And what to do about it, Iyengar Yoga
How come my hamstrings are so tight? How can I lengthen my hamstrings? I hear this all the time. In this short lesson I work with Lisa to show what is usually happening in a forward bend, and what you can do about it.
What a tight forward bend looks like
Usually the legs are relaxed. The back is rounding, the upper back is rounding, and oftentimes the head is moving back so you get compression in the neck. You also get compression through the abdominal area, and there’s no lengthening happening through the back of the leg.
Your hamstrings are tight because, first of all, you are sitting on your pelvis the wrong way.
Take some height
Sit on one blanket, or two, depending on your flexibility. Extend the legs. Bring your hands underneath the buttocks, spread the buttocks and find your sitting bones. Pull the back of the thigh back until it connects to the sitting bone. This puts you on the pelvis the right way. The pubic bone lifts, the hips and thighs move down.
Taking height creates release in the hamstrings. When you sit rounded, the hamstrings are shortening and they can’t help you go forward, because you need access to the spine.
Make the legs active
The legs are straight, and they’re firm too. Spread the toes, and look at your ankles: they should be parallel to one another. Extend from the calf toward the heel. Then tighten your kneecaps. So many people don’t know how to do this. Look at your kneecap, bring your mind and your awareness into it and suck it up into the thigh. When the quadricep is active, you connect the femur, the upper leg, with the pelvis, and you get access to the pelvis and the lower back.
Press the fingers down and lift up through the chest. The sacrum doesn’t move toward the floor and the back doesn’t round. You may not get as long a trunk as Lisa has, but the height helps.
Use a strap instead of grabbing your feet
Reaching for your feet and holding on in the wrong posture won’t help you. There’s no cheese down that tube! Better to learn to bring the thoracic spine in, lift the chest and come into more of a concave back action. If you can’t touch your feet, bring a strap around them and hold it so you can pull back and reach into the upper back. Your spinal column goes from the tailbone all the way up to the brainstem, so lengthen all the way up, crown of the head lifting.
The front thigh matters too
The front body and the back body work together, the hamstring and the quadricep. Often we only pay attention to the hamstrings and don’t lengthen the front thigh at all. Both have to be stimulated so they can work together. If your quadriceps are hard, your hamstrings will become hard, and then it’s a never-ending story.
A supported front-thigh stretch on blocks
Lisa uses three blocks: one for the head, one for the shoulder blades, and one under the hips. Tilt the pelvis so the lower back lengthens and the buttocks move away. Keep the feet on the floor, bend the knees, lift up and slide the block underneath you. If it’s too high, turn the block on its side.
Keep one foot on the floor to balance and take the other foot back, holding the ankle. Let the extension come through the quadricep. You’ll also feel the front groin opening. When you sit a lot you can get some jamming here. The front hip bone and the groin move away from one another, the chest opens and the whole spinal column lengthens from the tailbone. Roll the shoulders under, then change sides.
Hold it as long or as short as you like. Do this on a regular basis and you’ll start to feel that length coming. It’s a preparation for Supta Virasana.
To finish, stretch the legs out. Press the heels away with the toes back toward you, and lengthen the whole back of the leg. Hold the sides of the mat, roll the shoulders under, collarbones wide. Then stretch the toes down toward the floor and tighten the kneecaps.
See if that doesn’t help with those tight hamstrings. Enjoy.
This lesson includes:
Seated forward bend on a blanket, with a strap
Supported front-thigh and groin stretch on three blocks (preparation for Supta Virasana)
Lengthening the backs of the legs on the blocks
