Yoga Asana Series - #5 Chaturanga

Chaturanga Dandasana

(chaht - ah- ron - gah)

(Don - dahs- anna)

When I began my yoga teacher training back in February, this is the posture I wanted to progress in the most. 

No fancy upside down stuff. A simple, easy, flowing Chaturanga. 

I am becoming stronger at it with practice & patience. I am very particular about doing this movement with correct alignment and always drop to my knees if I am feeling fatigued or losing my form. 

The reason I struggled with it is because my upper body was pretty weak.You need to remember the muscles in our body have to become stronger through practice. We can't expect to flow into postures easily without training our muscles. A few tips on this at the end of the post aside from a million Chaturangas 💪

Chaturanga Dandasana is known as four limbed staff pose in the English translation. 

It is a full body strengthening movement that relies a lot on core strength as well as upper body. Keeping your body in a straight line as you move towards the earth isn't as easy as it sounds!!!

Anatomy

Feet & Legs

• Coming from your plank position we roll forward onto the tips of our toes while continuing to draw back through our heels. In this action we are lengthening through our feet along the back of our legs (our posterior chain) while contracting the front of our legs.

• We want firm thighs with a slight inward rotation.

Note on muscles:

• Without getting too technical with the muscle names, there muscle in the front of our lower legs beside our shin bones (tibialis anterior) which helps to create dorsiflexion in our feet. This muscle contracts to aid in this movement.

• The forgotten about muscles in our feet help to bear the weight of our legs as we lean onto our toes.

• Hamstrings (back thighs), Adductor (Inner thighs) and glutes (bum) contract to help keep our pelvis in a neutral position.

• The glutes play a vital role in this posture. By engaging them as you lower down it will decrease the chance of tilting in the hips and extending the lumbar spine which in turn will help bring your spine back into a neutral position.

• And of course the quads (front of thighs) get some work in too.

Pelvis

• Aim to keep your pelvis neutral by engaging your glutes, legs (spoken above) and your core. And follow this straight line as we lower. Even if you are on your knees, still engage

• Another issue in Chaturanga is that some people will dip their hips (like we do in upward dog) because the upper body is not strong enough to hold the posture as they flow towards the earth. This is when you should drop to your knees. You would be compromising your lower back (lumbar spine). If this was to be continually repeated, it will surely lead to injury over time.

Spine & Torso

• We are using our spinal extensors in this posture. As you can see in the below picture, we have a lot of muscle surrounding our spine to protect it. 

Superficial = closest to the skin (I like to remember that term thinking of superficial people who are all about looks... their outer skin.... not rocket science eh?) 😉 

These muscles will work through this movement without you actually being aware!! And they are also those muscles we massage when we roll like happy idiots back and forth on our mat!! 😍

• But the main muscles in our torso we can contract for this movement- the abdominals. Ah that love/hate relationship!!! We don't need to pull them in to the point we might puke, just a slight pull in through the navel towards the spine is all you need to stabilize.

Upper back & Arms:

• You will feel your upper back slightly draw down when your arms begin to draw back and bend but you don't want to be forcing this action. By drawing the shoulder blades back actively can actually cause hyperextension in the lumbar spine. Just focus on keeping your spine straight!

• Now - the good aul triceps (back of arms/bingo wings)!!! Most of the time if you can't get this pose right it can be due to lack of strength here. I for one have this issue but its improving. Below is a little set for you to practice at home a few times a week to help with tricep and some chest strength. Ensure you are warmed up so I would throw it in at the end of a yoga practice :)

• The chest works here also as it is the eccentric phase of a push up. Your pecs. A term I am sure you've heard before. In this phase your chest muscles along with your shoulders & triceps are eccentrically moving so you don't face plant the floor!

• The shoulders get a hit in this movement too. Our deltoids live her (shoulder muscles). All working together in that eccentric movement to help us to the floor with ease. Hence if we are weak here, we will find it very difficult! 

*One thing to note and it's not mentioned too much in any text I've read, but strengthening our biceps will really help with our chaturangas too*

Some terminology lessons 

Concentric = the muscle shortens and contracts (generally the hard phase of a movement example - the pushing up during a push up or coming up from a squat)

Eccentric = the muscle lengthens as it contracts (Tricep lengthens as you release slowing to the ground in a push up)

💡 Little tip for any gym goes or exercise bunnies out there - working the eccentric phase of a movement actually builds MORE strength. So slowing down the movement. Example is our chaturanga, releasing SLOWLY towards the ground is using the eccentric phase and therefore build strength in the tricep! Yipeeeee! So during the below 3 exercises, try and take them slower than you'd like.

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Easy Tricep/chest Workout: 

3 rounds of:

Tricep push up x 10 reps           

• Stay on knees until you can build strength for toes. 
• If being on your knees is too difficult, use a table top or the side of your bed to rise the earth up to you (incline). 
• Engage core. 
• Elbows by your waist, not out at an angle like a regular push up!

 

*Rest for 1 minute*

Tricep Dips x 10 reps                    

• Again, using either the floor, a bench, the side of your bed, coming down at a 90 degree angle and using the tricep muscle to help you back up

*Rest for 1 minute*

Chest Press x 10 reps                     

• If you have weights at home then great, if not, use cans of food, bags of sugar, water bottles..whatever you can find that is even weight between each hand. 

• Lay on your back, arms at a 90 degree angle and push up your weighted items to the sky, ensuring they come in line with the end of your sports bra (for men, in line or just below your nipples). This way you are taking the weight out of your shoulders are concentrating more on your chest muscles to do the work

                                                          

You can also go single arm on this bad boy to focus on each side separately like shown above. 

But in my opinion using this photo as an example, I would like your arm to come more out towards your torso like I spoke about above, rather than straight above the shoulder 😊

*Rest for 1 minute before repeating*

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Let me know if you give it a shot. 3 rounds of 3 exercises! Simple!😉 And for any gym goers out there, I have found using the tricep push down on the cable machine to be so effective in strengthening my arms 💪

(Add in a set of bicep curls to really take your chaturanga to the next level)

Anyways that's my personal training side shining through haha.... so back to yoga!!

Neck & Head

• Neck is ALWAYS a beautiful extension of our spine so we should always work to keep it nice and neutral. This means no arching. So look forward, gaze down as you move through your flow of chaturanga.

Another tip I have seen for practicing Chaturanga is using a block. Working towards lowering yourself to the block. Simply practicing tricep push ups with a block a few times a week can really help.

Benefits of Chaturanga:

• Teaches you and gives you a feeling of proper body alignment
• Strengthens arms, legs and core
• Prepares the body for arm balances 
• Increases energy & stamina
• Ignites heat in the body during warm up Sun Salutations
• You feel bad ass when you can do it!

It's a mentally tough pose to master ad sometimes we don't want to give in and drop to our knees but PLEASE do if it means you are working on building strength. This is where Knees, chest, chin comes in.

Drop to your knees instead and lower chest to the floor while keeping hips high then swoop forward through your shoulders and arms.

This will encourage your body to feel the movement of rolling forward without the extra body weight.

Let go of the ego and listen to your bod!!

So that's it really for this one. I hope I didn't go into TOO much detail.

Let me know if you like the small little workout I threw in that you can do ANYWHERE. Comment below and I may just throw a few more workouts in as we go through the series! 😊


Be kind to yourself during practice. Practice makes progress, no one is perfect 💗

Lot's of love,

Elisa.

References:

Yoga Anatomy - Leslie Kaminoff & Amy Matthews

http://www.mystrengthtraining.com/bodyweight-exercises/dips/

https://animatedshoes.deviantart.com/art/face-plant-171816407
www.popsugar.com