Reciprocal Inhibition...Secret to improve our flexibility

I have seen many students come to Yoga class with primary focus on improving flexibility. In fact, even I started with the same intention but later moved on. I used to push myself, or get pushed to become more flexible. I went to an extent, to find some magical herbs which could make me flexible J Least did I know the nature of human body. In this blog let us discuss one of the nature’s secrets to improve flexibility. In medical terminology it is called- Reciprocal Inhibition. Let us not get into too much of details about this medical nomenclature.  

Polarity is nature’s nature. positive-negative, day-night, ascending-descending, active-passive and let us not forget male-female :) etc. These forces are apparently contradictory, but essentially they go hand in hand and are harmonious. This is why I feel equality is myth, harmony is natural. Even in our body there are such contradictory forces, but at one given point of time, only one manifests over the other. There are forces that energize our body and that calms us down and that is how activity and rest is perfectly harmonised. Even to move a limb these forces act in a perticular way that some muscles contract and some muscles expand, to allow a smooth movement. For example- To bend our elbow joint, biceps contract and triceps expand. To bend knee joint, hamstring contracts and quadriceps expand.

Sounds very simple and logical, right? Exactly! This is so simple, that this action happens so fast and reflexively without involving our mind. If we contract some muscles (Agonists) to move a joint then there are always opposite set of muscles (Antagonists) which relax or expand, reflexively. The more we contract one set of muscles; the opposite set of muscles expand more . This is called reciprocal inhibition in medical terminology. So, the more we want to stretch a muscle the more we need to consciously contract the opposite muscle (In medical terminology it is called Agonist-Antagonist pair). This is the secret to improve flexibility. We can use this logic consciously in our Yoga practice. In our practice, we need to be attentive of our breathing as well, to make optimum benefit of this concept. We need to breathe in a controlled manner, and contract our muscles during exhalations. 

A few Yoga asanas where we can apply this concept -

•          Paschimottanasana, Janu Sirsasana, Uttanasana, Adho mukha svanasana or any forward bending: Consciously contract quadriceps to extend hamstring to improve forward bending. This is the reason why in Iyengar yoga traditional classes we are asked to pull our kneecaps up when we bend forward. I have explained the need and how to pull up the knee caps in my blog "Yoga tips: Should we pull up knee caps or not?"
•          Bhujangasana, urdhva mukha svanasana: We contract buttock muscles, calf muscles to stretch your front body.

We cannot hasten the process of stretching, but, we can apply this method slowly, steadily, breath by breath, every minute. Although it appears simple, wrong application can cause complex injuries. It is advisable to practice this under the supervision of an experienced Yoga teacher. Let us discuss more about enhancing our flexibility in upcoming blogs. Having said this, it is vital to make our mind flexible to comprehend that Yoga is not mere body flexibility.

I thank my good friend, sports physiotherapist, Dr. Gladson Johnson (www.attitudeprime.com) under whom I learnt wealth of techniques related to human anatomy and its application to Yoga. 

After all, an ounce of practice is always better than thousands of theories! This concept is applicable across asana practice and I would be eager to hear more from your practice J

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References:

[1] “Anatomy of Hatha Yoga” by H. David Coulter

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_inhibition

What is Thyaga? The concept of letting go

There are many instances where I have heard people say “you need to let go to be happy”. What should I let go? How will I know that? Does letting go mean I should sacrifice everything and run to Himalayas? Should I give money/food to needy? No one answered these questions convincingly and I realized that many use such statements very lightly. Probe a little they will be as clueless as you are :) Finally I got the answer to my question. Let us understand the concept of letting go or “Thyaga” in this blog. Before we start, try to introspect the questions I have raised. Remember, we learn only through enquiry.

Indian thought system says that we need to let go all the obstacles in our life and hold on to those that are essential. Hmm..If we think deeper, this sounds like a very subjective statement. What is essential to me may not be essential to others and what is my obstacle can be some one’s boon. For example- Some can argue that eating food 6 times a day is essential to them, or wearing an expensive jewellery is essential to them. So we should define words “essential” and “obstacle” in order to understand this concept.

