Assisted shoulder and upper back activation 3.\Yoga strap techniques

In this short blog post, I have collected two asana activations for the upper back and shoulder, assisted with yoga strap. These are not only pre-asanas anymore, they are in the hatha and ashtanga yoga sequences too and they work perfectly to activate the right muscles for deeper backbends and also to teach you, how to isolate and use these muscle groups. You can practice them with some simple strap modification.


They are the strap variations of the Purna Dhanurasana and Shalabasana. The point with these asanas is not to reach your feet and grab them (even if you can), more to move away from your upper body with your feet and move away from your feet with the chest.

1. Assisted Purna Dhanurasana:

First, you are lying on your stomach on the yoga mat. In the assisted Purna Dhanurasana the strap will be around your ankles and the ankles are closed. Grab the strap as close as you can to your ankles and begin to straighten your legs and push with the center of the chest forward (like another strap would pull your chest forward) while pulling your shoulders backward. Work with your inner (proprioceptive) senses to transfer the tension from the lower back into the center of the chest. The elbows are facing forward and moving closer and closer to each other. You can grab both sides of the strap together with both hands. In this case you can climb more and more backward. Or you can hold the two ends separated. In this case, when you want to climb back change to the close position, and when you reached your max, change back again to the separated version. In this asana is better to hold the strap together, because you can't use your legs to pull you so effectively like in the Shalabasana.

Your head position in this asana is also important because of the vertebras of your neck (cervical). First, with the top of the head streach up, move into the direction of the ceiling, make your neck as long as possible. Then, you can watch up, but it is not necessary. You only watch up, after you straightened your neck completely, but if you do so, stay focused on your chest, moving it forward. 

2. Assisted Salabhasana:

The Shalabasana with strap has the same activation like the Purna Dhanurasana, only the strap position here is around the sole, a bit above the heel. If you pull your toes upward and push your heels backward, your strap will hold a great grab. Experience, how can you hold on in this slippery area the most sustainably. Then push back with your heels and in the same time try to touch the ground with your toes while you are moving your chest forward, your arms and shoulders backward and the top of the head upward. In this position pulling the strap back is a little bit trickier, but because your legs are straight and almost completely on the ground, you can support your lower back more and isolate your upper back and shoulders. Don't forget to bring the inner tension from your lower back into the center of the chest.

And don't forget to do the compensation and the contra poses after both asanas, as I explained in the Assisted shoulder and upper back activation 2.

Have a good practice! In the next post, we will research my favorite shoulder and upper back activations, the Anahatasana family, the yoga puppy poses.

Assisted shoulder and upper back activation 2.\Wall techniques

As the first, introductional post of the Assisted shoulder and upper back activation stated, I will provide you assisted techniques for the activation of the upper back and shoulders, to gain mobility in these parts of the body. The most important thing, why we seperate the different muscle groups in backbend practice and work separately with these groups is muscle isolation. Isolating the muscles and learn have to work with them is one fo the most important aspects of yoga practice. If you can focus your inner dristhi to the right muscles and muscle groups to activate, to use properly, your practice will be more effective and much more safe. This is the art of proprioception, the inner body awareness. You will be the master of your own body, not the other way around. So use the following techniques as a tool to explore your body, to meditate in the movement and learn how to move the most effective way in this very individual structure of yours.

1. Passive hang:

That is a very important motion before and after every kind of movement practice, especially before and after backbends. You can hang from anything, don't need to have a horizontal bar.

First jump in, arms are shoulder wide, hold a strong grab and begin to relax completely. Only your grab is active, the other parts of your body, from the wrist to the feets are completelly relaxed. Feel, that you are 'sinking' into your shoulders and upper arms with your head and ears. Focus to your lower back and feel that every vertebra is streaching and your whole back bone is gaining more and more space.

The controll is in your grab, your grab holds strong, but be mindful to relax with your arms, because your arms want to follow the activation of the grab.

Use a calm and slow diaphragm breathing technique. I usually suggest ujjayi breath from Ashtanga, because for me the goal is with every movement, to integrate pranayama and use as a meditation technique. Be in the position as long as you can, but come down immediately, when you lose the breathing. Because movement is for breathing, not the other way around.

