it doesn't really like cardio my joints are not very happy about it and then I get a very different thing from my yoga practice like for a long time I didn't do anything except for yoga and my muscles like try doing a pull-up and I just like hanging there like help me but I could like stand on my hands for five minutes you know and it's imbalanced yeah and maybe it's not necessarily anything wrong with it if you don't feel pain for me I did but I think if you're someone who's really interested in in health and well-being in your body that having this curiosity to continue looking around for different types of practices through yoga through maybe kind of some you know chi gong things like that through cardio through weightlifting through swimming things along some these all give our body these very complex systems different ways of strength and mobility and I think that in my experience that's really important I I agree with you to the I would encourage you to really tune into not just what is your body getting out of each of those experiences like you said working out and yoga or Tai Chi or any of those but like not just what is your body getting but what are you getting and unlike let's call it the soul level like how do you feel so it when I work out I feel really tough you know I'm like ah and that could be very much like third chakra right right but then when I practice yoga for me the effect tends to be a little bit more of like softening of the edges but that's because I come to it usually a little more I tend more towards the intense mm-hm also to your point I have to advocate there's all these formal modalities like these different workouts yeah different yoga's we can do I have to say as I age I highly advocate for also freestyle movement and me what yeah it looks like is I get up in the morning I do my yoga my meditation practice and some gentle movement and then I pick on essentially my jam of the day yep and it's got to be a jam like it's not a new jam it's a jam that like yeah I feel this one and I get up and I'm in my living room still in my jammies and I do like complete freestyle movement where the only rule I have for myself is I really make an effort to move through every joint so I'm even doing my business my realist spine my neck like everything and I I think like some people like me and probably like you but that's just second nature and for some of us maybe we're used to being told like here's how you do it right and that feels maybe awkward but it took me time to get there I it was uncomfortable I mean I always liked to dance but it took me time to be able to move freely because I really liked like tell me exactly how to do the alignment thing and I'm doing it correctly yeah and I think like I think it's really important this elasticity yes that we're talking about again it's this concept of like am i doing it right am i doing it specific can I get more information about everything actually kind of again locks us into it so I think even to the point of the core and the energetics of the core this freedom and this elasticity to move within ourselves is part of that yeah yeah I think that diversity is key so yeah I would recommend questioning your workout as long as you enjoy it explore yoga and then maybe some freeform movement yeah as we age I think you don't want to lose it amen to that [Music]