Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders

by Baxter

As a follow-up to my post on Friday last week about tight shoulders (see Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders), and with the stellar prelude that Nina provided you with yesterday (see Living Proof), I am excited to share with you a sequence of shoulder opening poses. You may notice that some of the poses presented today resemble but are not necessarily formal yoga asanas or poses. In modern yoga practice, teachers and home practitioners have found that there are many “warm-up” poses that are a great way to get the body ready for the more formal yoga poses that might require quite a bit of openness or strength in a particular area of the body.

In this sequence, you will be able to address limits to movement in the shoulder joint in several directions. For those with tight shoulders, we recommend that you do the poses for 60-90 seconds in order to set the stage for more permanent changes in mobility. I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking (thanks again to Erin Collom for her generous help!), and keep my written instructions to a minimum. We will likely revisit many of these poses down the road, and can fill in any gaps in your understanding at that time.

So, without further ado....

1. Arms Overhead with arms angled

Arms Overhead pose (Urdhva Hastasana) is a very common pose in all levels of practice, and is required for both Sun and Moon Salutes, so it is a good one to practice and, if necessary, modify, as shown here. The idea is to bring your arms slowly out to the sides and up and stop when you feel pain, significant stiffness or if the elbows start to bend.  Do all the good stuff you would normally do in Mountain pose, and let it feel like the outer shoulder blades lift faster than the inner shoulder blades toward your arm bones.

2. Bear Hug

This is a modified way to work towards full Eagle pose arms. Try to reach around the sides of your upper arm bones, not over the top of your shoulders. Hold on where ever you can. Lift your elbows to parallel with floor, and push them slightly forward to create a stretch of the muscles located between the shoulder blades. You can invite your breath into that area to experience more stretch. Be sure to repeat the pose on the opposite side.


3. Modified Eagle pose arms

You saw this one last Friday (Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders).  When you bend your arm at the elbow, the stretch around the shoulder area changes from that of the Bear Hug.  For some, it is much tighter.  Keep the “Eagle arm” humerus bone parallel to the floor, chest broad, and use your other hand to gradually draw your elbow toward the opposite side of your chest. You can also push the Eagle arm elbow forward to increase the back stretch. Be sure to repeat the pose on the opposite side.

 

4. Arms Overhead at the wall

This is a variation of Arms Overhead pose. Facing the wall, stand about six inches from the wall facing with your arms overhead. If you are really tight in the shoulders, your arms may have to be angled as in pose 1. Come up onto the balls of the feet, sliding your hands a bit higher.  Imagine you are gluing your hands as high up the wall as you can. Then, slowly begin to lower your heels to the floor while keeping your hands as high as possible.  Be careful not to let your lower back dramatically arch as you descend your heels, but let it feel like the outer shoulder blades lift faster than the inner shoulder blades toward your arm bones. Keep your neck relaxed.

 

5. Half Arms Overhead at the wall

 This is a great way to open up your side chest and armpit, areas that can limit your arms going overhead. Stand with your body sideways to the wall, with your inside foot about 6 inches from the wall and your outer hip resting against the wall. Take your arm overhead in line with your side body, palm to the wall. Come up onto the balls of the feet, sliding your hand a bit higher.  Imagine you are gluing your hand as high up the wall as you can. Then, slowly begin to lower your heels to the floor while keeping your hand as high as possible.  Monitor the arch of your lower back and keep the side of your neck relaxed.  Repeat on the other side.



6. Arm out to the side and back with wall

This is a great way to lengthen part of the pectoralis major muscle that lies under the breast tissue. It is also a great prep for the next pose. Stand about a foot or foot and a half away from the wall, with the side of your body to the wall.  Reach your arm back about a foot or so behind you, parallel with the floor, palm on the wall with fingers pointing away from you.  Press your hand into the wall, and slowly and carefully turn the chest away from the arm until some stretch arises.  Hold there. Skip this one if you have a history of dislocating your shoulder.  Repeat on the other side.

 


7. Cobra with Doorknob

Tight Shoulder Version

This is another way to address tightness in the front chest that limits your arms moving into extension behind your body. It is a bit more challenging than the last pose, since both arms are doing the action at the same time. Find a door with a good set of doorknobs on both sides of it, and then open the door slightly. Stand Stand a few inches in front of it, then reach back and grab onto the doorknobs.  Keeping a nice lift up your front body, begin to lean forward. Try to keep the sensation happening in your upper chest, not the lower back. You will resemble the figurehead on the front of a 17th century ship.

More Flexible Version

8. Reclined Arms Overhead

This one comes from our teacher Donald Moyer. With a block next to you, and a strap that you have adjusted to a shoulder-width loop, lie down on your back in Savasana, but with strong legs. Place the strap over your arms just beyond your elbow joints towards your hands, then press out against the strap as you pick up the block between your hands and firm your hands against the ends of the block.  You may have to make the loop bigger or smaller to keep your arms straight as you press on the block. Then, take your arms up and over head slowly, heading towards the wall behind you.  If your thumbs don’t touch the floor without bending your elbows, you can put a lift of some sort, such as a folded blanket, under your hands. I put this pose at the end of the sequence as I feel that it requires the most openness and strength of the poses presented here. Nina, however, often does this at the start of a practice and finds it helpful in that position of the sequence.

