RYT300 Intensive Core Yoga ASSIGNMENT Physical Track
All remote students should complete this Lesson, but only the Physical Track students need to complete item #5 and take the quiz under the Lesson Topic. There is not an assignment to upload, but item #5 and the quiz will be a pretty deep dive into anatomy for the Physical Track students.
Note to all remote students: Some of this information is in the larger Hips, Shoulder and Core workshop, which you have access to through the portal, as a separate course. Review that material.
Pay particular attention to item #5 lised below. Use the Trail Guides materials and look up each muscle mentioned in the video. This will integrate your learning.
Understanding the following concepts:
#1. Why core train?
Considering that most activities and injuries occur when the spine is not in neutral, it is essential that we learn to perform core training in a non-neutral position under controlled forms.
#2. Bandhas
A) Review Core Stability in the Feet – Remember, in our st
anding poses, we must have pada bandha engaged. If we do not, then our core can’t be adequately engaged. Try it for yourself. Stand in Mountain with pada, mula and uddiyana banda engaged. Now let your foot lock go. See what happened? Yes…your core drops, too!
B) Review other bandhas – uddiyana and mula – you do NOT use a death grip for these bandhas, but you do want enough engagement to feel protected in your back and stable through your core.
#3. Review Chronic Contraction in the core – green light, red light reflex
If we are chronically contracted in the core, we will become dysfunctional in our movement patterns and suffer with pain.
A) We must learn to relax and to stay out of extreme chronic postures or ‘reflexes’. When you ask your client to relax, do they say, “Oh, yes, I am relaxed” but you see that they are NOT relaxed? Use mind/body exercises to enhance their connection so they can learn to really let go.
The Green Light Reflex is the reflex involved in forward movement. All of the large muscles of the back contract to move you forward in walking, running and standing. The back muscles can learn to stay overly-contracted, pulling the back into an exaggerated arch. You can think of this reflex as an arching reflex, like a soldier at attention. When running for the train, sitting at the computer for many hours, picking up a child, or standing all day long, these “green light” muscles are working to help you “get the job done.” If this reflexive response to stress becomes habituated, conditions such as herniated disks, neck pain, shoulder pain, and sciatica can develop
The Red Light Reflex, more commonly known as the Startle Response, involves the muscles on the front of the body, which tighten to pull you forward. This “slumping reflex” presents itself with rounded shoulders, depressed chest and the head jutting forward. It is a protective reflex found in all vertebrate animals and is a response to fear, anxiety, prolonged distress or negativity. A loud noise, unexpected sound or emotional trauma (or long hours hunched over the computer) can cause the muscles of the front of the body to contract suddenly as the body pulls inward in a slumping posture. An habituated Red Light Reflex can lead to chronic neck pain, jaw pain (as with TMJ), a “widow’s hump,” hip pain, mid-back pain and shallow breathing. The inability to breathe deeply deprives your brain, blood and muscles of the oxygen they need to function properly. This in turn can cause fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep problems and exacerbate allergies.
There’s also a third reflex called the Trauma Reflex occurs involuntarily in response to accidents and injuries and the need to avoid further pain as one compensates due to an injury. This reflex involves the muscles of the trunk rotators, which, when contracted, hike the hip on one side and twist the spine slightly. Examples of this would be the repetitive task of holding a young child on one’s hip, a sudden fall of any kind, limping on one side in response to, for example, a twisted ankle on the other side, falling on one’s tailbone in a fall or suffering from appendicitis. This reflex presents with side bending and rotations in the pelvis/trunk/shoulder/head. This postural compensation may be slight, or very noticeable, but its effects can be devastating. In many cases scoliosis is an example of an habituatedtrauma reflex, creating a curve and tilting in the spine and trunk.
Unfortunately, due to Sensory Motor Amnesia, some people stay stuck in the extremes of these postural reflexes out of habit, unable to sense the postural imbalances in their bodies. Many medical professional see these problems as structural in nature, when in fact they are functional. Improved function of the muscles improves the structure (posture). (Source: Essential Somatics)
B) The body is meant for optimal contraction and periods of complete relaxation. This is how it optimally operates.
#4. Breathing and the Core
A) Desikachar taught us that we can change our breathing pattern. We don’t always have to focus so much on the belly. It’s fine to use traditional breath practices sometimes, but at other times, choose to really focus on letting the breath come into the lungs where they run along the back side of the body. Notice the back ribs moving. Remember, when we breath, we tend to either have the chest somewhat contracted or the abs somewhat contracted, so try letting go a little more in the chest area and see if you can feel up your lungs more.
B) Teach kapalabhati with hands on ribs so you maintain your rib expansion. This can be a huge learning point for many students who realize they have never done this breath correctly before. You want to emphasize that the lungs (and therefore ribcage) should stay expanded as you exhale in short bursts.
#5. Review Core Muscles
Using your Trail Guides materials, jot down and review the muscles that Brent Brookbush outlines in his video about core anatomy.
#6. Review the Yoga Journal article on how your diaphragm impacts core strength
