Pigeon Variants: Functional Pigeon

I’m about to deviate from the hip series yet again. I know, I know. But I really do think pigeon is a sufficiently involved posture to merit some further exploration. As a starting point, I keep going back to Yoga Anatomy’s assertion that the piriformis is stretched the most when it’s flexed, externally rotated, and adducted.

I investigated the rotation bit here; now I’m interested in adduction versus abduction. I’ve known a number of yoga teachers who teach the posture with the font hip abducted, so the thigh tracks wide of the hip socket. I’ve also known a number of yoga teachers who teach the posture with the front thigh tracking right in line with the hip socket, which — when the thigh is laterally rotated — means the thigh is at least slightly adducted. Most of all, I know a large number of yoga students — me included — who do one or the other (or who — me included — vacillate between options) without really understanding the anatomy behind it.

And while I don’t think the following video gives me complete anatomical understanding (all the tiny little hip rotator muscles? where are they in this abduction versus adduction business?), it is a very good start:

[Hope Zvara instructing. Video via YouTube.]

I’ve done the abdominal and pelvic floor engagement thing for a while, so that part is not exactly new to me. I won’t say I’ve never collapsed into my low back during pigeon, but I’m pretty confident I’ve avoided the error since I first started trying this expression of it. Strange as it sounds on the surface, I’ve found it to be generally unwise to rely primarily on one’s back muscles while entering a deeper backbend. Pelvic floor and abdominal engagement are musts for my king pigeon, and they’ve followed me as default settings into the more common pigeon as well.

As for the femur angle in the socket, that is not something I’d previously considered. I was honestly a little skeptical at first because generally, when my femur hits against part of its socket — hello, bound angle! — I feel it very locally inside my hip socket, rather than in, say, my sacrum or sciatic nerve. But then I went, “Hey, isn’t it you who does not understand about the interplay between hip flexion and rotation and adduction and all that stuff? Why don’t you maybe shut up and try it?” And so I did.

Because when I even tell myself to shut up, I probably mean business.

And you know?

It did feel different.

Before, I would never have described the hip-abducted version as “pinching” — and to be fair, I probably still wouldn’t — but the sensation was definitely more localized compared to the adducted version. That is, for a hip-abducted pigeon, I feel the sensation almost exclusively in the band right around my hip crease. There is sometimes mild sensation along my glute and/or my IT band — but it’s not always present, and if it is, it’s never particularly noticeable.

With the hip adducted version, the overall intensity level decreases. However, I’m not sure if that’s because the sum total of the sensation is less or because it’s spread out over more butt. Er, more muscle and surface area. This is the version I feel predominantly in my glutes — couldn’t say which ones, maybe all three — somewhat in my hamstring, and somewhat along my IT band.

I have to say, the adducted version did feel more productive for me. It’s easier to feel the muscle relaxing, and with a longer hold, I end up with more purposeful shape changes, moving deeper into the posture. I also find that I have less fidgeting and less of an impulse to fidget.

My only complaint is one of proportions. With the abducted version, my torso ends up folding over my lower shin in an uncomplicated fashion. No big deal. However, with hip adduction, there’s boobs and belly and thigh all trying to make peace with a forward fold. I still have some sorting out to do there.

Found It!

From here, regarding the lengthening of the lateral rotator muscles in a pose where the front leg is laterally rotated.

I have found the answer, at least as it relates to the piriformis. Because the other deep rotator muscles have nearby locations, I would not be surprised if a similar explanation applied to them as well.

Bottom line? Flexion makes it happen.

[Dr. Joe Muscolino instructing for learnmuscles. Video via YouTube.]

Essentially, in anatomical position — think: a biology class skeleton hanging from a hook — the piriformis (and other lateral rotators) do externally rotate the thigh. In anatomical position, the origin of the piriformis on the sacrum is also basically in a straight line with its insertion point on the femur.

However, when the hip is flexed — as is the case with the front leg in pigeon — the piriformis (I do not know about the other deep rotators) ends up wrapping around the front of the hip socket. In a way that’s only clear to me when I view it, contraction of the piriformis at that point actually stimulates medial (internal) rotation. In that situation, external rotation actually stretches it.

TL;DR — It’s complicated.

Hip Yoga: Let’s Talk about Pigeon

I’m well aware that I’ve talked about pigeon before, but as it’s pretty much the pose associated with external hip rotation — which is an overly simplistic view of asana — I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk about pigeon again, this time probably adding in variations.

Though maybe the variations are best addressed in a different post. The “starting point” pose is involved enough on its own.

[Cindy Mastry instructing for Livestrong. Video via YouTube.]

Interestingly, according to my copy of Yoga Anatomy (which, there is apparently now a second edition — damn, my bank account did not need to know this), the primary external rotator working in the front leg is the gluteus maximus. For reasons of anatomy I don’t yet quite understand, the other rotating muscles appear to be primarily lengthening here, particularly in the folded forward version of the pose.

Best as I can tell right now, this has something to do with the different motions of the hip joint — internal v. external rotation, yes, but also flexion v. extension and abduction v. adduction — and the interplay between them. Why does it look like I’m off to do yet more anatomy research and then report back?

Hip Yoga: Let’s Talk About Angles

Specifically, side angle. It’s a pose I’ve been loving lately, and not in a “love to hate” kind of way. Conveniently enough, it is also a pose that works the external hip rotators — particularly for folks whose front knee tends to want to cave in.

