PREPARE THE POSTURE

With your feet spread wide on your mat, turn your thighs slightly inward. This will allow your toes to also turn slightly towards one another.
With your hands on your hips, initiate an anterior tilt of your pelvis as you tip your torso forward.
Hands come to the floor or blocks in front of you to support. If your hamstrings feel tight in this position, reciprocal inhibition is about to help with that.

How to Activate Your Quadriceps: Reciprocal Inhibition Technique

Activate your quads by energetically lifting your thighs away from your knee caps.
Feel as though you are drawing your upper thigh bones up into your hip socket. Matt describes this as almost “suction-cupping” your thigh bones upward, which will help turn on hip flexors and quads.

You activate reciprocal inhibition the moment you engage your quads, because when these muscles are activated, the opposing muscles release (in this case, the hamstrings), and you’re able to relax more deeply into the pose.

TENSOR FASCIAE LATAE (TFL) ENGAGEMENT FOR DEEPER FORWARD FOLDS 

Just as activation of your quad muscles, in particular the rectus femoris, will help you deepen into your forward fold, Matt explains that activating the TFL (tensor fasciae latae) will also deepen forward folds. Like the rectus femoris, the TFL is also a hip flexor but can be easier to engage because of its additional functions as an abductor and internal rotator. By isometrically pressing your heels away from each other, you will trigger TFL to engage. Pushing the heels or backs of the legs away from each other is both abduction and initiates internal rotation. If you don’t know these anatomy terms, do not worry; just apply the action of pressing the backs of the legs apart and you will feel your outer hips engage, supporting you in tipping your pelvis forward.

Why take this approach?

 Aside from achieving deeper forward folds, is there a reason to apply this approach? We must, in a sense, be a “professor in our postures.”  What does this mean?

It means that there is infinite space for inquiry in our practice. Each time we step onto the mat, we have an opportunity to examine and reflect on how we approach our practice. Equipped with this kind of knowledge, our practice becomes more informed and supports our ability to realize our potential and create resilient and healthy tissues. Then we really start tapping into what is available to us in our bodies by using fundamental actions that our bodies are so brilliantly designed to perform.

Matt’s November 2021 Immersion, Spinal Awakening, includes the following:

• Twists • side bends • forward folds • heart openers
• Techniques to strengthen and mobilize the spine
• Releasing back tension and discomfort
• Twelve 75-minute classes, all levels appropriate
• Advancing your postural practice
• Lifetime unlimited access to all

Take advantage of this opportunity to awaken both mind and body.  

Already have Spinal Awakening and want another immersion to support you in deeper forward folds? We suggest the Hips & Hamstrings Immersion!

Written By Trish Curling 

THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY FOUNDATIONS

Now let’s get to the good stuff! All arm balances have what I call “2 foundations.” You have the primary foundation, which is the hands — this is most important. Then the second foundation is where the leg(s) rests upon the arm. With all foundations, we want to dig downward like a tree rooting into the soil. The fingers gripping the earth is a downward dig. For Side Crow, our second foundation is where the thigh connects to the arm. If you press the thigh down into the arm, your hips magically lift. It’s not magic actually; that’s just the mechanics and science. In this case, the muscles that do the pressing down are called the abductors (gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, gluteus maximus, and tensor fasciae latae). To get these stronger, follow along with the video below.

THE CORE: WHY ARE THE LEGS APART?

The last point of discussion is what connects the upper body and lower body: the obliques. Because this posture is a twist, the major core muscles that we need to activate are the external obliques. These muscles will help us to twist, and in the case of Side Crow, we can actually use them to untwist. This is confusing, but once you are in the shape of Side Crow, you are working to untwist along with the abductors, which will keep your buttocks up high and make the posture feel light instead of heavy. In the video, I go over some oblique warm-ups. When you are in Side Crow, it is quite hard to think about untwisting, which is why I show you a technique hack. By abducting the legs away from each other in Side Crow, you will automatically untwist the spine, and your hips will have to lift upward. The abductors of the hips and the obliques work together in this action, and you won’t have to waste brainpower trying to make it happen.

SLIDE BACKS LEAD TO JUMP BACKS

The slide back drill is great preparation for the “dreamy jump back” because of all of the pieces we have to put together in order to execute. But it’s in this process of self awareness, reflection, and inquiry into the body where we build a deeper relationship with our own individual yoga practice.

You can continue to explore strength and the ways to slowly cultivate it in Matt’s October 2021 Immersion, Strength

Practice with Matt live and get lifetime access to:

• 12 classes: Each class targets a specific muscle group
• Strengthen your core, back, hips, shoulders, wrists, ankles, legs, and arms
• Learn creative ways to strength train within the context of a yoga practice
• Increase mobility by balancing your strength with oppositional muscle groups
• Joyful accountability to help you reach your practice goals

See you on the mat!

~Written and Edited by Trish Curling