Strong back body

THE FORGOTTEN BACK BODY
With the winter nip in the air you start to notice how much the body closes in to protect itself against the colder weather. The muscles of the spine were created to keep us upright. They become weakened from sitting for long periods of time, and as a result, don’t have the strength to do the important job of stabilising against gravity as we move. Strengthening the back body in yoga helps to keep an upright posture, counteracting curled in shoulders, a hunched back, and helps prepare the lower body for safer forward folds. Following on from my upper back strength sequence I started to explore down the full length of the back body – adding the lower back, glutes, outer hips, hamstrings and calf muscles. When we visualise our bodies we think of our front body, and the poor back body often gets ignored. If we gave our back body a bit more love and attention we might be better equipped to avoid back pain, hip instability, and pulled hamstrings.

STRENGTHEN TO STRETCH
For a long time I thought that to stretch the back body you need to do lots of forward folds. Not necessarily so! Before you stretch out a muscle you need to strengthen it first to warm it up, wake up the connective tissues, and bring fresh blood to the muscles. Strengthening is not to be confused with tightening a muscle. Tightness comes from repeated strengthening with no stretching. There is so many variations of posture in yoga that every muscle is being stretched and strengthened during your time on the mat. Taking a poses like Salabhasana/Locust will strengthen the whole back body before going into deeper forward folds. Utkatasana/Chair will wakes up the strong muscles of the legs, outer glutes and the outer hips. With the arms raised you are also working the muscles of the back and shoulders. Hold the poses till you feel the muscles working to create stability and strength. You will find the whole back body more receptive to opening up to forward folds when you have warmed it up, and switched it on first.

DOWNWARD DOG
After warming up the back body with Salabhasana/Locust and Utkatasana/Chair, spend plenty of time in Downward Dog to ease into any deeper forward folds. It will start to gently lengthen out the back of the legs and stretches out the upper back and shoulders. Work on tipping the pelvis forward towards your upper thighs and reaching your sit bones up high. There are three rounds of the downward dog flow in the above sequence. Place your feet mat width for your first round, hip width for the second, and all going well, together for the third round. You’ll notice the closer the legs are together the more of a stretch is required in the backs of the legs. Taking chair pose with the legs at different widths will also work slightly different hip muscles and continue to strengthen the back body between forward folds.

Try the sequence above and bring all your attention to your back body as you move through the practice.

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Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

The benefits of epsom salts

THE HEAL ALL GO TO
I’m a big fan of the epsom bath. Playground cuts, bruises, tummy aches, and growing pains all get sent upstairs for an epsom bath in our house. As mentioned in my Finding Balance article, I had a somewhat humbling trip and fall walking back from school drops a month or two ago. Once I got over the annoyance of the injury, I took it on as a project to learn new ways to find natural healing methods. I decided to follow my own advice and have an epsom bath, everyday for a week, and use myself as a guinea pig to see how fast I could speed up the healing process of a decent sized cut knee, with a matching very impressive bruise on the other knee!

RAINBOW KNEES
With each day I could visibly see the progress of the recovery. The cut very quickly sealed over, and the bruise came to the surface and started changing from deep purple, to blue, to green within a matter of days. After one week the improvement was huge and my poor little knees were well on their road to recovery. Over the course of the week I started to notice lots of additional benefits to having a daily epsom bath. I knew they were very calming but there are so many more benefits that I didn’t know about till I tried it. Here are some of the benefits I notice:

• Speed up healing of bruises

• Speeds up healing of cuts

• Speeds up muscle strain and injury recovery

• Relieves muscle pain, tension and inflammation

• Softer and more even toned skin

• Relieves stress and promotes the production of serotonin (rest & restore hormone)

• Regular bowel movement

• Eliminates pre menstrual bloating and cramping

• Promotes a better night sleep

• Regulates blood sugar levels and reduces food cravings

MISSING MINERALS
Epsom salts are made of magnesium sulphate – an important mineral which is becoming harder get adequate required daily amounts. We usually get it in our diet from fresh fruit and veg, but with the high turn over in agriculture, the soils are becoming increasingly depleted in their minerals – magnesium sulphate being one of these many minerals along with a long list of others. High consumption of caffeine also strips our systems of the essential minerals.

It’s now almost two months later and I’m still loving my epsom baths. I’m still seeing the benefits and definitely feel more balanced on the days where I carve out a bit of time for even just a 10 minute soak. Like meditation, sometimes you might not be in the mood, or you feel you don't have time, but a little self push in the right direction is needed when you know the results are guaranteed!

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

Finding balance

SEPTEMBER MAYHEM
September back to school has left me feeling frazzled and out of balance. I found the more that was thrown at me, the faster I moved, and the more disconnected I became between my over busy mind and my hasty actions. To the point that last Wednesday, while speed walking up the  avenue, frantically retracing my steps to look for a lost glove, I tripped and came inelegantly crashing down on all fours. Which left me with a wrist injury, cuts and bruises on my knees, and an even bigger bruise to my sense of self and ego. I was chronically out of balance! I find injuries a huge challenge. Slowing down does not come naturally to me until I’m forced to. As a yogi, people expect you to be practically horizontal with calm and ease, but I am definitely not that persona! Yoga chips away at my busy mind and helps to remind me that this is not a sustainable way to live. You need to take time to slow the heck down before the path goes from under you and does it for you!

PRESS THE RESTART BUTTON
Since last Wednesday I've been taking time to slow down, even if my mind objects and tells me I'm too busy, I pause to take in the horizon on my morning walk, meditate for just 10 mins a day, and am taking Epsom baths to soak all my injuries away. I've slowly noticed changes are happening. My mind is becoming clearer and calmer, the constant headache I'd gotten used to at the start of September is gone, my wrist and other soft tissue injuries are fading, and my poor knees are looking a bit less like my six year olds proud school yard cuts and bruises.

LIVING YOUR YOGA
I’m also writing a document for my upcoming Yoga for Balance workshop with the amazing Aisling Conn. Aisling has been one of my regular teachers, and good friend, for many years and without fail I leave her classes feeling a conscious and subconscious sense of calm and balance, physically and mentally. She has an incredible knowledge of anatomy and uses this knowledge to access the deeper subtle body, through teaching with an emphasis on correct alignment with effort and ease.

The workshop will combine breathwork, asana and tips to help bring these life skills into your everyday lives. These are tried and tested methods to bring back a sense of calm to your lives. There will be take home workshop pack with material on the techniques we will practice in the workshop and lots more tips for ways to find balance through nutrition, essential oils and natural remedies.

The workshop takes place this October 7th, 2:00-4:30pm, The Yoga Room, Dublin. Book online at The Yoga Room. Suitable for all levels. For those feeling out of balance and for those who are open to learning ways to staying balanced.

We look forward to seeing you there to explore yoga for balance.

Ruth Dealhunty Yogaru