In utthita parsvokonasana, it’s the front leg that’s rotating externally. In this case, it means the piriformis, both obturator muscles, and the gemelli are working — along with the gluteus maxiums, which also acts as a rotator muscle here.

[Chelsey Korus instructing for Howcast. Video via YouTube.]

Observations about this pose from the perspective of lateral hip rotation:

First, the front leg hip rotation is of the same variety as the front leg experiences in warrior two. However, lengthening the torso over the front leg shifts the pose’s center of gravity forward, which can increase the intensity of the hip and other front leg work. So I’m guessing that if there are folks out there for whom any variation of the side bend is just not a viable option, warrior two might be a good alternate pose, particularly as hips and thighs maybe become happier about extended side angle.

Of variations, there are a number:

• With the bottom arm pressing off of the top leg. This is generally the option I take during my first side angle of the day. The hip flexion is less, which means — at least for me — the amount of force on the rotator group is also less.
• With the bottom hand on the inner side of the front leg, either on a block (any height) or on the ground. This is the version I take most option, largely because I like the practice of using my bottom arm to help press my thigh outward.
• With the bottom hand outside the front shin, either on a block (any height) or on the floor. This is actually the version that brings the most work to my rotator muscles. In the previous version, with my arm pressing my thigh out, a good portion of the work is in my arm. In this version, the movement is one hundred percent hips.

If the variation of the front leg decides the intensity of hip rotation, the anchoring of the back foot is what “locks it in” for me. Now, I’m not entirely sure why this is because I’m not entirely sure what the muscles are doing. To the best of my discernment, I think that if my back foot does not ground completely, my tendency is to support my weight more with my bottom arm, which then allows my front thigh to adduct and rotate inward. Keeping a lot of strength in my back leg makes it more difficult for my front knee to just flop anywhere.

Finally, while the arms are maybe not as crucial to my pose as are the legs, that doesn’t mean the arms have no impact at all. As mentioned, I can use my bottom arm either to guide my leg out or as a way to inform myself that I’m moving the leg out on my own. I can lift my bottom arm from the floor so that my torso and legs, including my lateral hip rotators, are supporting more of my body. Even — fun challenge — I can lift my bottom arm so it is parallel with my spine and my top arm.

But you know, that last one… it’s a lot of work.

Rotator Stretch for Tight Hips

You remember, like, a month ago when I last talked about the hip anatomy series, right? Right? Well, erm, if you need a minute to refresh your memory, I cannot say that I blame you. It’s been a while.

Part of that is because I’ve been consumed by real life stuff and endo blogging, yes. But part of that is because finding poses that focus on rotator muscles is tricky business — at least when it comes to poses I haven’t already discussed in the hip series. And part is because my rotator muscles are among the more persnicketty ones when it comes to interacting with endo pain, which means that experimenting with such poses is often not the most delightful task.

All of which is a meandering explanation for why I haven’t written in so long and why I’m about to detail what looks like a fairly simple pose — and is in fact a pose I have covered before. However, while I looked at internal thigh rotation as it helps contribute to spinal alignment then, I didn’t look at what the internal rotation was doing in the hips themselves.

[Cathie Ryder instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

For me, I know now that examining this hip rotation is something worth doing because it’s something that I do easily a dozen or more times, not just during the course of an asana practice, but also during the course of my regular day. From what I’ve seen from other yogis, that whole “pull the butt cheek flesh away from the floor” thing is a pretty common component of most seated poses, though I’m not sure it’s always done with attention to hip rotation.

In staff pose, the gluteus maximus — you know, the big butt muscle — is lengthening, along with the rotation-specific piriformis, obturator internus, and gemelli muscles.

I’m not sure how many people will actually feel stretching action here. Even as someone who has trouble with internal rotation — perhaps suggesting that some of the muscles involved in external rotation might be tight — staff pose is a pretty gentle stretch for me. On a regular day, at least; after a tough run, however, that may be a different story. Interestingly, the stretch increases the more I prop under my hips. I expect this has something to do with the tilt of my pelvis giving my rotator muscles more room to stretch, but I’d have to get back to you on that.

I Hate My Hips

In case you read my blog and are not aware, I have endometriosis. (Yeah, that’s what that MenstroMonster tag is doing in the sidebar.) In case you are also not aware, March is Endometriosis Awareness Month. In light of that, I’m doing this whole Blogging for Endometriosis Awareness** thing. The instructions are thus:

Each week there is a different topic that discusses the various ways endometriosis impacts our lives. We all know that the physical aspects of the disease is just on facet of life and it impacts our lives emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

---

The prompt for the week of March 4 is:

Physical impact that endometriosis has had on your life

And, well, yeah. Endo has done what a culture of misogyny, beauty myths, and fat shaming could not. I hate my hips. Which is not even actually one hundred percent true. It’s more like endo has caused unrelenting — but changing and sometimes unpredictable — pain and mobility issues in my hips.

It is nice when I don’t need to be plugged into the wall.

Endo makes it feel like my hips have betrayed me.

Some people have endo that blocks their fallopian tubes and clings to their ovaries. Some have endo that lines their bladders and bowels. Me, I have endo that’s crept into the muscles, connective tissue, and nerves of my hip and pelvic region. To get slightly grotesque about it, endo is eating my hips.

When I talk about endo to people, I find there are a lot of folk who want to categorize it as a condition that consists primarily of “period pain.”

