WHERE TO BREATHE IN BACKBENDS (ALSO KNOWN AS HEART OPENERS)

Through much experience, I have found that the best approach to breathing in heart openers is to focus on expanding the sides of the ribs outward, lifting the heart upward, and allowing the shoulders to rise and fall. In all of my heart-opening immersions, I teach the specifics and guide you step by step on how to shift your breathing from the belly to the thoracic. Belly breathing, often known as diaphragmatic breathing, is excellent, highly efficient, and calming; in heart openers, however, it tends to cause a great deal of discomfort in the low back, and more often than not, it significantly restricts mobility. I do suggest belly breathing between sets of backbends to bring the heart rate back down and to get grounded.

The easiest way to learn how to breathe into the sides of the ribs and chest is to cinch your belly in and up, which is often referred to as Uddiyana Bandha. Anatomically speaking, I am referring to two main muscle actions.

1. transversus abdominis: Activate this, known as the corset muscle, by pulling your wasteline inward on all sides of the body.
2. erector spinae: Lift your ribs and chest upward; don’t try to”knit the ribs,” but allow them to lift.

Maintaining these two actions, place your hands on your outer ribs. On your inhale, try to push outwards into your hands with your ribs while keeping the belly inward (a little movement will occur—that’s ok) and your middle and upper chest lifting. Doing this will force the intercostal muscles between the ribs to lengthen. That said, you’ll want to be careful and avoid massive inhales when learning this so that you do not overstretch any of these muscles. In the immersion titled Anatomy of the Heart, we go over all of these actions, and I also show these muscles to you so you can visualize how it all works.

The Actions for Extended Side Plank, Variation at the Wall

As always, it’s imperative to start your awareness from the ground up.

Step 1 – Matt explains that the gripping of your hand into the mat activates the flexors of your wrist. This is important because now you are utilizing technique to activate strength and set a solid base for the posture.

Step 2 – Next, we have spinal extension as a result of the shoulder blade moving into the spine. Matt emphasizes how necessary these actions are so that the rest of the posture can actually be expressed.

Step 3 – This step is really connected to Step 2, as it’s important to take the steps of lifting your shoulder up, back, and around. We also see this in Matt’s Shoulder Alignment Tutorial for Wild Thing.

Step 4 – Move your pelvis and weight in towards the wall.

Step 5 – You can then bend your knee and bring your foot onto the wall.

Step 6 – This step can take you to another level.
Grab your knee and pull it in as tightly towards the chest as possible. If this is the final step in the journey at this time for you, Matt explains that the only thing missing is the extension of the leg, removing the quadricep engagement.

How does this differ from the next variation?

ANATOMY

The awareness of your anatomy is vital for you to understand each step. Understanding your anatomy helps you more clearly and intentionally connect with the sensations in your body, therefore cultivating a more direct line of communication from your brain to your body and from your body to your brain. The development of these signals will promote a more sophisticated body awareness that will help you activate the appropriate muscles (without overdoing it) and know exactly what directions not only to take but also to maintain in a particular part of your body as you layer on each action.

THE BIOMECHANICS 

In the video below, you will notice two key points. First is the rotation of the arm bone (external), which pairs with retraction of the shoulder blade. Second, you will see that in Wild Thing, my shoulder is NOT stacked directly above the wrist.

There are two reasons we focus on external rotation. First, it helps stabilize the arm bone in the shoulder socket (glenohumeral joint), which tends to be challenging for most people — it’s safe to say that most humans are chronically internally rotated at the shoulder. The second reason is that external rotation in this position helps to retract and depress the shoulder blade. As a result of these actions, you will feel your spine move into a backbend so long as you don’t do anything to counteract the movement.

Wild Thing shoulder alignment is not just about the shoulder; it also helps to prepare your spine for the deep backbend that Wild Thing requires.

The Risk: If you skip these steps, you will likely wind up with pressure, strain, or pain at the front of the shoulder joint. Additionally, your posture will feel more like a 3-Legged Tabletop than an expansive heart opener.