Your Body, Your Yoga: Learn Alignment Cues That Are Skillful, Safe, and Best Suited To You

There are many variations of PNF, but one that shows arguably the best success is called reversal of antagonists (or, more popularly, 3S—scientific stretching for sports). The 3S protocol uses the process of pushing against a resistance (either a machine or a partner) to engage the agonist muscle while it is in a lengthened position; then, while th

When a teacher, or the student herself, starts to judge the pose by what it looks like, rather than what it feels like, then the intention of optimizing health is lost. How you look in a pose is irrelevant: what is important is what you feel in the pose.

With strength-building exercises, we can coax the body to add sarcomeres, which will result in longer muscles and thus a greater range of motion.

There are typically few anatomists in yoga classes, so most teachers can get away with saying, “Extend your arms up,” but better might be: “Raise your arms to the sky.”

During your time as an embryo, your fingerprints were being shaped by your mother’s movements, which in turn changed the pressure and flow of the amniotic fluid surrounding you.

anytime we refer to the hips or movement of the hips, we will mean movement at the hip joint or hip socket. Another anatomical term that we will use interchangeably for the hip socket is acetabulum.

Ball-and-socket joints (also called spheroidal joints), such as the hip and shoulder. Here one bone

Remember, one model posits that the purpose of our ligaments is to restrain a joint from moving too far and damaging itself. However, we have seen that often, our range of motion and mobility is too restricted; we are not in danger of going too far—we are suffering from not being able to access our natural and normal range of movement. The only way

Some researchers are suggesting that deliberately stressing a tendon may be therapeutic when that tendon is injured, or to avoid injury in the first place.