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 on.—as a result of it was so difficult for them. Now those self same Cow Face naysayers have become Cow Face converts. A few of them even quit a little bit of their Savasana (Rest Pose) to do it if I don’t supply it at 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 sort of advanced. It’s categorized 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 tip of a follow. (Observe that the photograph that accompanies this weblog reveals solely the arm place, not the leg place. Yow will discover 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 traditional arm place options one elbow pointing upward and the opposite hand wedged behind your shoulder blades. Stated to appear like one raised and one lowered ear on a cow’s head, it creates a powerful triceps stretch within the higher arm and a powerful biceps and deltoid stretch within the decrease one.

Whereas the leg and arm positions are historically practiced collectively, they may also be helpful on their very own when you’re focused on 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 arms of your higher and decrease arms within the higher again. However many individuals’s shoulders simply received’t permit this. There are lots of potential causes for this, together with the development of the shoulder joints. Some folks’s shoulders are shaped for stability. They might not have the ability to 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 is just not an indication that you just’re a “poor” yogi! It’s properly inside what’s thought of to be regular vary of movement.

Others will discover that when their dominant arm is the decrease one, that their arms can’t contact, regardless that they might join when the dominant arm is the higher one. This can be on account of elevated energy and stability within the dominant arm’s biceps and deltoids, though there might be different causes.

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

The right way to Use a Yoga Strap in Gomukhasana

In case your arms 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 along with your left hand. Stroll your proper and left arms towards one another. For those who’d like so as to add some further power to your shoulder expertise, “stretch” the strap, pulling upward along with your proper hand and downward along 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 practising your different facet.

For those who’d wish to see extra makes use of for Yoga Straps, in addition to easy methods 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 Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third e book 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 folks sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.