I mean, there are the people — including far too many health care professionals — who want to dismiss it as “just” cramps. To each and every one of them I wish a well-seasoned outhouse, copious amounts of urgent diarrhea, and exactly two squares of TP. One-ply.

There are also somewhat more informed people who understand that endo pain is typically more severe than are standard issue cramps — but who still generally think of it as uterus-centered period pain, only more intense. They don’t account for the potential realities of people with endo to extend beyond periods, beyond pelvises, beyond pain.

I don’t hate my hips because they cause me pain, though I don’t exactly love them for it, either. At this point, pain is familiar, predictable. Not that I don’t cuss out my “sawed in half” feeling from time to time, but I’ve had a lot of years to fine tune a lot of coping mechanisms.

But my hips — home of my “powerhouse” muscles, as so many fitness articles like to remind me — are becoming unstable. I get stiffness and range of motion issues that are roughly cyclical — worse when I’m closer to bleeding, better when I’m further away from it — but that still change wildly from day to day. This means that my baseline for how to perform simple physical movements — standing up, sitting down, walking — isn’t something I can take for granted. More complicated movements — running, negotiating tighter quarters (like a classroom with three dozen desks), practicing pretty much any yoga — require additional amounts of concentration and physical negotiation. In addition to endo in my muscular and connective tissue, the endo along my nerves means that my memory of how to perform these actions may need adjusting not just from day to day but from moment to moment.

The upshot is that I thwap into things with my butt a lot and sometimes stumble for no visible reason because I have trouble determining where my hips are in space. Which, in addition to the bruising, leaves me worrying that people are judging my fat ass.

And also leaves me with questions.

Is this my new normal? Will it get worse? Is there a way to predict how I will feel when? What are my new ways to cope? Why does no one talk about this when talking about endo?

Where are the people who can help?

I guess maybe I don’t hate my hips. I hate that my hips bring up so many unanswered — and maybe unanswerable — questions.

---

** I want to acknowledge that the author of that post uses some gendered language to describe people with endometriosis. While endo does disproportionately affect women, it’s important to recognize that not every person who has endometriosis — for example, some trans* men or some folks who are genderqueer — is or IDs as a woman.

Hip Anatomy: External Rotation

I have not really forgotten about the hip series.

Okay, I may have really forgotten about the hip series. Or at least pushed it to the back burner.

But I’m back and am ready to talk about the external hip rotators.

First off, when I say “external” hip rotation, I’m talking about the hip motion that would turn one’s toes and kneecap out to the side.

Second, there are a couple of muscles we’ve already covered that moonlight as external rotators. They are:

• the psoas
• the gluteus maximus

“Anterior Hip Muscles 2″ by Beth ohara. Own work. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 31 January 2006. Shared via Creative Commons 3.0 License.

There is also a lateral (external) rotator group of smaller muscles that primarily do external hip rotation. They are:

1. The piriformis, which originates on each side of the sacrum and attaches on the top of the femur. I hear a lot about the piriformis in pigeon pose specifically. So, yeah, something to look forward to.
2. Gemellus superior and gemellus inferior. Each extends from the ischium (the “sitting bone” area of the pelvis) and attaches onto the top of the femur.
3. The obturator internus, which actually originates on the inside of the pelvis and wraps around each sitting bone to attach to the back of the femur head on each side.
4. The obturator externus, on the other hand, starts out where the ischium and the pubic bones meet and — like all these rotators so far — attaches to the head of the thigh bone.
5. Finally, the quadratus femoris is a shorter but wider muscle, going from the ischial tuberosity (the actual “sit bone”) to the femur just below the head.

If I’m summarizing correctly, I’m seeing — if I include the psosas and the glutes — muscles that start on the lumbar spine, the sacrum, the ilium, the ischium, and the pubic bones. Those same muscles also attach to the front, top, and back of the femur head; the top of the femur itself; and the IT band.

Is it just me, or is there a possibility that external hip rotation is a complicated process?

Goddess Squat

Which is simultaneously a hip yoga pose, an adductor stretcher, and a pose I love to hate. It may also be a pose that works the adductor muscles eccentrically. I would check that, but my copy of Yoga Anatomy is about 18 inches more than arm’s length away.

And I will squelch my curiosity.

I will.

Really, I will.

Fine, give me a minute. I just have this one thing I need to check…

Damn, it’s not even in there.

Okay, one more minute. My Google skillz know no bounds.

*opens new tab*

*closes new tab*

Fucknuggets. I think I’m going to rescind my earlier “working eccentrically” statement, though based only on these tidbits of information pieced together:

1. Various sites detailing the pose suggest that it works and/or strengthens the “entire lower body,” but when listing specific muscle groups, it focuses on pelvic floor, glutes, quads, and calves.
2. The closest any of them come to mentioning the adductor group is when they explain that the pose “stretches the groins.” Which, eccentric muscle work happens as the muscle is lengthening, but “stretch” does not, to me, connote eccentric muscle work.
3. When I got fed up with Google and tried the pose my own damn self, what I felt was this: Because of the moving-toward-right-angles of both the knees and the hips, I felt both stretching and strengthening sensation in both my quads and hamstrings. However, I did not feel any adductor strengthening going on, so I have to offer an apology on that one.

Plus, I am sort of miffed. Sites should maybe not describe a pose as “strengthening the entire lower body” if it leaves out some rather large muscles. A lot of the lower body? Yes. The whole lower body? No.

