Yoga for core strength and awareness part 4: your back

It feels a little weird to be talking about anything other than COVID-19 at the moment. But in my flow classes, which have continued online, I have been trying to keep consistency for my students by carrying on with the curriculum we were working on together in the studio. This blog post is a little late - it’s about content we’ve already covered in class - but I’m playing catch up a little with this blog after spending all my free time trying to get my tech for online classes sorted! What does that meme that’s going around at the moment say about ‘it’s ok to not be completely on top of things during a global pandemic’….?

So to continue our focus in class on core awareness, we next shift our attention to your back. Even though it’s mainly your lower back that’s in the area I consider your core, because your tissues all blend into each other (and you don’t move like a robot!) during this focus we were also feeling upper back, your bum, and your hamstrings (ie the back of your thighs) work. Here are some of the postures we’ve used, in the order they appeared in class:

Locust pose

Lie down on your front and reach your arms back alongside your body. Lift your hands, chest and thighs away from the floor until you feel your back muscles switch on.

If this feels too much:

• don’t lift up so high, or

• just lift your upper body and lower it, then just lift your legs and lower them

To work harder:

• Start with your palms facing in towards the sides of your body. Slowly turn your palms to the floor and just keep on turning them that same way until they stop. See if you can feel the backs of your shoulders switching on more

• Without actually bending your knees, imagine there’s a heavy weight pressing down on your heels and you’re trying to lift your feet and bend your knees against that weight. With that imagined resistance you might feel the backs of your legs and your bum working harder.

Warrior 3 variation

I like to add a little backbend into warrior 3, as you can see in this photo, because it feels like it switches my back muscles on more (and helps counteract all the rounding forward we do from sitting so much!). In this variation I’ve got my arms in locust pose to also engage the muscles that draw my shoulderblades together and down my back away from my ears.

You can apply the ‘to work harder’ suggestions for locust pose to this posture too (except the tip about engaging your legs only applies to the top leg in warrior 3!).

Lunge with added hamstring strengthening

This pose is commonly practiced by reaching one arm back, grabbing your top foot and using your hand to pull your foot in. That’s a completely valid way of doing it and might create more stretch in the front of your thigh. Doing it the way shown here - without grabbing your foot - means your hamstrings have to do the job of bending your leg, so it’s a more strengthening version of the same posture. If this bothers your back knee, try putting some extra padding underneath it. And beware: this is quite strong for a lot of bodies so might make your hamstrings cramp!

Bow pose variation

When you bend your knees in this pose you might feel your thighs drop down to the floor - keep trying to lift them! The same logic applies to this posture as to the lunge above: if you don’t use your hands to pull your feet in (which is the classic version of this pose) then your hamstrings and bum have to do the work of lifting your legs. You can apply this to any other backbends where you hold your feet (eg natarajasana or dancer’s pose).

Comment below if you have any questions!