Do you knees splay out to the edges in Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)? That is one thing I’ve noticed rather a lot, each in myself within the earlier years of observe, and in lots of yoga college students. Is it an issue? Over time, I’m guessing it might be, specifically, on your knees and sacroiliac (SI) joint. There are a number of methods to treatment it. The one I’ll talk about right now entails putting a Yoga Block between your knees in Bridge Pose to strengthen your adductors.

What Are the Adductors?

The adductors are the muscle tissues of the inside thighs. They embrace:

• Pectineus
• Adductor longus
• Adductor brevis
• Gracilis
• Adductor magnus (the most important muscle within the group)

The adductors draw the leg towards the middle line (adduction) and internally rotate the thigh on the hip joint. This muscle group stabilizes the pelvis, serving to to steadiness the pelvic place throughout strolling. In addition they assist “explosive” actions, comparable to leaping and working. Whether or not we all know it or not, the adductors assist practically all our each day actions.

Once we spend numerous time sitting, each the adductors and abductors (outer thigh and hip muscle tissues that transfer the leg away from the middle line) can weaken. Over time, this will destabilize the knees, resulting in knee ache and dysfunction. In my very own casual “examine” of adductor power and weak spot, I’ve discovered that strengthening the abductors has helped maintain my SI joint extra steady.

How Can You Strengthen Your Adductors in Yoga Follow?

How are you going to inform in case your adductors are weak? Do this easy inquiry: together with your toes a bit of wider than hips-width aside and parallel, bend your knees about 90 levels right into a standing squat. Do your knees wish to splay out to the edges? In that case, your adductors aren’t pulling their weight. Nonetheless, even when your thighs simply keep parallel, it’s nonetheless a good suggestion to strengthen your adductors, particularly if you happen to sit rather a lot throughout the day.

In yoga, there are many poses that stretch the adductors—assume Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Upavista Konasana (Extensive-Legged Seated Ahead Bend), Baddha Konasana (Certain Angle Pose)—however not numerous poses that strengthen your adductors. Squeezing a Yoga Block between your thighs in Bridge Pose is one method to shield your knees and SI joint whilst you’re within the pose. Training with a block will even strengthen the adductors, which is able to assist stabilize your knees and SI joints in the long term.

Urgent your thighs right into a Yoga Block in Bridge Pose additionally helps shield your hip joints. Once we observe Bridge, it’s widespread to push up with the glutes with the intention to get as a lot top as doable. This may trigger us to push into hip joints, which might trigger the femur heads to push towards the perimeters of the hip sockets. Once we do that repeatedly over time, the joint’s cartilage and labrum can put on down. Within the directions beneath, I’ll recommend a distinct approach of transferring into Bridge Pose that will help you keep away from doing this. The Yoga Block between the thighs will give further assist to hip joints as effectively.

Tips on how to Strengthen Your Adductors with a Yoga Block

1. Lie in your again on a Yoga Mat. Have a 4-inch Yoga Block shut by.
2. Bend your knees and place the soles of your toes on the ground. Draw your knees in towards your chest and place the Yoga Block between your thighs, simply above your knees. Place your toes again onto the ground.
3. Draw your arms in near your sides. Bend your elbows in order that your forearms are vertical. Press your elbows into the ground and concurrently arch your again away from the ground. Then lengthen your arms alongside your physique.
4. Now press your toes into the ground whereas urgent your thighs into the Yoga Block.
5. Prolong your knees outward, away out of your pelvis, to provoke the carry into Bridge Pose. Then proceed that motion as you carry your again all the best way into the pose. All through the length of the pose, keep this extension of the thighs. It will assist stop you from pushing into your hip joints. It additionally helps maintain your legs parallel slightly than splaying out to the edges.
6. Preserve urgent your legs into the Yoga Block and lengthen your knees out away out of your pelvis.
7. Maintain for five to 10 deep breaths.
8. Prolong your arms out alongside the ground, overhead. Stretch out via your arms and lengthen your backbone as you slowly decrease your again down onto the ground.
9. Repeat two or extra instances if you happen to like.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each printed 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 Crimson Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards in 2010.