Oh. Oh, yes. We were looking at goddess pose.

[Jenny Glick instructing for SuryaChandraYoga. Video via YouTube.]

So. Even though I’m looking at this as a hip adductor stretch — and it is, as the hips are quite strongly abducted here — it’s still a very strong, active pose overall. It’s a pose I’d take after I was warmed up but still fairly early in my practice — at least early enough to know that I had plenty of energy reserves. It’s not one I ever use during cool down or restorative portions of my practice, and I expect that this is also true for a fair number of other yogis.

Additionally, as the video demonstrates, when getting into this pose, I take a vinyasa for the first few rounds. It’s way easier convincing my body that it’s okay to stay in this pose if I give it an easy out for those rounds. Physically, I’m sure this has a lot to do with warming up the muscles. But mentally, it has a lot to do with readying myself for how much of me is going to be working in the hold.

For folks who are wanting modifications, I know of a few but could find YouTube or other demonstration videos for zero of them. If you’re still confused by my verbal descriptions, let me know, and I’ll draw a stick figure in Paint. (And then you’ll be really confused!)

1. Having the arms in goal posts is its own separate thing and not actually necessary for the leg positioning. If it’s making the balance tricky — or if you just want to — it’s totally cool to keep the hands on the hips or thighs or to bring them to prayer in front of the heart.
2. If balance is the main issue, you can do this pose so that the bum is up against the wall, either with a middling amount of support or just barely brushing it.
3. If more than middling support is needed at the wall, it may be worth doing this pose on the edge of a chair. For ease of leg spreading, you’ll probably want a chair without arms, and you’ll probably want to sit on the forward edge of it. The chair version allows the chair to support the weight of the pelvis and torso — instead of the quads, glutes, and hamstrings doing a lot of that work — so the pose becomes more about the work in the outer hips and the stretch through the inner thighs.

If all of that is not going to work — or if you just want an adductor stretch that’s more suitable for the end of a practice — wide angle seated fold may be a good option.

Eagle Pose, Chair Edition

The last installment of the hip series looked at eagle pose. There were a few variations for arm and leg positions. However, all of those positions assumed a standing pose, which is not ideal for everyone.

I hesitated to include a chair option at the time because a lot of the chair modifications I see look at the arms only — which is not terrible but also not terribly helpful in a series that’s focusing on the hips.

So I was happy to find this:

[Yoga with Lucia for Grandmother Hen. Video via YouTube.]

The same adduction movement is happening with the top leg. I’m guessing that the overall work on the adductor is less in the seated version than in the standing version because the amount of “hugging to the midline” necessary to maintain balance is also less. That said:

1. I may be wrong.
2. Sometimes less work is the right amount of work.

Hip Yoga: Eagle

In the last hip yoga post, I detailed a reclined stretching pose. For the next few posts of the series, I’m going to look at postures that contract and strengthen the hip adductors. (As someone with tight complementary muscles — aka., the hip abductors — I assure you that this hurts me more than it hurts you.) Today I’m looking at a standing posture; however, for folks for whom standing is not the best of all possible worlds, floor poses are certainly in this blog’s future.

Today’s asana is eagle pose, a fairly involved standing balance that incorporates hip adduction as one of its elements. It also calls on lower body strength, core stability, and shoulder stretching for the pose.

[Chelsey Korus instructing for Howcast. Video via YouTube.]

In terms of adductor action, it’s the adductors — specifically adductor magnus — that we’re focusing on here. The top thigh is crossing the midline of the body, creating some adductor engagement and contraction. If you do a thing known as “hugging the midline” — basically, making sure the core is engaged, then squeezing the left and right thighs toward one another, creating some stability in the spine and pelvis — it can intensify the top leg adduction.

In terms of the rest of the posture, well, let’s just say that it’s a pose with a lot going on. In case of possible overwhelmedness:

• It is totally reasonable to separate out the shoulder business from the leg business and to only do one or the other (at a time or at all) until such time as you feel comfortable adding on.
• Some instructors teach to enter the pose legs first, then arms. Some teach arms first, then legs. While that second option is what works for me personally, there is no actual magic answer. It’s fine to do whichever is easiest for you.
• You can also do this pose with your bum lightly resting against a wall for balance.

Also to complicate matters, the many arm and leg options for the pose. Legs first this time, just because:

• One option is to cross the top leg over the standing leg, then rest the top toes (as much or as little as is good for you) on the ground. This does lessen the work in the top adductor; on the flip side, it aids stability and balance. Personally, I am a fan of this leg option when I want to concentrate more on the shoulder stretch, so I want a leg position where toppling over is less of a looming possibility.
• Another option is to cross the top leg over the standing leg just one time, so that the outside edge of the top foot or calf is moving toward touching the outside edge of the standing calf. This ends up being the option I take most often because I like the balance challenge, but I don’t like the wiggling and wriggling I have to do to take option three.
• The last leg option I know involves crossing the top thigh over, as in the second option, but then continuing the wrap with the lower leg so that the top foot is tucked behind the standing calf. Because of the girth of my legs (thighs and calves) and the non-flexibility of my hip abductors (which are getting stretched here), this variation is often a PITA for me to get into, so I usually pretend it doesn’t even exist.

