Yoga and Your Hips, Part 1

Yoga and Your Hips, Part 1
Yoga has made me curious about my body for more than 20 years. When I feel restriction in my outer hips during Pigeon Pose, I wonder what exactly is holding me back—is it my gluteus maximus, my piriformis and external rotators, my posterior capsule… or my questionable karma? Hey, I’m a Virgo, I don’t like surprises, and teaching yoga is my passion, so I like to understand these things. That’s fair, right? My hips have been a source of constant inquiry. I grew up skateboarding and playing ice hockey, so you can imagine that I’ve had my work cut out for me when it comes to creating more range of movement. For years, my singular focus was to open my hips. Now, a little older and a little wiser, I have a more balanced approach to my hips that also includes plenty of strengthening work. When I started creating online anatomy programs with Paul Roache, MD, I built them for three people: me, myself, and I. I needed to build a program that would help me understand the body in a more refined, yet simplified way. Now, I’m creating these Illustrated Guides to Yoga and Anatomy for the students in my trainings—and, for you. If you’re interested in understanding your body and creating more sustainability in your practice, then we’re on the same page. And if you want to train with me more formally, you can either join my online anatomy course (details here), or join me for my teacher training in San Francisco launching February 15, 2016. You can take the entire training or come for individual modules. (Details here.) This Illustrated Guide to Yoga and Your Hips, Part 1 focuses on the joint structure and ligaments. I know it’s not as sexy as the musculature, but the structure tells us a very interesting story if we’re patient enough to listen. It tells us the story of the body’s complementary demands of strength, stability, and flexibility. Unlike the relatively unstable ball and socket joint in your shoulders, the hip-joint is extremely strong due to the nature of the socket and the reinforcement it receives from the ligaments and muscles. Plus, if you understand your hip’s structure, you’ll have a much easier time understanding your muscles. Now, let’s look at a quick, simple glossary so that you are on point with your terms: Coxal Joint: This is the anatomical term used to describe the hip joint. Head of femur: The rounded top of your thighbone that fits into your pelvis. This is the “ball” in the “ball and socket” of your hip. Acetabulum: The dish-like part of your pelvis that the head of the femur fits into. This is the “socket” in the” ball and socket” of your hip. Labrum: Fibrocartilaginous tissue that encircles the inside of the acetabulum. The labrum helps the head of your femur sit more deeply into the acetabulum, helps absorb shock, and helps form a seal for the fluid inside the hip joint. It’s made of the same tissue that the meniscus in your knee is made of and provides similar functions. Ischiofemoral ligament: Located on the back of the hip joint, this ligament connects the ischium to the femur. This ligament helps limit excessive extension and adduction (internal rotation). Iliofemoral ligament: Running from the front of the pelvis to the femur, this is the strongest ligament in the body. Its’ primary role is to limit excessive extension in your hips. Pubofemoral ligament: Also running from the front of the pelvis to the femur, this ligament limits excessive extension and abduction (external rotation). The Front of Your Hips This simple, clean rendering shows the ball and socket with the ligaments and muscles removed. The head of the femur is colored silver so that you can easily see the nature of the ball and socket joint. Another image that shows the ball and socket without the muscles or ligaments. This view is from the back. This illustration shows the interior of the ball and socket. You can see how the head of the femur plugs into the acetabulum and is encircled by the labrum. It reminds us that the hip joint is a full, 360 degree circle and that we want to create strength and flexibility in the entire circumference. This illustration will help you understand how the muscles are laid out in Part 2 of this series! If you’re familiar with what the meniscus looks like, you’ll see that the labrum is almost visually identical. If you’re not, I’ll be creating a guide to yoga and your knees soon! Notice how the labrum is a horseshoe-shaped to cushion the femur and allow it to glide more smoothly in the socket. The ligaments on the front of your hip are strong, powerful tissues that limit excessive hip extension and abduction. This means that these ligaments—if excessively tight—may have a limiting effect on hip extension your backbends or anything that requires your legs to be separated far apart, like Baddha Konasana. The Ischiofemoral ligament, which runs from your ischium to your femur, reinforces the back side of your hip joint. It limits excessive internal rotation. I hope this illustrated guide gives you insight into your hips and helps you teach your students with greater confidence and clarity. We’ll look at the hip muscles in Part 2 and “best practices” for your hips in Part 3 (coming soon). In case you missed them, here’s The Illustrated Guide Yoga and Your Core, Part 1 & Part 2. Please sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss my upcoming articles! When students register for a core-themed workshop, they expect their abdominals to be battered and bruised into next week. It’s a strange—somewhat admirable—masochism that exists in few communities outside of yoga (save, perhaps, the crossfit, pilates, and