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Why Do My Elbows Splay Out in Forearm Stands?
So you’re setting up for your forearm stand: you’ve got your elbows shoulder width apart, forearms firmly pressing into the ground, shoulder shrug muscles engaged! Then you kick your feet up, and oh no - your elbows are slooowly starting to slide out to the sides, no matter how much you squeeze them in! What’s going on?
The “elbow splay” is a challenge many students face, even folks with relatively flexible shoulders. The two biggest reasons this happens are…
Bend Don’t Break: Neck Flexibility for Chin & Chest Stands
A common challenge students run into when wanting to start working on more advanced contortion backbends like chin and chest stands is a lack of neck flexibility and strength. These poses in particular are incredibly demanding on our neck, requiring not only a large amount of cervical extension (aka “arching/backbending through the neck”) to begin with, but also an incredible amount of strength in these muscles to keep the neck safe in these poses when you have a large portion of your bodyweight potentially smooshing down into your neck in a precariously arched position.
Help! I Can’t Sit Up Straight with Legs Extended
Do you feel like it’s impossible to sit up straight when sitting on the floor? This is a super common challenge folks with tight hips. But what if I told you the solution isn’t just stretching your hips more? Whether we’re talking about sitting in a “pike” position (butt on the floor, legs together straight in front of you), or sitting in a “straddle” (butt on the floor, legs spread out wide), the two major things this requires are…
How’s Your Bridge (Full Wheel Pose)? 7 Most Common Mistakes
Being able to hold a bridge is a challenging, but rewarding, flexibility goal because it requires flexibility and strength through the entire backbending chain, from our hips, to our back, to our shoulders and arms (and even hands!). But specifically because it is requires coordination, strength, and flexibility through the full body, it can be easy to push too hard in one area, or forget to engage another, or simply not have the prerequisite range of motion to comfortably support the pose. At best that might mean your bridge is a less effective stretch than it could be, or at worse it could hurt and lead to potential injury.
So in today’s post we’re going to look at the 8 most common mistakes I see students make in bridges, and how to address them. And these aren’t just “beginner” mistakes, I have worked with contortion-level bendy students in private lessons who make some of these!
What Is Sciatic Nerve Tension (and How Do I Fix It?)
This is a topic I wish I had learned about WAY earlier in my flexibility training journey, because it made such a huge difference in my leg flexibility (and I see the same thing happen with many students that I work with).
For the longest time, I just thought I had tight calves when it came to forward folds . . .
10 Min Back Flexibility Routine
By popular demand (at least according to Google…) here’s a quick, basic back flexibility routine you can use when you’re crunched for time, or as a base to build a longer training routine off of. Note: this routine focuses primarily on backbending (arching) flexibility, not literally stretching the back muscles (which would involve rounding, not arching, the back).
Working Towards “Cow Face Pose” Arms Rear Hand Clasp
Being able to reach both hands behind your back and touch or clasp your fingertips is a challenging goal lots of people like to work towards. This type of flexibility can be helpful for yogis who like to work on funky arm binds (it’s the same position used in Gomukhasana or Cow Face Pose, but the flexibility can translate to other arm binds as well), for aerialists and pole dancers who need funk shoulder rotation and behind-the-back reaches to grab their apparatus, and for regular Average Joe folks who want enough shoulder mobility to scratch an itch on their back. Personally, I find having a big range of motion in this pose helpful because it allows my to put sunscreen on my own back without needing anyone else’s help (maybe not a primary motivation for most people, but certainly a plus in my book!).
Help! My Hips Hurt in My Middle Split and Frog Stretch
This is a question I frequently get in group classes as well as private lessons - there are some people out there that, based on their hip anatomy, have a hard time feeling inner thigh stretches in things like straddles, middle splits, and frog stretches. Instead, they feel like their legs just get “stuck” when trying to open them out to the side, or may even feel a “pinch” in the front or side of their hip. This can be frustrating because no matter how much you try to stretch, you don’t see any progress in your middles or straddles.
Now what if I told you the solution to this flexibility plateau was NOT trying to push the stretch deeper?
Why (and How) to Warm Up Before Stretching
Do you really need to warm up before stretching? Isn’t stretching usually a “warm up” for other workouts?
This really depends on the type of training you plan on working on. The goal of “warming up” is to prepare your body - your muscles, your joints, your cardiovascular and nervous systems, etc. - for your upcoming workout. For some hobbies, like martial arts or pole dancing, that often means including stretches as part of the warm up to be able to use that flexibility in their skill work.
But what about for flexibility training as a “work out?” This is where it really depends on the intensity of the stretching you’ll be doing.
“Cold” vs. “Warm” Flexibility (and How to Improve Your Cold Flexibility)
Do you ever feel like you make some good progress during a stretching session, only to have your flexibility revert back to it’s previous less-bendy state the next day? Or maybe you notice you’re able to stretch deeper after a heavy workout like weightlifting than trying to stretch randomly in the middle of the day? Do you have long-term goals to be able to touch your toes or drop into the splits without doing any kind of warm up? All of these are related to the difference between our warm vs. our cold flexibility.
Help! My Back Hurts After Backbending
This is a common question I get from students, especially students new to working on back flexibility. It’s not uncommon to get some mild back pain the day after working on backbends, so it’s important to be able to differentiate between “productive” muscle soreness and “red flag” pain indicating improper training technique.
Is It OK To Lift the Heels in a Bridge (Full Wheel)?
This is a question I sometimes get from students (and even other flexibility instructors) - should we try to keep feet flat on the floor in a bridge, or is lifting the heels OK? The answer - like with so many flexibility questions - is it depends.