And the arms:

• One option involves placing the hands on opposite shoulders, sort of like giving yourself a hug, and lifting up through the elbows (which are more or less lined up on top of one another at the center line of the chest). I sometimes take this option when my shoulders are feeling extra tight or when I want to focus more on my hips.
• The next option involves lifting the forearms so they’re vertical and back to back with one another. This is a pretty commonly offered variation, so I’m guessing it’s useful for folks for whom the first option isn’t enough shoulder stretch but for whom the third option is also less workable. (For me, my forearms and wrists are happy to do the twisting thing, so I rarely take this arm variation.)
• The final option involves raising the forearms, then sort of twisting them around one another so that the palms come more or less to touch. (I end up touching palms to fingertips, and I vote that’s good enough.) For me, at least, this variation doesn’t increase the shoulder stretch any over the second option. What it does do, however, is to create a convenient “lock” that helps keep my arms from slipping out of position.

Which. Yeah. A lot to think about.

For next time, maybe I can find some non-standing options for eagle?

Adductor Stretching, Side Lying

I have a feeling that I’m going to get into some fairly intense vigorous standing poses while discussing the hip adductors, so I wanted to start this segment with something a bit more restful. Anantasana, side reclining leg lift, does require some amount of core stability in addition to leg mobility, but every time I look at pictures of it, I’m like, “Oh, how nice. That person is resting on the floor. I can do that.” So I figured it might not be a bad place to start.

[Cathie Ryder instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

My copy of Yoga Anatomy tells me that some hip adductors are lengthening in both the top and the bottom leg in this pose. I can only feel an inner thigh stretch in my top leg, but I’m not sure if that’s just my anatomy. I do have a tendency to not feel inner thigh stretches in poses that are suitably stretchy for a lot of other people.

I can also feel my quads, glutes, and oblique abdominals working to keep me stable in the pose. I’m not sure that the quantity of effort they’re expending is enough for me to classify this as a vigorous pose for me. However, I do find the quality of the effort to be unusual. The pose is less familiar to be, so while I may have the muscle strength to hold my body stable there, I don’t necessarily have the muscle memory to put that strength to practical use yet.

All of which is a long way to say that I suspect there is a learning curve to this posture and that said learning curve involves rolling backward a lot. If this is a problem, Yoga Journal recommends bracing the soles of the feet (probably, ultimately, just the bottom foot) against a wall. I could also see doing the pose with the bum either right next to or just a few inches away from the wall — maybe not preventing any rollback, but at least keeping rollback to a minimum.

As for leg positions, the one I see most often is to take a toe lock (first two fingers around the big toe) and fully extend the leg. And the modification I see most often involves using a strap around the foot in place of a toe lock while still fully extending the leg. A couple of other things I think could also work (which might be useful in a context where one does not have a strap):

• Extending the leg fully with nothing attached to the foot — For me, this results in less stretch along my hip adductors but more effort through my quad to keep my leg up in the air.
• Using a bent knee version — Sort of like the second picture here, only rotated 90 degrees. Again, a gentler inner thigh stretch, this time with no increase in stabilizing effort.

Overall, I find it a fairly accessible, comfy pose — accidental rollbacks to my bum notwithstanding. That said, it’s not one I’ve incorporated into many of my practices, especially not my home practices. Maybe I should remedy that.

Done with Abduction, on to Adduction

Last time I did an anatomy post, it was to check out the hip abductors, the muscles on the outside of the hip, whose job it is to pull the hip and thigh outward away from the midline of the body — a la warrior two or any of the straddle poses. Now it’s time to look at the hip adductors, the complementary muscles on the inside of the thigh, whose job it is to pull the hip and thigh across the midline of the body — think crossing your left leg over your right, for example.

As I was doing my initial research, I discovered that there seems to be some discrepancy about which muscles, precisely, the hip adductors are. That is, some sources list as few as three muscles in the group while others include as many as seven. Essentially, some of the muscles play a large role in hip adduction and/or have adduction as their primary function whereas other muscles play a smaller role in the movement and/or have adduction as a secondary (or even tertiary) function. The way I’m looking at it, this means a couple of things:

1. Most poses that involve hip adduction are going to mainly impact the three major/most common hip adductors.
2. Some of the muscles that perform actions besides hip adduction may be addressed in other segments of the hip series.

Also, I am a little bit lazy. For those reasons, I’m going to focus on the adductor brevis, adductor longus, and adductor magus here.

As you can hopefully decipher from this diagram, those three muscles are sort of layered along the inner thigh of each leg:

“Anterior Hip Muscles 2″ by Beth ohara. Own work. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 31 January 2006. Shared via Creative Commons 3.0 License.

The adductor brevis is, as its name implies, the shortest of the three main abductor muscles. It starts on the pubic bone and extends to the upper portion of the femur. Immediately below that is the adductor longus, which originates on the pubic bone and extends to the middle third of the femur.

Both the adductor brevis and the adductor longus are relatively superficial muscle layers. Beneath them lies the adductor magnus, which actually has two portions: an adductor portion and a hamstring portion. It also starts on the pubis — a little farther out to the side than either brevis or longus — and attaches all along the thigh bone (as opposed to the others, which have much narrower attachment points).

Tight adductor muscles can cause groin pulls, which are, of course, the injury no one wants to explain. And weak adductor muscles can cause imbalance in the hips and pelvis — meaning that muscles like the tensor fasciae latae and the gluteal group can have too much pull, causing the pelvis and the low back to pull out of alignment.