Creating a Mini Yoga Practice

by Nina

Most of us start doing yoga in a class, and those classes are relatively long, usually ranging from one to two hours. So we often get the idea that practicing at home means doing the equivalent of a full-length class. Finding the time and/or energy to do that can be overwhelming, preventing us from ever getting started.

Practicing with a Friend by Nina Zolotow

But all of us here at Yoga for Healthy Aging believe that even doing a single pose constitutes a yoga practice, and we strongly encourage anyone who wants to get started with a home practice, to go ahead and start small! You’ll probably find that if you’ve bothered to change into your yoga clothes and get out your mat, and you've done your single yoga pose, you’ll feel ready to add on a few more poses. You’re not ready for a full-length practice, but you definitely feel up to a well-rounded “mini” practice that is, say, about 15 or 20 minutes long. But how do you decide what poses, and in which order you should do them for your mini practice?

Of course you could ask your favorite yoga teacher for some suggestions, but, although there is definitely an art to creating a sequence of yoga poses—especially one where you are preparing yourself to take on some challenging pose—you can also start very simply on your own, especially for a short sequence. Here are a few simple guidelines:

1. Ask yourself: what class of poses do I want to today: backbends, twists, forward bends, or inverted poses? Pick one of these general categories to counteract what you’ve been doing lately or what you did yesterday in class, or just because you’re in that kind of mood.

2. Pick an appropriate warm-up pose or two for that category of poses to start the sequence (see Warming Up for information). 

3. Choose a few standing poses or a few Sun Salutations that incorporate elements of the category of poses you’ve chosen. Some ideas:

• For backbends: Sun Salutations, or Warrior 1, 2, and 3, Tree pose, Eagle pose
• For twists: Sun Salutations, or Triangle pose, Extended Side Angle pose, Half Moon pose and the revolved versions of all three
• For forward bends: Downward-Facing Dog, Standing Forward Bend, Wide Angle Standing Forward Bend, Triangle pose, Extended Side Angle pose, Half Moon pose, Pyramid pose (Parsvottanasana)
• For inversions: Downward-Facing Dog, Standing Forward Bend, Wide Angle Standing Forward Bend. 

4. Pick a few of the poses from your category, starting with the easiest first: easy backbends, seated twists, seated forward bends, or Headstand followed by Shoulderstand, Plow pose, Bridge pose, or Legs Up the Wall pose (skip Headstand if you don’t do it).

5. Select a counter pose to balance your practice. After doing backbends, it’s helpful to do a twist, leg stretch or another back releasing pose. After doing forward bends or twists, I recommend doing a gentle back bend to restore the natural curve to your spine. 

6. End with Relaxation pose (Savasana) or another symmetrical restorative pose.

I’ve including standing poses and/or Sun Salutations in all the mini sequences because most of us tend to be sedentary at work, but if you’re on your feet all the time during the day, feel free to skip the standing poses and just add more warm-ups or more poses from your category. Don’t over-think it! Just have fun getting started with your home practice. You’ll be surprised at how rewarding it is. As a matter of fact, Timothy McCall will be writing post for the near future about how much more valuable a home practice is than just going to classes.

Got 20 Minutes?

 by Nina 

The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active. —Gretchen Reynolds

Last week I heard Gretchen Reynolds, Health and Fitness writer for the New York Times, being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air (see here) about her new book The First 20 Minutes. She said the reason she wrote the book is that she wanted sedentary people to understand that with just 20 minutes of exercise you can obtain a whole host of health benefits.

Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy.

This was exciting for me to hear because for many years, Baxter and I have been encouraging people to start practicing at home with 15 to 20 minute mini yoga practices. In our case we were just trying to be realistic about the busy schedules that most people have. And we also knew that when people consider practicing at home, the idea of doing a full-length practice can be intimidating and overwhelming. So when we used to teach special series classes together (such as Yoga for Stress and Yoga for Real Life), we always created handouts for our students that included the full-length sequence we taught as well as a “mini” version of the practice. And we've been including mini yoga practices our blog as well (see our mini low back care sequence and mini office yoga practice). Now we’re thrilled to learn that these short practices can make all the difference between the negative effects of sedentary lifestyle and the positive health benefits of moving around for 20 minutes a day. And that’s what yoga for healthy aging is all about. As Reynolds says, “If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life.”

Perfect Tulips by Nina Zolotow

So if you’re not already practicing yoga at home, consider taking a small step toward improving your health by committing to just 20 minutes day. Don’t know how to create a short yoga sequence? Simply take a longer sequence and modify it by removing some of the poses, leaving the remaining poses in the same order as they were in the original sequence. Or see my post Iyengar-Style Sequencing  and create your own sequence. You don’t need to over-think it! The benefits of starting to move for 20 minutes per day are so great, and if you listen to your body, you’ll soon learn how to create the sequences that are best for you.

The human body is a really excellent coach. If you listen to it, it will tell you if you’re going hard enough, if you’re going too hard. If it starts to hurt, then you back off. It should just feel good, because we really are built to move, and not moving is so unnatural. Just move, because it really can be so easy, and it really can change your life. —Gretchen Reynolds

For more about Gretchen Reynolds and her new book, see the NPR web site and the New York Times blog.