Indian thought system clarifies this point by saying that essential and obstacles are those that act or doesn't act as means to ultimate realisation ("Nirvana", also called, “Samadhi” is a Yogic term). This ultimate realisation is everyone’s goal of life. (What is this ultimate realisation is out of this blog's scope. Read blog: “What is God? Let us understand scientifically…” to get an idea of God). For now imagine realisation to be a stage where we have complete control of our energy. Figuratively, we can play with our energy!!! This is the state we are talking here. Anything which acts as a means to our goal is essential, otherwise it is not. Obstacles are an end in itself and will not take us anywhere. We go to temple or worship God/Guru daily because we think temple/God/Guru to be a means to our realisation but if we think going to temple or worshiping God itself is an end then even this act becomes an obstacle. Now the question is, How do we know whether something is a means to my end goal or not?

Experience…We experience a state of happiness/bliss when we do something which is essential. Now, we may question, drinking alcohol daily gives me happiness, smoking gives me happiness etc etc. But lets ask ourself whether that is taking us anywhere closer to our goal. These experiences are deteriorating our health both mentally and physically. Thoughts, feelings, desires, relationships, possessions and the sense of me culminates in to obstacles in life in the path of realisation. Right experience of happiness is the one that uplifts us towards our goal, the one that gives us fulfillment and doesn't make us regret about it anytime. These are the kinds of experiences which we should value.

So to summarise, “let go the obstacles in life which are not acting as a means towards our end goal and learn from our experiences as to what is essential. Essentials will give us happiness/bliss and will uplift us towards our goal”

I hope you understood the concept. On behalf of you all, I would express my sincere thanks to my good friend, my philosophy teacher, Research scholar - Swaroop Sharma, for answering my questions related to Thyaga.

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Constipation Vs Backpain, Physical Vs Physiological connection

In my earlier blog, Misunderstanding the pain, I explained how pain in any part of the body doesn’t mean that only that part of the body is disturbed. You are just getting indication from the weakest link. In this blog I will explain the relation between physical and physiological body from a unique problem I went through. Apart from this I got an insight in to how modern medicine and Ayurveda looks at the same problem.

One day after an intense Yoga practice I got a severe back pain. This was around a year back and I was ignorantly  testing limits everyday. Pain had become part of my life and I had learnt to live with the pain. But this time the pain was something unusual. I ignored it for a day but it started becoming worst. Most of the stretch pain will subside with sufficient rest but this was increasing (I explained about pains during Yoga practice in my earlier blog, Yoga teacher pushes...Good or bad?). On day two I rushed immediately to an allopathic doctor. He said that my muscles have gone for spasm and I need to take rest for a week. Bed rest is the first few words modern medicine speaks when they hear back pain. So, next time you visit allopathic doctor only after taking sufficient bed rest so that you can rule out the obvious response :)

After two days my problem worsened and on top of that I started developing severe constipation^[1] problems. Slight constipation was there even before but it was not causing any problem. This time as pain never subsided I went to an Ayurvedic doctor. Somehow I believe in Ayurveda for treating such common and chronic problems. Ayurvedic doctor said because of constipation I have developed back pain. He said when bowel movement becomes difficult it starts putting extra load on the surrounding muscles which was the cause of back pain. This was a thought provoking explanation and made me think. I started analyzing my problem in greater detail.

After much research and self study I understood the problem. When we overstretch a muscle it causes muscle spasm^[2]. Spasm means sudden contraction of muscle fibers to avoid being overstretched. This is more like a natural defense mechanism of our body. When back muscles goes for spasm they lose their flexibility or their rhythm. Back muscle rhythm is important to cause movement inside your intestine. Back muscle contraction and relaxation which happens even during walking, running etc creates rhythmic contraction and relaxation in our intestine. This movement is essential to move food inside our intestine. When this rhythm is affected it leads to constipation. Constipation will put load on back muscles which are already compressed due to spasm thus further increasing the pain. This cycle goes on and pain shoots up exponentially.

Constipation has many causes and what I experienced is one of the causes which gave me this understanding. This example clearly shows how our physical body is connected with our physiological functions. When we work on our physical body in Yoga practice we are working to release tension or contraction in our muscles which is influencing our physiological organs and its function. Wondering what I did? I thought of targeting the problem from both sides and I took both medicine :)

In my future blogs I would logically explain how Yoga practice will influence you at a much deeper levels such as mental, intellectual and energetic. I hope you enjoyed reading it.  

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References

[1] http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/digestive-diseases-constipation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm 

Previous related blogs
Misunderstanding the pain

Yoga teacher pushes...Good or bad?

Yoga teacher pushes...Good or Bad?

It is common that many Yoga teacher pushes you in to your posture in order to make you stretch beyond your normal capabilities. They do it with the intention to make you do all advance asanas soon. Question has always been raised about this method. Is it a healthy way to do Yoga? Does it cause any harm? etc etc. In this blog I am going to talk about this in detail from my studies and experience.