Of course, a lot of the asanas that stretch the adductors strengthen the abductors, and so we’ve covered them. Similarly, a lot of the poses that strengthen the adductors stretch the abductors, and so we’ve covered those too. I promise I’ll try to get creative with this leg of the serieS!

Everyday Yoga: Chair Pose Pics

Purpose, in brief: Everyday Yoga is a project designed to show how a wider variety of bodies look in various yoga poses. The cover of Yoga Journal is spectacular, yes, but it’s not the only way to do yoga.

Picture policy, in brief: Please do not copy or reuse these images without permission. Additionally, please refrain from body or pose policing.

You can find more details at the Everyday Yoga page, also linked at the top of this blog.

Now, pictures!

First up, Laura’s front view:

Front view of Laura in chair pose.

And then the profile shot:

Side view of Laura in chair pose.

Lisa and I managed only profile shots, but that’s okay:

Lisa from Virginia in chair pose.

Though looking back at my photo library, I notice that I grabbed shots with two arm variations. The first is the one I use if I know I’m going to be holding chair for a few breaths or more:

Tori’s first chair pose.

And the one I use if I know I’m not going to be there for more than a breath or two:

Tori’s other chair pose.

Yes, that really is as far as my shoulders go.

We always welcome new participants. Currently, however, calls for submissions are on hold while we do some rethinking on how to make the process more manageable for contributors or potential contributors. Please join the discussion there if you’re so inclined!

Everyday Yoga: Lunges, Multiple Flavors

Ha. So I totally left both the post-compiling and my own picture-taking until the last minute. And it’s not even the real “holiday rush” yet. Go me!

Anyway, for folks new to this, please check out the Everyday Yoga page for background, nearly current post roundup, and general photo and commenting policies.

Now — lunge pictures!

Laura sent in both a front view and a side view of her low lunge.

Laura in low lunge.

Profile view of Laura in low lunge.

Given the constraints of my webcam and rather small room, I only managed a good side shot.

Tori in low lunge.

I don’t always take the backbendy variation of the pose, but as it’s one I’ve been working into practice of late, it’s the variation I’ve been taking recently.

Laura also submitted a couple of photos of high lunge.

Front view of Laura in high lunge.

Profile view of Laura in high lunge.

And my own profile-only high lunge.

Tori in high lunge.

That’s all for this round, though you’re highly encouraged to submit a chair pose picture for next time.

Hip Yoga: One More Abductor Stretch

I was ambivalent about tackling ardha matsyendrasana, not only because it’s a pose I love to hate, but also because I think the main reason it is such a pose is because it’s not so accessible to me on account of my abdominal fat. And boobs. And it’s really, really hard to find modifications that offer the same stretch and opening while allowing room for my midsection.

Which sort of boils down to: There seem to be modifications for people with more or less spinal flexibility, modifications for people with tighter outer hips, modifications for people who are pregnant (and for whom strong spinal rotation is therefore contraindicated) — but no modifications for people who are fat.

For a long time, I was — legitimately, I think — grumbly about that. Now, thanks to a discovery a few months ago, I’ve found a version that works for me — for which I’m very much thankful. My only current complaint — which is maybe less of a big deal in the grand scheme of things — is that none of my current teachers are familiar with this option. So they keep trying to offer suggestions and “correct” my pose, even though this is the one that works best for me. (Did I mention I’ve switched yoga studios recently? The switch was for reasons unrelated to the ones here, but it does mean I’m now trying out new teachers once again.)

So. The sort of “standard option” for half spinal twist first:

[Amy Reed instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

Both hips are adducting here, which means both sets of abductor muscles are lengthening. For me, I always feel it more strongly in the top leg, I assume because of the extra leverage of my arm.

My chief issue with this expression of the pose is that when my legs are crossed that much, it pinches something in the area of my pubic mound. (Not hair, not surface skin — something more internal than that.) And there are few things more awkward than telling a questioning teacher you had to come out of a pose due to pinching in the pubic area.

One common modification I’ve seen that would work for my pinching issue is this:

[Nora Forziati of Half Moon Yoga instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

Which, there’s less risk of pinching because there’s less flesh getting crowded into that area. On the other hand, this option doesn’t really do it as an adductor stretch for me, presumably because my leg isn’t moving as far across my body (which, ironically, is what’s alleviating the pinching). Additionally, it’s much less of a spinal twist because there’s nowhere for my arm to get a good hold on my leg.

I’m a bigger fan of the open version of this twist, which is sometimes offered as a prenatal option:

[Gina Kennedy instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

In terms of adductor stretching, this actually works better for me than does the previous version. I end up pressing my front arm into my inner knee and my knee back into my arm. And when I take this option in class, none of the new-to-me instructors say a thing. I wonder if they think I am pregnant.

Eh. Better things to worry about.

Like while this version is better as an adductor stretch, it is still not so great as a deeper spinal twist — and, you know, there are times when I specifically want that, especially later into a practice. So when I attended one of Meaghan’s classes at Santosha Yoga last summer, I was pretty well overjoyed to find this option offered:

[Me in a modification of ardha matsyendrasana with the bottom leg folded under but the top foot outside the bottom shin rather than outside the bottom thigh.]

(Apologies for the crappy video quality. I couldn’t find an already existing version of what I wanted, so I tried to quickly make one myself.)

I know it’s a really simple change, but for my hips, pelvis, and back, it’s translated into so much room to get into a deep twist.

