Open Your Shoulders with a Yoga Strap

Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose) is a staple in my morning yoga courses. Years in the past, a number of of my college students made up unflattering names for it—Cow Pie, Mad Cow, and so forth.—as a result of it was so difficult for them. Now those self same Cow Face naysayers have was Cow Face converts. A few of them even quit a little bit of their Savasana (Leisure Pose) to do it if I don’t provide it in school. The Cow Face arm place is one other story, nonetheless. It may be fairly a problem, however with a yoga strap, anybody can reap the advantages.

Gomukhasana is kind of complicated. It’s categorised as a hip-opening pose, because it stretches all of the glutes—maximus, medius and minimus—in addition to the piriformis and the tensor fasciae latae. My college students—those who prefer it—discover it very grounding, making it useful a useful pose towards the top of a observe. (Notice that the picture that accompanies this weblog exhibits solely the arm place, not the leg place. You could find an outline of the leg place within the above “Gomukhasana” hyperlink.)

Cow Face Pose Isn’t Simply Concerning the Hips

Cow Face Pose additionally opens the shoulders. The basic arm place options one elbow pointing upward and the opposite hand wedged behind your shoulder blades. Mentioned to seem like one raised and one lowered ear on a cow’s head, it creates a robust triceps stretch within the higher arm and a robust biceps and deltoid stretch within the decrease one.

Whereas the leg and arm positions are historically practiced collectively, they can be useful on their very own if you happen to’re occupied with placing extra consideration into both your hips or shoulders.

Why Use a Yoga Strap?

Right now’s weblog will concentrate on the shoulders. The standard place requires connecting the palms of your higher and decrease arms within the higher again. However many individuals’s shoulders simply received’t permit this. There are various doable causes for this, together with the development of the shoulder joints. Some folks’s shoulders are shaped for stability. They could not be capable of attain their elbow straight up towards the sky as a result of their humerus bones will “hit” the again of the scapula earlier than the arm will get to vertical. This explicit shoulder configuration just isn’t an indication that you simply’re a “poor” yogi! It’s effectively inside what’s thought-about to be regular vary of movement.

Others will discover that when their dominant arm is the decrease one, that their palms can’t contact, despite the fact that they might join when the dominant arm is the higher one. This can be resulting from elevated power and stability within the dominant arm’s biceps and deltoids, though there could possibly be different causes.

In any case, a yoga strap might help. It will probably bridge the hole between your palms, making a connection. Connecting the palms is necessary for energizing the arms in Gomukhasana. Whether or not you join the fingers or use a yoga strap to attach your palms, your Gomukhasana might be extra dynamic if you happen to can join your palms.

Easy methods to Use a Yoga Strap in Gomukhasana

In case your palms don’t join in Gomukhasana, do this:

1. Prolong your left arm out in entrance of you, turning your palm outward, internally rotating your shoulder. Swing your arm round behind your again. Bend your elbow and place the again of your hand in your low again. Now scoot your the again of your hand up your again any quantity—wherever from the decrease ribcage to between the shoulder blades.
2. Maintain a yoga strap in your proper hand. Dangle it over your again. Flip your proper palm to face inward, towards your head. Bend your elbow and discover the yoga strap together with your left hand. Stroll your proper and left palms towards one another. For those who’d like so as to add some further power to your shoulder expertise, “stretch” the strap, pulling upward together with your proper hand and downward together with your left.
3. Keep for 5 to 10 deep breaths. Let go and let your arms chill out. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths earlier than working towards your different aspect.

For those who’d wish to see extra makes use of for Yoga Straps, in addition to the way to use Hugger Mugger’s different premium props, please go to the Yoga Props Information.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.