Joint movement in Hatha Yoga

Recently, I have been fortunate enough to be able to sit down and chat with a few yoga teachers and discuss "YOGA". For the civilian, Yoga is just the asana or poses. However, for the truly devoted, Yoga is an 8 limb system of how to live your life that goes WAY beyond the physical poses.

However, since that's what most tend to focus on, I decided to focus a blog post to the asana as Part III to my "More than meets the eye" series.

Chatting with these teachers, I realized that the poses are very elusive to many. They tend to just regurgitate instructions from what their teachers said and so on. Rarely do they take the time to break the poses down and understand them.

However, some do go a bit further and focus on the muscles and stretching the muscles which is fine. It's like Step 2 on the never ending yogic journey. So I wanted to write a short post on looking at the asana with the motions of the joints in mind. Here's the thing: you can focus on muscles but they are JUST reactors to the motions of the bones and joints.  If you don't flex your knee or anteriorly rotate your pelvis, you are not going to get any reaction or stretch out of those tight hamstrings.

As always, we will look at the motions of the joints in 3-D and you'll be shocked to know that the joint has over 2,000 possibilities at any given moment.

Here's the short and sweet about 3-D Joint Physiology:

1) A joint is the location at which two or more bones contact. 

2) Joints are tri-planar meaning that they have movement capability in the three cardinal planes: 

• SAGITAL: Flexion and Extension
• FRONTAL: Right and Left lateral flexion or right and left lateral translation
• TRANSVERSE: Right and Left rotation

THESE MOTIONS ARE ALSO CALLED OSTEOKINEMATICS. 

3) Joints have specific movements within them which are usually small amplitude motions called:

• Roll
• Glide
• Spin

THESE MOTIONS ARE CALLED ARTHROKINEMATICS.

Now, this is the simple side of joint mechanics that can get complex pretty quickly. 

Interestingly, within the Osteokinematics, we find an even deeper process.  At each cardinal planar movement, there are 13 ways to get the motions like sagital planes' flexion and extension. Well, if you know that there are 13 ways to get motion in the sagital plane, you know there are 13 ways to get it in the frontal plane so that's 13x13 which equals 169 joint possibilities. Then we have 13 ways to get motion in the Transverse plane so that's 13x13x13 which equals 2, 169 minus 1 for NO MOTION at the joint and you get 2, 168 ways that a joint can move. 

Q: SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOGA???

I will tell you when I first learned that, I was absolutely floored because here I was thinking one-dimensionally when there was a whole other world out there especially for the yoga asana because we have to work with the joints in the poses. Because poses are generally multi-joint rich, we have a formula for a lot going on all at once.

When we look at the asana, it would benefit all involved parties, especially teachers, to look at the asana with knowledge based in anatomy, physiology and biomechanics and use language that is clear and concise not phrases like "Pop your hip" "Your inner ankle is collapsing" "Balance on your sits bones"(I hate the last one the most).

For better or for worse, yoga teachers are movement therapists in many regards, especially when they get into "alignment". Knowing the anatomy only will deepen your skills as teachers. Understanding physiology and simple joint mechanics will allow you to serve your clients and students better as well as being able to speak on a professional level with health care providers like doctors and physical therapists so that you can be part of a team that can facilitate healing of your client.

I am starting to teach a series of "Anatomy of Yoga" workshops to introduce the science of the body to yoga teachers and advanced students. Having an accurate mental map of your body will only serve you.

As always I welcome in questions and comments you may have. I can be reached at will@3doptimalperformance.com


Thanks!

Will