I'm now teaching the Friday 7.30pm Yoga for Runners+Cyclists class at Yoganesh. Both sports create similar problems due to the 1-dimensional plane they lock you in. Just like, ironically, sitting in a chair all day hunched over a computer!
Hope to see you there - or at my ny nite owl class, 9pm Monday nights. Bend it and mend it!
Check out my video interview of knee guru Andy Pruitt talking about Cyclists and Runner's knees:
"Lynette, tell them about your yoga class. LYNETTE'S GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT YOGA!" Yehudit is gathering people around one of the giant round tables in the cavernous community dining room. Some people aren't moving, so I won't get their attention. Most are already walking out the door. There's at least two generations of a Chinese family with a translator in front of me. Someone asks if I can speak Spanish. "Sufficiente para sobrevivir," I answer. I start to describe some simple movements and talk about Ujayi or "Darth Vadar" breathing. "Slower," says Yehudit as we raise our arms above our heads. I announce that we will be doing standing yoga in my class. I catch a glimpse of a Chinese gentleman in a wheelchair just as Yehudit says, "what about people who can't stand?" "We'll be doing sitting postures as well," I say. Thus began my induction to volunteering yoga at the Hudson Guild Se...
John Churchill, founder and owner of Samadhi demonstrates Gomukasana (Cow Face pose) with a side bend. Why Cow Face? The stacked knees look like the lips of a cow, the feet like the ears. Whenever I travel anywhere, I always try to seek out local yoga class. No only does it help me get unknotted from slouching about in bucket-seated motorized transport, I get to learn something new from a professional fellow teacher, in a fresh new place. (I also do this with haircuts - I got an excellent 'do for $2 in Tarma, Peru....). So while visiting Boston with my folding bike recently, I found a studio that was a perfectly civilized 3-mile bike ride from door to door - a lo-carbon emission way to arrive already warmed up to class! The studio: Samadhi in Newton, MA. The teacher: founder and master acupuncturist, John Churchill . John's Open class contained quite a few interesting variations on basic poses that I hadn't come across before. I con...
One of our more "obscure" muscles (in that, you're not really aware of it on a daily basis like your quads and hammies) is the piriformis . This muscle is located deep in your butt, running from the sacrum to the top of the thighbone. It's one of the the many hip rotator muscles that collectively turn the hips and upper leg outward (called external rotation), and particularly for athletes, provides stability around the knee when twisting and changing direction. If you sit in a chair, place the right ankle (flex that foot!) just south of the left knee and tip your body forward, you'll feel the piriformis wake up in that very spot. I call this the Piriformis Desk Jockey stretch, because it's an ideal thing to do at your desk. Sitting cross-legged also activates this muscle. Piriformis as viewed from behind. The piriformis skates somewhat close to the infamous sciatic nerve - the one that often gives grief by sending shooting pains down the...
Bend it and mend it! ...I love that! :-) Cos
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