But even when I take this pose now, I can’t help but think of all the times I’ve taken and been frustrated by those other poses. And those memories still carry — if you’ll forgive the pun — a lot of emotional weight.

Hip Yoga: Abductor Work, Sitting Down

So we’ve done some hip abductor strengthening that, maybe ideally, involves standing and balancing — but can also involve swaying, toppling over, and/or hopping around. In case there are others like me who avoid standing balances like the plague, seated wide angle pose can be a seated strengthening option.

It’s probably worth pointing out that even though this is seated, it’s still a strong, active, engaged pose when it comes to my hips and legs. In fact, my quads especially may be working harder here than they are in, say, a high lunge or a warrior pose. This is more true for me the farther forward I fold, but it’s always true to some extent.

Anyway, whee. Straddles. So basically, the abductors are working because they’re pulling each leg away from the body’s midline. I suppose, technically, the farther they’re abducting, the harder they’re working, but there’s a limit — called the hip socket and the femur head, and when the one meets hits up against the other, it’s pretty much game over as far as abduction is concerned.

[Jess Ryan instructing for Jess Ryan Yoga. Video via YouTube.]

Alignment ideas and practice points I like to keep in mind:

• Keep my low back happy. — For me, this means assisting the natural curve in my spine, definitely by pulling the flesh of my glutes away from my sitting bones, possibly sitting on a folded blanket if one happens to be convenient. For some other people, elevating the hips might be a non-issue; for others, it might be non-negotiable.
• Keep my knees happy. — I do pretty well with keeping my kneecaps pointing up, my toes pointing up, and the entire top of my leg — toes to quads — flexed and engaged. I’ve also heard teachers offer the option of bending the knees a little, possibly supporting them with blankets underneath.
• Not make it an open legs contest. — What I mean is, my legs go about as far as they go. There’s a very comfortable angle distance, and then it’s — thunk! — aforementioned femur heads hitting hip sockets. And there is some competitive part of me that wants my legs to go as wide as the other students’ in class or the instructor in that video or whatever. Aside from the potential issue of pulling a groin muscle (which I’m not actually terribly worried about for my anatomy), there’s the fact that bone against bone is just not going to give. It’s not an open legs contest, and I should probably just get over myself already.
• Lower down slowly. — There’s a lot of large muscle groups being stretched and contracted in this pose. For me, the big deal is actually my outer hips — the same ones we’re focusing on strengthening here — though this can vary by person and by day. But for me, those muscles take a few breaths to acclimate in the various stages of my forward fold. If I folded forward too fast, I’d hurt myself. On the other hand, if I never went past my first edge, I wouldn’t be getting my maximum benefit from the pose.
• Get up slowly. — Also using my arm strength. Because that shit can be intense.

Of course, the whole pose can be done in a standing straddle variety — but sometimes it is nice just to sit down, you know?

Hip Yoga: I avoid standing balances like the plague.

But today I am going to look at tree pose.

Because, as I learned when researching hip abductor anatomy, the gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, and tensor fasciae latae are also active and working when the body is standing on one leg.

And if I cannot bring myself to love standing balances because, well, I generally neither stand nor balance for long — I can at least console myself with the idea that my hip abductors are probably strengthening regardless of how many times I fall.

Because it combines strength and balance on the standing leg with groin and hip flexibility in the lifted leg, I like to start with a modified tree. Given my hip issues, this is true even if I know my hips and groins are already warmed up from other poses.

[Philene Trevathan instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

Because if something is uncool with my pelvic strength, flexibility, or balance for the day, I’d like to know before my heel is up in my crotch.

Alignment points that help me:

1. Setting up my standing leg directly under my hip joint, which is a different place from the outer edge of my hip, and spreading the toes of my standing foot, both to engage the foot and lower leg muscles and to maximize standing surface area. I do think this last bit might be only psychological, but in a standing balance, I’ll take what I can get.
2. Settling my pelvis into a neutral alignment. My personal tendency is to rotate my hip points forward and down and compensate by arching my low back. Not the best habit for my low back in the long run, I’m sure, and definitely not the most stable for balancing. And for me, it’s necessary to tip my pelvis back toward a more neutral, vertical alignment — which, incidentally, helps keep my spine more vertical and helps me engage my core for more stability.
3. Separate hip movement from foot placement in my lifted leg. That is, I abduct and externally rotate my lifted hip first before I even worry about how far up my leg that foot will go. This helps me get the maximum hip opening from the pose.

I am not always a fan of the “Nike Yoga” series, but I appreciate the principle behind this one, that it is worth getting into the hip rotation before holding the pose:

[Leah Kim instructing for Nike Dynamic Yoga. Video uploaded by bellayogi via YouTube.]

Additionally, once my legs are set up in the posture, the best thing I can usually do is to become still. This includes finding a gazing point that: a) does not move; b) allows me to keep my neck — and therefore the rest of my spine — in a neutral alignment (at eye level or on the ground a few/several feet away are usually good choices for me). It also includes keeping my arms closer in toward my torso: I almost always take tree with either my hands on my hips or in prayer at the center of my chest. While I’m aware that there are all kinds of variations with arms up or out away from the torso, most of those variations are not — most days — for me.

But in case you are interested in those arm variations, here’s one last video that shows a few of them:

[Video by My Yoga Online via YouTube.]

