Deconstructing Down Dog part 6

Bridging Strength & Yoga- Lumbo-pelvic Postion
If you think stretching your hamstrings is helpful for your down dog THINK again!
Watch the video to find out what you are missing.
It’s not always short and tight hamstrings. Maybe they are long and taut getting tight like a guitar string.
If one side of the joint is long and taut, the other side just might be short and tight.
In video number six, I talked about how the hip flexor group could be one of the tight players that cause the back to round in down dog.
If you have a short and tight hip flexor group and you’re trying to straighten out your legs; and the latissimus dorsi is tight (attachments at bicepital groove of humerus and down to pelvis) the body has no choice but to round the spine to accommodate straightening out the legs; which will also shove your weight forward into your hands and make you feel like you’re in plank and trash the upper quarter in the process.
When I teach I do not stretch the hip flexor group right off the bat. I do around 3 Sun Salutes and then come down to table top and move into this version ardha dandrasana (look that up)
I move back into down dog and have them notice if it feel better to be in down dog. Then I move into Sun B and squat pattern movements like Utkatasana should feel a bit better but only if the arms are out of the equation b:c I have not addressed the lats yet at this point. This post however, is about the pelvis.
For the hip there are three elementary movements:
1. Flexion and approx. 90 degrees
2. Small measure of abduction
3. Small measure of later rotation
We have an array of muscles sitting here and when the client has anterior hip tightness, it’s hard to stretch the anterior hip or there’s quite a bit of discomfort trying to stretch the anterior suspect that it’s the ligaments sitting here that are part of the problem or they are the problem.
Of course, if stretching doesn’t resolve this completely I will do Pdtr to clear the dysfunction from the ligaments so the muscles are functional again
One of the biggest clues about the dysfunction sitting on the iliofemoral ligaments is that they hinge forward while walking and they will trying to hinge forward in the kneeling hip flexor stretch or anytime we are trying to move the hips in extension to stretch them. There is a lot more to this description and can be found on my blog at http://www.lovelandyogacorefitness.com/blog