Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks

A couple of weeks in the past, I wrote a submit on methods to put together your physique for Camel Pose (Ustrasana). Camel Pose is a difficult backbend. It stretches the complete entrance physique, particularly the quadriceps, stomach, chest and shoulders. Within the submit, I outlined a sequence you may follow in an effort to stretch and mobilize these very important areas of the pose. In at this time’s submit, I’ll describe how one can follow Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks to make the pose extra accessible and cozy.

A standard concern in working towards Camel Pose is that straining to succeed in your heels together with your arms restricts respiration. Working towards Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks raises your arms and reduces the pressure in your chest, which might help ease your respiration.

Not everybody’s spinal construction helps straightforward backbending. As you may see from the above picture, the lion’s share of the backbend happens within the lumbar backbone. (The thoracic backbone will not be actually designed for greater than minimal backbending.) Some folks’s lumbar spinous processes are giant and thick, which means that they may “hit” one another a lot earlier than shorter, thinner spinous course of do. This restricts vary of movement in spinal extension.

As well as, some practitioners have a extra pronounced thoracic kyphosis (convex curve). This additionally restricts vary of movement in backbending. So despite the fact that the thoracic backbone’s vary of movement in backbending is restricted, even a small quantity of extension makes the pose simpler, whereas a curvier thoracic backbone will limit motion. All that is to say that working towards Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks could make the pose accessible to virtually everybody.

Tips on how to Observe Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks

You may follow Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks 3 ways. Yoga Blocks have three completely different peak choices: tall, medium and brief. (The above picture reveals blocks at their medium peak.) Right here’s methods to follow Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks.

1. Collect your props: a Yoga Mat and two Yoga Blocks. You might also place a folded Yoga Blanket underneath your knees for further padding in the event you like. For those who’re utilizing a blanket, fold it in order that it’s narrower than your mat, and place it within the heart of the mat.
2. Come to a kneeling place in your mat and/or folded blanket.
3. Place blocks at their highest stage on the outsides of your ft. For those who’re kneeling on a blanket, be certain your blocks are in your mat or on the ground reasonably than in your blanket to offer them a steady base. (This is applicable to stable flooring akin to wooden or concrete. I wouldn’t advocate utilizing blocks on plush carpeting.)
4. Place your arms in your pelvic rim and press down, releasing your tailbone towards your knees.
5. Carry your chest and lengthen your backbone as you start to bend backward, reaching to your blocks.
6. Take just a few breaths with the blocks at their highest peak. Is your respiration free and unrestricted? If not, keep right here for just a few extra breaths to see if it turns into simpler.
7. In case your respiration is simple, be at liberty to show the blocks on their sides, to medium peak. Examine in once more together with your respiration. In case your respiration is free and straightforward, take just a few breaths right here. Then if you’d like, you may decrease the blocks to their lowest stage. Once more, test your respiration.
8. Free, unrestricted respiration is far more vital than getting your arms to your heels or to the bottom peak of your yoga block. So hold checking your respiration to ensure it feels relaxed.
9. Take 5 to eight deep breaths, wherever you might be within the pose. Then return to kneeling and both sit in your heels or sit on certainly one of your Yoga Blocks as your knees permit.

One Extra Suggestion

Yoga Blocks can definitely make Camel Pose extra snug, however it’s equally vital to make it possible for we put together the physique to the fullest extent doable earlier than we embark on Ustrasana. I extremely advocate that you just learn the submit I wrote just a few weeks in the past about methods to put together your physique for Camel Pose, and methods to quiet down afterward to rebalance your physique. Your breath—and a pair Yoga Blocks—can information you right into a Camel Pose that’s each exhilarating and relaxed.

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 Observe 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 people sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.