Charlotte Bell wrote this post on May 29, 2024.
Do you knees splay out to the perimeters in Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)? That is one thing I’ve noticed rather a lot, each in myself within the earlier years of observe, and in lots of yoga college students. Is it an issue? I’m speculating that it might be on your knees and sacroiliac (SI) joint over time. There are several approaches of treating it. The one I’ll focus on immediately entails putting a Yoga Block between your knees in Bridge Pose to strengthen your adductors.
What Are the Adductors?
The adductors are the muscle groups of the internal thighs. They embody:
- Pectineus
- Adductor longus
- Adductor brevis
- Gracilize
- Adductor magnus (the biggest muscle within the group)
The adductors inwardly twist the thigh on the hip joint and bring the leg toward the center line (adduction). This muscle group stabilizes the pelvis, serving to to steadiness the pelvic place throughout strolling. Additionally they help “explosive” actions, akin to leaping and working. Whether or not we all know it or not, the adductors help practically all our every day actions.
After we spend plenty of time sitting, each the adductors and abductors (outer thigh and hip muscle groups that transfer the leg away from the middle line) can weaken. Over time, this may destabilize the knees, resulting in knee ache and dysfunction. In my very own casual “research” of adductor power and weak spot, I’ve discovered that strengthening the abductors has helped maintain my SI joint extra secure.
How Can You Strengthen Your Adductors in Yoga Follow?
How are you going to inform in case your adductors are weak? Do this easy inquiry: along with your ft just a little wider than hips-width aside and parallel, bend your knees about 90 levels right into a standing squat. Would you like your knees to spread out to the sides? If that’s the case, your adductors aren’t pulling their weight. Nonetheless, even when your thighs simply keep parallel, it’s nonetheless a good suggestion to strengthen your adductors, particularly if you happen to sit rather a lot in the course of the day.
In yoga, there are many poses that stretch the adductors—assume Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Upavista Konasana (Vast-Legged Seated Ahead Bend), Baddha Konasana (Certain Angle Pose)—however not plenty of poses that strengthen your adductors. Squeezing a Yoga Block between your thighs in Bridge Pose is one approach to shield your knees and SI joint whilst you’re within the pose. Practising with a block can even strengthen the adductors, which is able to assist stabilize your knees and SI joints in the long term.
Urgent your thighs right into a Yoga Block in Bridge Pose additionally helps shield your hip joints. After we observe Bridge, it’s frequent to push up with the glutes with a view to get as a lot top as doable. This will trigger us to push into hip joints, which may trigger the femur heads to push towards the sides of the hip sockets. After we do that repeatedly over time, the joint’s cartilage and labrum can put on down. Within the directions under, I’ll recommend a special manner of shifting into Bridge Pose that can assist you keep away from doing this. The Yoga Block between the thighs will give extra help to hip joints as nicely.
The way to Strengthen Your Adductors with a Yoga Block
- Lie in your again on a Yoga Mat. Keep a 4-inch yoga block close at hand.
- Bend your knees and place the soles of your ft on the ground. Draw your knees in towards your chest and place the Yoga Block between your thighs, simply above your knees. Place your ft again onto the ground.
- Draw your arms in near your sides. Bend your elbows in order that your forearms are vertical. Arch your back away from the ground while pressing your elbows into the earth. Then prolong your arms alongside your physique.
- Now press your ft into the ground whereas urgent your thighs into the Yoga Block.
- To get into Bridge Pose, extend your knees outward and away from your pelvis. Then continue that movement as you raise your back to the maximum height of the position. Maintain this thigh extension for the entire duration of the position. This can help prevent you from applying too much pressure to your hip joints. It also helps to keep your legs parallel instead than spreading out to the sides.
- Preserve urgent your legs into the Yoga Block and prolong your knees out away out of your pelvis.
- Maintain for five to 10 deep breaths.
- Lengthen your arms out alongside the ground, overhead. As you carefully lower yourself back down to the earth, extend your arms and lengthen your back.
- Repeat twice, or more times if you’d like.
About Charlotte Bell
In 1982, Charlotte Bell discovered yoga, and she started teaching it in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodomel Press. Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Defending the Hips and Preventing SI Joint Ache is the title of her third electronic book (Shambhala Publications). She is the editor of Yoga U Online and writes a monthly column for CATALYST Journal. Charlotte was a founding board member of the nonprofit organization Greentree Yoga, which teaches yoga to marginalized communities. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and with the folk sextet Crimson Rock Rondo, whose 2010 DVD won two Emmys.