When you come down, be controlled, not just slip down. Activate your relaxed shoulder, keep your arms streight and push up with the shoulders, then jump down.

In this video you will see, how to activate the shoulders and also, how to change the sides. It's also important, to do the passive hang with one arm, because the one arm versions make complete the whole range of motion and also compensating the tention in the chests muscles. You don't have to hold it too long, if it is too hard, or painful for your palm, just change the sides controled, with the activation and the relaxation of the shoulders, as you can see in the video.

2. Assisted shoulder and upper back opening with the wall:

This exercise is the perfect way to isolate and learn to use the muscles of the shoulder and upper back. You see the whole range of motion in 7 pictures, but when you practice it, don't rush to reach to the 7th or if it's too hard you don't have to reach it at all, for the first attempt.

With this pre-asana, we use the facilitated stretch. First, stand in front of the wall, straighten your arms, lock out the shoulders completely and push against the wall, like you would like to push a hard object from yourself. The fingers is in line with your eyes, the focus of your gaze (outer dristhi) is somewhere between your fingers. Stand strong, push from the middle of the heel, the ball of the big toe and the ball of the small toe from the ground. Push back from these three points, while you continue to push from your hands in the other direction, and begin to move your chest and chin into the direction of the wall slowely. Don't bend your elbow, keep the pushing motion active the whole time.

Use a calm and slow diaphragmatic breathing technique. Focus on the muscles of the shoulder and upper back (inner dristhi), feel that they are opening very slowely and your chest, chin, elbows and armpit are getting closer to the wall. Don't rush, keep the slow breathing and let the muscles take their time to open completely.

All the time, when you feel, that you reached your maximum of streach, come back slowley a bit, realease from the tention, rest in the position and afterwards (without coming back to stage one) go deeper. Repeat it, until you reach your maximum, without any kind of strong pain, or even the shadow of injury. Take it slowly, go forward, and backward and then more forward. This is the technique of facilitated stretch. Hold as long as possible. As you see in this 5 minutes timelapse video, it is possible to hold it even for five minutes or more. Just remember, you can only explore your muscles when you hold the asanas for a longer and longer time, with breathing calmly.

3. Wall assisted hollowback:

The same kind of motion and activation, like the previous pre-asana, just from a different perspective.

First, place your palms into the ground, 20-30 cm from the wall. Clamber to the ground with your fingers. Jump into handstand, reach the wall with your feet. Push yourself from the ground, lock out the shoulders completely, like in the previous pre-asana and 'sit' into the wall. While you are pushing yourself from the ground, begin to open up the chest, so arch from the upper back slowely. Meanwhile, 'slip' with the sitting bones lower and lower, and bend your back like you would like to sit on your head. Move your chest from the wall as far as you can, but in the sam time move in the direction of the wall with your forhead and nose.

The focus of the gaze is between the two hands. It provides you a completely active upper back and supports the movement into the direction of the wall, against the chest opening motion. The inner dristhi is in the upper back and shoulders. Feel the opening of the same muscles as in the previous pre-asana.

Use the ujjayi breath, keep relaxed, don't bend your elbows, keep them straight as much as possible, without too much effort. It will help you to open your shoulders completely.

4. Compensation and counter poses:

I don't have to emphasize enough, how important the compensation is. I have to mark in the beginning, that forward bends are NOT compensations for backbends. Because the backbend positions are streaching the front of the body, muscles of the chest, the abdominal muscles and the intercostals (muscles between the ribs) therefore to compensate, you have to contract these muscles. It won't work with forward bends, only with the activation of these muscles. So, as a contemporary asana do Navasana (2nd and 3rd pictures).

It is also important to come back from the asana controled and slowly, the same way you went into, only to the other direction. Afterwards streach up, release the tention and do the Navasana.

After you finished with the Navasana and activated the muscles of the front side of the upper body, released the tention from the back, only after you can do the counter pose to streach the muscles of the back. Paschimottanasana is a perfect asana to use.

