Issue 4: Yoga, Flexibility & Body Agency
Issue 4: Somatic Muscle Science Unveiled
From the moment you begin the first Sun Salutation, your muscles are at a disadvantage.
Tell me if this is the typical pre-yoga class routine that you normally do, or see others doing.
Students unroll their mat, flop to the ground, and then proceed to do variations of:
A series of deep static stretches
Pilates 100's
Chaturanga Push-Ups 25X
Jump into Handstand and “float” down to Chaturanga
Conquer Headstand for 11 minutes
Lay down on their back and nap (and snore)
Seated meditation accompanied by excessively heavy Ujjayi pranayama
Text their bestie and/or take selfies
The yoga teacher walks into the room and boom– you're doomed.
Suddenly, your body stiffens as you come to attention. Boom– you’re sitting in a cross-legged position that your hips and knees are not prepared for. Boom– you're standing in Mountain Pose at the top of your mat and without any hamstring warm up you’re coming into a deep standing forward fold (Uttanasana). Boom– without any low back warm up, you're doing a deep backbend in Cobra or Upward Facing Dog. Boom– now you’re told to come into Downward Facing Dog, a “resting pose" for 10 long breaths without adequate shoulders, chest, hamstrings, or calves warm up. And so on and so forth the carnage continues. From the moment you fold forward your nervous system is kick-started by the stretch reflex into protecting your body from injury with more tension.
Hacking The Stretch Reflex To Work For You
The battle between different areas of the nervous system.
The battle between different parts of the nervous system begins with improper warm-up routines and static stretches. Triggering the stretch reflex starts a battle between the automatic, unconscious reflexes of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and the voluntary, conscious movement of the Somatic Nervous System (SNS). Forcing muscles into a range of motion that triggers a deep stretch sensation means that the stretch reflex is working against your efforts to increase flexibility by doing the exact opposite– inhibiting movement. While you’ve been taught that that familiar muscle-pulling sensation means you’re “getting a good stretch”, you’re actually increasing the level of muscle tightness as the stretch reflex contracts. You’ve been taught that this “stretch sensation” makes muscles longer but muscle science proves that as soon as you perceive a stretch sensation (even a stretch sensation in the belly of the muscle sets off the stretch reflex), it's too late– the stretch reflex has already sent the impulse to contract. In order to make lasting gains in flexibility and strength from your yoga practice, it is essential to integrate somatic muscle science exercise and dynamic movement principles before, during, and after the practice.
What yoga practices work with the stretch reflex?
As with the Vinyasa Yoga Krama System in Krishnamacharya’s lineage, adding dynamic movement, active stretch techniques, and somatic release pandiculation exercises before, during, after– and within yoga poses helps avoid the infamous “yoga carnage” caused by inefficient use of the stretch reflex. I’ve spent the last decade devising ways to incorporate somatic muscle science and stretch techniques into yoga sequencing that works with the stretch reflex. Somatic Mobility Drills and Bilateral Somatic Movement Exercises saved my body, my students' bodies, and their students' bodies by providing pain relief and recovery from injury– and dare I say... with a renewed sense of confidence and joy and in moving. Why? Because this type of movement leads to greater sensory motor awareness which leads to a deepened sense of body autonomy and body agency. Autonomy is the freedom to choose what you want to do or do not want to do. Agency involves the capacity and confidence to follow through on those choices.
If Stretching Doesn’t Work, How Are We Supposed To Gain Flexibility?
People are stuck in their old muscle science ways about yoga and fitness.
The irony is that MOST yoga practices do NOT incorporate techniques that maximize flexibility and mobility. When people think of yoga they instantly imagine inhuman flexibility, pretzel poses, and super-duper long held deep stretching combined with a spiritual element. While conventional yoga can improve short-term flexibility it is often at the risk of long-term damage. Long-term damage is due to overstretching muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia which can cause weakened tissues leading to joint degeneration. I’ve been there and done that and suffer the consequences– but you and your students don’t have to!