Hip Yoga: Supine Abductor Stretching

So. Having looked at the anatomy of some main hip abductor muscles, now is the time when it makes sense to detail some gentler abductor stretches — ones that would be suitable for lots of people to include toward the beginning of an asana practice.

And I know a lot of practices end this way, but for the outer hips, I think a nice place to start is with a lying spinal twist of some sort. For one, gravity is doing most of the work in them. Two, they’re relatively easy to prop. Three, there are a few variations that are also pretty easy to swap out for one another, depending on the relative needs of an individual’s hips.

But backing up a bit, to a bit of overall explanation: If the “working” action of the hip abductors is to pull the leg sideways away from the midline of the body, then the stretching action is adduction — moving the leg toward or even across the midline of the body. The amount of adduction necessary for an effective but safe stretch is going to vary according to the particular hips involved. From my own experience, I’d say this goes even beyond “from person to person” and may well apply “from hip to hip.” That is, I’m very different on my left and right sides here, to the extent I may prop one side more than the other — or I might choose a different variation on the second side.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that hips are just like that.

So. The first variation — the one with the smallest amount of hip adduction — along with a possible prop option:

[Nora Forziati instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]

A couple of points:

• The leg we’re looking at for abductor stretching is the top leg. In this variation, it probably doesn’t move too far past the midline of the body, on account of there is the bottom leg underneath and all.
• The “block under the bottom knee” idea works for this variation as well as the other variations in this post.



• If a single yoga block feels like there is either not enough surface area and/or too many right angles, one can substitute folded blankets, bolsters, or pillows.

Technically, one can also substitute small dogs for the block too, but I realize that not all small dogs are as accommodating as is Casey.

If that variation isn’t quite doing it for you in the abductor-stretching department, there is the option to twist with the bottom leg extended:

[Video uploaded by massagenerd via YouTube.]

Because the bottom leg is extended straight, rather than running directly underneath the top leg, there’s a little more room for the top leg to continue its midline-crossing path. For me, the difference is substantial, and this variation is typically as deep as I like to go early on in my practice.

That said, I’m sure there are people who have hip abductors that are more flexible than mine — which are maybe “average” on the overall spectrum? — or who are thinking, “Hey, those lying spinal twists look awesome for ending my practice!”

And when that is true, I am a fan of having this variation in my toolbox:

[Video by Expert Village via YouTube.]

Crossing the top leg over the bottom leg moves that top leg past the midline — and therefore moving toward a stretch in the abductor muscles — even before the twist portion of the position is initiated. When the twist is added, the result can be a more intense stretch for the top hip’s abductor muscles. On account of that, I am more likely to need a prop for my bottom knee here, even if it comes at the end of my practice.

Next on the abductor list: a standing balance or a straddle?

“I Don’t Wanna” Short Yin Sequence

Much as I try to deny it, I am a relatively early chronotype. I think it’s skewed because I have to get up even earlier for my job; but, left to my own devices, I would rise at about 7am and would be in bed around 11pm. And I definitely have my best “get shit done” surge of the day in the morning.

By about 4pm, my energy level is starting to wind down for the day. I’m concentrating on a few evening tasks — prepping dinner, maybe readying laundry or whatever for the next day — and sort of wrapping up. Special circumstances (like pre-planned evenings out) aside, I’m not in a place to want to introduce additional energy-requiring activities into that time of day.

And if 5pm rolls around and I haven’t worked out for the day, I find myself lacking the intrinsic motivation to do so. Now, finding extrinsic motivation doesn’t have to be particularly elaborate — a run with my partner when he gets home from work, or an evening yoga class I enjoy at my local studio — so it’s not like I never work out past 5pm. But if it’s a matter of me sequencing my own asanas at home, let me tell you, an evening active practice is just not happening.

Fortunately, there is yin. And equally fortunately, yin has a lot of poses that involve sitting or, better yet, lying on the ground.

And all of this is a really long introduction for this gentle (for me) evening yin sequence. By “gentle (for me),” I mean these are poses that, even when held for a number of minutes as is common with a yin practice, don’t create the same intense opening that I’ve felt in other yin classes. Which, for an evening practice, is just fine with me.

“I Don’t Wanna” Yin Sequence

All poses held for 3-7 minutes each, depending on the day and what I’m getting from each.

1. Child’s pose, though I like mine with my knees wide and my arms extended.
2. Sphinx — I’m normally not interested in doing a lot of back bending in the evening; I just want enough here to counterbalance the set of forward bending poses I’m about to do.
3. Deer on each side, folding forward.
4. Either butterfly or dragonfly, depending on how I’m feeling in the moment.
5. Whatever variation of reclining twist works for my back at the moment, again on each side.
6. Happy baby.
7. Savasana — often with my knees bent over my couch, or legs up the wall.

It tends to run about 30-45 minutes, depending on precisely how long I hold each pose. But the best part is that I’m ready for bed right after if need be.

Also, I was wrong.

Regarding what I said a couple of days ago, on there not being chair modifications of yoga lunges. Some quick searching has turned up a couple of videos, though sadly, the sound is not so great.

The kneeling version:

[Kira Ryder instructing for Lulu Bandha's yoga studio. Video via YouTube.]

My knees are kind of side-eying that block and might want to use a pillow instead, but that’s maybe just my knees, who have been finicky lately.

The standing version:

[Julie Downey instructing. Video via YouTube.]

While the twist shown would increase the hip flexor stretch, it is a completely optional element.