functional fitness communities). But, if you’ve read The Illustrated Guide to Yoga + Your Core, Part 1 you’ve learned that the abdominals are only one part of your core. Now, it’s time to turn your attention to what I call the “complements to your core.” These muscles either work together with your core, like the way engaging your inner legs helps you engage your pelvic floor muscles. Or, they balance your core muscles by providing the opposite action, the way your hamstrings balance the actions of your hip flexors. Collectively, we’ve bought into the importance of core strength, but these complementary muscles don’t get nearly as much air-time as the front of your core. We don’t identify with these muscles as much and it’s easy to ignore them. But, if we want a strong, sustainable, balanced body—and, a sane, holistic approach to working with the core—these muscles need just as much TLC as the ones that you see in the mirror. Two, quick shameless plugs: First, all of these images are courtesy of Paul Roache, MD. Paul is the co-creator of my online yoga anatomy course. To learn more about yoga anatomy, please check out our Essential Anatomy E-Course. You can also learn more live—and, earn your 500-hour Advanced Teaching Certificate—by joining me in San Francisco in 2016. THE COMPLEMENTS TO YOUR CORE Your glutes: Daddy Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear—or gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus which are named according to their size, not their region or function. This muscular family wraps from the back of your pelvis to the outside of your pelvis. Strengthening this family in yoga provides you with greater stability in your hip joints and sacroilliac joints. Strong glutes may also decrease the stress on the deeper piriformis muscle and the neighboring hamstrings. Your piriformis: Your piriformis runs from your sacrum to the head of your thigh-bone. It’s notorious for being tight. And, due to its proximity to the sciatic nerve, excessive tension in the piriformis can create sciatica-like symptoms. Since the piriformis complements, or balances, the psoas, it’s important for it to be strong when you practice yoga. If the psoas is strong, but the piriformis is weak, it can create a muscular imbalance that chronically fatigues the piriformis and makes it tighter. Your hamstrings: In yoga, we tend to spend far more stretching our hamstrings than strengthening them. Strengthening your hamstrings may decrease the likelihood of hamstring attachment injuries, create greater support for your backbends, and balance the strength of hip-flexors and quadriceps. Your paraspinals: Your paraspinal muscles run alongside your spine helping to keep your spine upright and your torso mobile. If you’re going to focus on strengthening your abdominals in yoga—which is not a bad idea at all—you also need to strengthen your paraspinal muscles so that these groups stay balanced. Your adductors: The adductor muscles, which run down the inside of the legs, are often referred to as the groins. Like the hamstrings, the adductors are stretched much more frequently than they’re strengthened in yoga. Engaging your adductors in yoga will help you engage your pelvic floor muscles and your abdominal muscles, especially your transversus abdominis. Heads-up: I’ll be publishing several Pose Notebooks and practice sequences that focus on the core soon—so make sure to follow me on Instagram and sign up for my newsletter so you know when these are available. THE COMPLEMENTS TO YOUR CORE, ILLUSTRATED Your Gluteals, Piriformis and External Rotators This is an eyeful—especially with all the labels. That said, it provides you with a comprehensive visual of this complex region. The left side illustrates the most superficial layer of muscles in the region, the gluteus maximus, IT Band, and hamstrings. On the left side, these muscles are removed so that you can see the deeper layer of muscles. Notice how many muscles live under the gluteus maximus! On this side, you can see the piriformis running from the sacrum to the head of the femur. You can also see how the sciatic nerve runs underneath the piriformis. I admit this cross-sectional illustration of the thigh is slightly macabre. But, it captures the three-dimensional nature of the body and depicts how muscles are layered together in a way that a flat illustration can’t. The illustration includes all the muscles that wrap around the thigh-bone, not just the adductors. The adductors in the illustration are all the muscles that start with “adductor,” as well as the gracilis and sartorius. The Paraspinals This illustration includes the paraspinal muscles as well as the diaphragm, quadratus lumborum, and obliques. Including these three additional muscles gives you a clear picture of the entire spinal region. The muscles depicted on the right side of the spine are the longer, more superficial muscle groups. The muscles depicted on the left side of the spine are the shorter, more profound (deep) groups. The Hamstrings This is a nice, simple, clean rendering of the hamstrings. Remember to strengthen them in addition to stretching them! I hope this illustrated guide gives you insight into the complementary muscles to your core. I also hope it helps you teach your students about this region with greater confidence and clarity. Be sure to stay tuned for the upcoming core-focused practice posts! Please subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss my upcoming articles! (PS: If you missed Yoga + Your Core, Part I, you can find it here.) Original article and pictures take http://www.jasonyoga.com/2015/11/21/yoga-anatomy-of-hips/ site