While the benefits of yoga include mind-body connection, breathwork, balance, and functional strength most yoga and stretch classes do not integrate flexibility techniques such as: dynamic movement, active stretches, eccentric, concentric and isometric contractions, self-assisted proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), fascia release, and somatic release undulations and pandiculations into regular classes. Somatic Mobility Drills Sequences seamlessly integrate all of these techniques into effective, science-based somatic practices. And they are FUN! Students love the addition to classes and come back for more.
Conventional yoga and stretch classes are not an efficient way to maximize long-term muscle, joint, and fascia health.
As I've mentioned, I LOVE yoga– it transformed my life. On the flipside, yoga teacher trainings also quite literally destroyed my body, caused longterm chronic pain, and robbed me of my dance career, teaching career, and has limited the joy I once felt living in this body. I talk more in depth about my experience in yoga teacher trainings where I have been seriously injured repeatedly by hands-on assists and getting a concussion from a student falling on my head in another blog newsletter. I want to help yoga students and teachers to stop the carnage.
Somatic Mobility Drills (SMD) Sequences were born out of a need to fill the gap that many yoga teacher trainings out there lack. In the trainings I’ve completed since 2000 (four 200-HR, two 300-HR, master classes, smaller certifications) none included techniques that work with the stretch reflex, and absolutely none integrated Somatic Release principles of Pandiculation. My trainings combine flexibility and mobility techniques, and dynamic movement with Somatic Release exercises for highly effective, safe, and lasting results. Transform your yoga practice into a sustainable practice helping you to age gracefully and powerfully for many years to come.
A Lack Of Body Agency In Conventional Yoga
I live on high alert– vigilant to avoid situations that may cause me bodily harm.
I know first hand what the repercussions are of over-stretching ligaments from years of Ashtanga practice. From 1997 until 2001 I practiced ashtanga yoga hardcore, went to Mysore at 7am in the deep, dark, cold winter months (no, hot yoga did not yet exist), followed by a contemporary dance technique class, followed by an evening capoeira class– five days a week. After a couple of years, I noticed that my hamstrings were more flexible. Friends even commented on my new range of motion– but it was my ligaments and fascia that took the brunt of it. Years later, overstretching my connective tissues has led to a total left hip replacement and major changes in the quality of my life– as well as negotiating the trauma of being seriously injured by the bare hands of individuals I trusted my personal safety with. I also implicitly placed my trust in doctors who recommended certain treatments. That story is also for another day.
To this day, I have fear around being touched so much so that I do not get massages, I do not allow anyone to do hands-on adjustments in classes, I ask teachers before class not to touch me and they look at me like I am weird (which is a whole other faux-pas). Those who know me know that I require gentle hugs. My body is always on high alert and vigilant keeping me in a state of fight-flight-freeze. Touch is essential to cellular healing, emotional healing, and producing serotonin and happy hormones. Self-Myofascial Release practices have helped me and many of my students heal from trauma. SMFR gives me permission to be massaged, at my own pace, where I can control pressure and duration–where I can practice body agency in a safe environment. As a certified Yoga Tune Up® teacher, I share these techniques in my somatic yoga teacher training and classes.
“To Know Thyself Is The Beginning of Wisdom” ~ Socrates
So, those are some of the reasons conventional yoga and stretch practices do not effectively increase flexibility and are not always the best way to generate body agency. My personal experience in various yoga settings has motivated me to bring awareness to the need for smarter stretch science and somatic movement, and ways to cultivate body agency. Yoga Somatics teacher trainings guide yoga teachers and students to learn somatic muscle science and embodied somatic neuroplasticity exercises that cultivate proprioception, interoception and exteroception– elements necessary to enhancing sensory motor awareness.
Thomas Hanna said, “The soma is the body experienced from within,” and neuroplasticity exercises have the potential to broaden the lived experience of a soma. By increasing our range of movement choices with somatic muscle science, we can think, speak, and act in more innovative ways, with greater creativity, curiosity, and empathy, broadening the scope of our personal and collective healing.
Stay tuned for Issue 5: Somatic Muscle Science Unveiled – My Horrible Experience With Ashtanga Yoga