Let us first understand the nature of human body. Pain is a natural feedback mechanism to protect your body from injuries. It is the warning indicator to tell you that you about to cross your limits. It is nature’s way of telling “Boss, you are doing too much, be careful!!”.  Limitation can be from any part of your body:  muscles, joints, ligaments etc, you first feel the pain. As I explained in my earlier blog: Misunderstanding the pain, pain in any part of the body doesn’t mean that only that part of the body has limitations. You are just getting indication from the weakest link.

When you push beyond your limits too fast, your muscles goes for spasm^[1] (sudden, involuntary contraction of muscles) in order to prevent you from stretching/overloading further. Although most of the spasm relaxes in a few days, it can even be permanent. Your muscle remembers these spasms and next time it will occur soon unless you have trained rightly after the first occurrence. All these are natural defense mechanisms to protect our body.  Finally, postural muscles (prevents you from collapsing in the field of gravity) act like spring in the field of gravity^[2][3] and with gentle force you can keep them in completely stretched position. Let us move ahead with these concepts in mind.

Many Yoga students and teachers ignore the pain and try hard to work through the pain resulting in injuries.  They say "Go beyond pain to achieve and improve in your abilities” , “Pain is merely physical, a material thing. Go beyond material world by ignoring the pain”, “I am not pushing, I am just trying to correct you”. They all tend to push you hard to get results quickly. All these statements are true but conditions apply!!.  

Let us do an experiment. Sit in stretched leg position and bend forward till you feel stretch pain. When you hold that position for some time you will notice that pain will disappear and you can go a little forward to feel pain again. This initial pain is the body’s way to warn you “Boss, hold on, you are doing something new today. Let me get used to it”. This concept can be explained from medical world but it is beyond the scope of this blog. Point at which you feel this initial pain varies on daily basis. When teacher says “Go beyond pain”, this is the kind of pain there are talking about. The initial pain which you experience when you body is not ready. You can go deeper in to the posture slowly by holding the posture for long time till you reach your maximum at which point you should stop. In this approach you are being the master and trying to acknowledge the natural responses of your body. Take it slowly and steadily by having patience to hold for longer duration. I have seen many students who are so disturbed to hold the posture longer to experience all this!

Yoga teachers are not linked to your feedback mechanism and they have no clue about what you are feeling. Without the knowledge of your feedback mechanism they push you and their by increasing the chances of injuries.  Many teachers even ignore your scream thinking that either you are acting or you are lazy to do more!! This may be true but it can be serious to ignore your scream. In this approach you are making your teacher the master of your body without being aware of the natural feedback responses of your body. So, being pushed by your teacher is always a strict ‘NO’. They may say “You did more last week, so why not today. Let me push you”. Keep in mind that it is not just your physical body but even your emotional pattern decides what you can do on a particular day. As I said, your body is not the same every day. Respect it.

How about teacher correcting your posture? Corrections are done to make you feel the right stretch or to release unnecessary tensions in certain parts. You feel good after the correction. After correction if pain increases, then step back and move forward in the right direction slowly by acknowledging the pain. Having said this there are some teachers who are aware of all this and try to work only with the spring action of your postural muscles. This is perfectly fine but there is a better way to do this. Yoga props used in Iyengar Yoga will enable you to be the master and work to get right maximum stretch.

One of the Yama (self-restraints) of Ashtanga Yoga is “Ahimsa”(Non-Violence).  Ahimsa doesn’t just mean doing good to society and others. Follow in even in your practice by not doing violence by yourself or by someone on you. Apart from this many times it is your ego to show off because of which you push yourself or allow someone to push you. Ego is not Yoga. Understand that by getting pushed you are being detrimental to your own progress. Yoga is not a competition but a lifelong process. Go beyond you stretch pain slowly and steadily by staying in the posture for longer duration.

Do I practice this? Honestly, I used to push my students at the beginning but then I experienced the pain by being pushed. This triggered me to do self-study. Slowly I refined my method of teaching to give precise instructions to feel the right and optimum stretch without using much force. I still try to bring the lost awareness by gently tapping at the places where there is no awareness. I do this to deal with passive mind of the studentsJ. This is still work in progress!! English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 coined the metonymic adage “The Pen is mightier than the sword” and now I say “Words are mightier than the force in Yoga training!!”

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References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm

http://nau.edu/Research/Feature-Stories/Spring-like-Protein-Key-to-Muscle-Behavior/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1456055/

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