With Paschimottanasana, it's very important to do not destabilize the muscles of lower back. So you allowed to move forward until your abdomins are on the top of your quadriceps, because when you straighten your knees, your hamstrings (they are extremelly powerfully) will make a very strong work while streaching, and if your abdominal muscles are not connected with your quadriceps, the whole tention will work on your lower back, destabilizing it. We don't want that! So keep your abdomins and thigh connected, move forward with your heels and with your forhead, while your gaze (outer dristhi) is on your big toes, and you are pushing your hamstrings to the ground and keep your sitting bones completely on the floor. Your chin goes forward on your legs as much as possible. Pull in and up the navel into the direction of your backbone, creating the uddiyana bandha.

Keep on practicing, mobilizing, activating! The next part of the post will arrive soon, with strep techniques.

Namaste!

Assisted shoulder and upper back activation 1.

A crucial element of backbend practice in yoga is to increase the mobility of the triceps and muscles of the shoulder, the neck and the upper back, such as deltoid, rhomboid, trapezius, splenius, supraspinatus, teres, infraspinatus ect. Naturally the upper and lower back also has their part in every backbend but the activation and the intensity of the movement of the different muscle groups are very diverse. Another important aspect is the flexibility of the practicioner. The practitioners genetics, muscle and bone structure, body bulk, connective tissue, femur lenght, background in movement, activities in daily life (such as his/her job etc.) and even gender can influance the flexibility of the upper back and shoulder muscles. This post is an intruduction, talking about the different type of practicioners and their different activations in backbend practice, to provide effective shoulder and upper back activational and mobilization techniques.

Lets see a basic type of practicioner, whom I teach and watch practice a lot. A beginner female yoga practitioner in her 20s, without any background in crossfit, weightlifting or fitness, with no considerable physical work in her life and with a job, sitting the whole day in the office. She genetically has very mobile upper back muscles (it is also a gender specific) without the effect of crossfit or weightlifting or calisthenics or physical work, which could have been made her muscles stiff. But because of sitting for years in elementary and highschool and then the university and for more years in an office, without streaching the hamstrings and the muscles of the hip (like you usually do in the crossfit or fitness world or any sport), she will feel some tightness in the hip muscles and knee flexors. So, when she begin to practice, she will feel herself naturally talented in backbends, because of her flexible upper back, and she will be able to do faster the feet-to head asanas or grab her feet in the backbend poses, such as Kapotasana, Rajakapotasana or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (see the asanas here here and here). Her inner focus point (dristhi) in the movement will be somewhere in the upper back. That means, her backbend motions will be controlled by her upper back. She will naturally bend from the upper back to reach the asana. She won't need so much effort making her upper back more flexible to deepen the backbending asanas in the process of practice, but more on her hip and lower back.

These upper back and shoulder mobilization posts are basically for people with stronger, stiffer and more immobile muscles in the upper parts of the back, because of various physical activities like street workout, martial arts, crossfit, weightlifting or their job etc., for mobilization and gaining flexibility to reach the more complex backbends. Or it can help for advanced backbenders for the easy and effective activation before going into deeper asanas. Because their is another type of practicioner too, who has flexible lower back and hip muscles, but need more time for the upper back activation to be able to go into the more complex backbend asanas. I'm one of this type. However - thanks to the years of practice -, my upper back and shoulders became flexible enough for almost every kind of backbend, but because of martial arts, calisthenics and other kind of strenght training, I have really strong muscles there, which need much more activation work, before I can reach the more advanced asanas, like the backbends of Ashtanga 2nd, 3rd and 4th series. Also, my inner dristhi is always focused in my lower back. I move from my lower back all the time, maximize the bend in the lower back, and only after, moving with the upper back, shoulders and arms, grabbing my ankle, feet or touching my forhead with my heels.

You can see the difference between the two types of practicioner here and here. Also here.

Althought you can't see how they reach the position, pay attention to the difference of the bend and the activation of the upper and the lower back.

The following activation techniques in the Assisted soulder and upper back activation 2. post will give you useful tools for effectivelly activate and improve the shoulder and upper back mobility.