Hi Everyone,
So this is my last session with Kev until the end of November. I will continue to write about my sessions every now & then to teach you about what I learn as we go through my tightness and how it is helping me.
This week our initial plan was to work on the chest/shoulder region but unfortunately I had done something to my neck. Pulled it a little after a strenuous yoga weekend where we practiced handstands and tripod.
(Handstand)
(Tripod - legs life up into the air into handstand legs)
I believe my upper back was super tight and therefore the day after yoga college, I strained it.
So we decided to loosen up the left side of my back first.
While working away Kev could notice that my right trap was smooth but my left was so tight as if it was frozen 😂 which makes sense.
Lets do some digging into the upper body muscles used when we come into handstands or anything using alot of upper body strength. This goes for yogi's, strength training and even crossfitters who love a walking handstand!
A little anatomy on handstands
We all love a handstand and while I am becoming very strong in my headstand, I am not so much in my handstand.
We obviously want a firm base so we want to ensure our fingers are spread out and we have no majoy wrist injuries. But the main issue will be our shoulder girdle.
When we think about our hip, its pretty stable right? Really stable. But our shoulder is another story. The ball & socket is so dodgey. Seriously!!! Like look at the size of the top of the humeral head compared to the socket it sits in. This is why so many dislocate their shoulders 😑
We need to make sure we have strength before flinging ourselves into handstands. We spent 2 hours warming up through yoga before we attempted handstands. Its a must! Warm your wrists, arms, shoulders, core, hips and legs. The whole shabang!!!
Anyway back to my upper back pain. So when in handstand we use both our traps & serratus anterior muscles to stabilize us (aswell as everything else but they play a strong roll). I also hold alot of tension and stress in my shoulders which does not help.
They switch on instantly once we flip up into the posture. We were practicing in groups and I probably wasn't careful enough with my shoulders and didn't engage them enough. They were already tight (usually always are), I would say I strained my neck slightly by not lifting up through my arms and upper back muscles enough. Practice makes progress!
Although repition may have been the issue, I did it a few times because it was SO MUCH FUN!🙌 Along with the tripod which I had never tried before and got it. Wooooo yoga gains!!!
**I have not touched on core, hips, legs in handstands or I'll be here all day!**
So Tuesday morning I bent my head down and BOOM. Pulled muscle.
So kev got to work and even after an hour working on the area it's still not 100%. Much better than it was though.
The darker the spot, the tighter it is.
So you might be wondering why there is a nasty pick of my delt (front of shoulder) on show. He went from my back around to my shoulder/chest and the tightness here was unreal. Even he was surprised at this bruise after 90 seconds with the cup on 😂 And it was agony to leave on.
So if this teaches you ANYTHING. Stretch more and roll with a peanut ball!!
So it's safe to safe I am a ball of knots and seriously need to sort my foam rolling life out 😂
Going forward I will give Kev a visit once a month. I think I would need cupping daily to sort out a few years of tightness haha.
This is the bruise 3 days later so if you are ever going to get some cupping done, make sure you are okay with the beauty marks 💪
And that's all folks, moral of the story. Switch on the muscles before attemping anything. Like think about it, would you flip into a backbend wheel pose with warming your spine up? (Answer should be no!)
I will do a full anatomy run down on headstand in the future 😍
To wrap up, I love cupping. I hate the thoughts of it but it is worth a little pain in order to give your muscles some much needed TLC.
Any questions, let me know 😊
For further info on cupping you can check out my first post HERE where Kev goes into the details!
Elisa ✰
Reference:
https://www.yoganatomy.com/so-you-wanna-do-a-handstand/