Gluteus Medius

[Becky]

I like Zyrka Landwijt's style, and most of her stuff is well suited to beginners.

Esther Ekhart (yogatic.com) is another favorite.

[Catrin]

I've a friend who went to the 90 minute "power yoga" class this past weekend to check it out, and she does know yoga. She really liked the instructor. He paid close attention to everyone, and he corrected her position a few times. The reason the class is so long as that it also includes meditation (perhaps this is usual?) and apparently they stayed in some of the positions for 10 minutes. Is this common? She really liked the class, but I don't know how to process what I hear because I do not know anything about it...

[indysteel]

I've a friend who went to the 90 minute "power yoga" class this past weekend to check it out, and she does know yoga. She really liked the instructor. He paid close attention to everyone, and he corrected her position a few times. The reason the class is so long as that it also includes meditation (perhaps this is usual?) and apparently they stayed in some of the positions for 10 minutes. Is this common? She really liked the class, but I don't know how to process what I hear because I do not know anything about it...

Ten minutes? Depending on the pose, this is not typical, but there are types of yoga where you do hold the poses for a long time. IME, it's not easy, and it's not very everyone (it's not for me).

Try the class. Just don't expect it to necessarily address your glute issues. Just go easy. The last thing you need is to injure yourself in some other way.

[Becky]

OMG, I couldn't hold a pose for 10 minutes if I tried. I just don't have the mental focus to do anything for 10 minutes.

I will say....I don't think of 10 minute poses when I think of "power yoga"....

[Melalvai]

I was having hip pain when I walk, and someone told me it might be because I slouch over a bike or keyboard all day. I made a conscious effort to straighten up, and my hip never hurts now. I discovered that it's all in my head position. If I tuck my chin in because there's snow in my face, my hip hurts, when I put my head high, the hip is better and my face stings with snow (so I wear a balaclava for walking)!

[indysteel]

OMG, I couldn't hold a pose for 10 minutes if I tried. I just don't have the mental focus to do anything for 10 minutes.

I will say....I don't think of 10 minute poses when I think of "power yoga"....

If I held a pose for 10 minutes, it would be "weak and defeated" yoga. I've been to classes where poses are held for a few minutes each, and it's friggin' hard. Think of holding your arms in Warrior II. It hurts.

[OakLeaf]

I'd tend not to believe it either. I've never done yin yoga, so I started looking around on the internets, and I couldn't find anything that talked about holding a pose longer than 5 minutes in a class setting. There were a couple of teachers who talked about staying in some poses longer, in their home practice, but that was it. Outside of yin practice, I've never heard of holding a posture anywhere near that long. Seriously, in a 90-minute class, that would mean eight asana plus a little warmup and shavasana. I don't think so.

Different teachers include different amounts of standalone meditation. AFAIK a practice should always finish in corpse pose (shavasana), which is a meditation.

In other news ... this ties in here and also with shootingstar's thread - I think I'll crosslink ...

I've been making great progress with my headstands in the past week, not least because I've been doing them when the class is doing another pose that my wrist isn't ready for.

It's really become clear to me that neutral spine is key to inversions. When we're right ways up, we can use all the muscles that we've developed over time to hold us cattywampus. Not so much when we're upside down - especially for a newbie who probably doesn't have too many upside-down-holding muscles. I have to rely quite a bit on balance, and if the column of my body isn't vertical, I'll go right over.

Nothing has made it more clear to me how flattened my lumbar curve was, than headstands (and handstands at the wall, when I was doing them, and it won't be long before I can do them again). To keep in balance, I've got to do what at first felt to me like really arching my back. But the way my spinal column supports my whole body, and my pelvis supports my legs, makes it very clear that that is neutral. I'm getting some better flexibility, starting to feel more natural, learning to keep it in my body when I'm right ways up.

This is really huge for me, and it's making me very happy right now.

[Becky]

Oh absolutely! There's not much in yoga that I could do for 10 minutes (maybe shavasana ), but my brain gives in even sooner than my body.

I wonder if I could even hold tadasana (correctly) for that long...

[Catrin]

She may only have meant the final pose at the end of class...and it might have just FELT like 10 minutes Anyway, I will give it a shot at some point soon. I see my PT today so hopefully we can figure some of this out. Had lumbar stiffness during spinning class last night - my tail bone was aching. It has done that before, but not often.

Melalvai, I do catch myself slouching more than I realize, so will work on this as well. Everything is connected, for sure.

I have been told that my spine doesn't have as much curve in it as "normal" by one of the other personal trainers when I first joined my sports club. Indeed he was surprised that I didn't have back pain...

[OakLeaf]

You probably remember this, but here this past spring and summer I was having pain and spasm in one glute medius. Knott thought it was coming from my spine, and taught me a quick fix to try, which helped about 85%.

Y'know what the fix was? Hip and lumbar extensions, repeated every two hours. Restoring that normal lumbar lordosis, getting my pelvis out of posterior tilt.

The other 15% got fixed with half moon pose (ardha chandrasana).

I'm just sayin'...

[Catrin]

You probably remember this, but here this past spring and summer I was having pain and spasm in one glute medius. Knott thought it was coming from my spine, and taught me a quick fix to try, which helped about 85%.

Y'know what the fix was? Hip and lumbar extensions, repeated every two hours. Restoring that normal lumbar lordosis, getting my pelvis out of posterior tilt.

The other 15% got fixed with half moon pose (ardha chandrasana).

I'm just sayin'...

I don't remember this, but if'en it worked for you.....hmmm. I have tried to figure out what "lumbar lordosis" might be but am unsure what it is. Is it something like alignment? I will look for that thread from the summer, thanks for the reminder!

[OakLeaf]

I don't remember this, but if'en it worked for you.....hmmm. I have tried to figure out what "lumbar lordosis" might be but am unsure what it is. Is it something like alignment? I will look for that thread from the summer, thanks for the reminder!

Lordosis just means curvature with an anterior apex ... a normal spine has lumbar and cervical lordosis, a swayback is hyperlordotic. What I'm working on with mine is hypOlordosis, a flattened curve.

The opposite is kyphosis, curvature with a posterior apex. A normal thoracic spine has a curve in that direction, but you don't usually hear it called kyphotic unless it's abnormally exaggerated, like a dowager's hump.


What Mel said about the neck curvature is good, it is all connected. Visualizing that you're hanging from the ceiling by a string through the crown of your head helps align your spinal column. It's basically feeling your balance and letting the bones come into alignment by themselves, just as I've been doing upside down.



ETA - I guess it would be more correct to say ventral and dorsal, not anterior and posterior, since many four-legged critters have the same spine curvature, and it's not unusual for dogs and horses to get hyperlordosis.

[bluebug32]

As someone who tends to overdo it, looking for a quick fix to a problem, I would just advise you to take some caution when starting something new, like yoga. Yoga is strangely deceptive. Most people think it's "just stretching," but I know a lot of people who are injured in a yoga class because they decide to push a little further. And if you're competitive, it's very hard to sit back while others go into the advanced form of a pose or hold something longer than you're comfortable with.

Are there any classes for beginners? Or any beginner dvds you could try?

[OakLeaf]

That's very very very true.

One thing I would be hyper-attentive to is instruction that *starts* gently, and then shows more advanced yogi how to progress - not a teacher who starts with a classical pose and *then* gives modifications to beginners or people with injuries, less flexibility, etc.

There was one teacher in particular at my studio that I learned I just could not do his class. He would give lip service to only doing what you can and not getting hurt, but he would START in a fairly tough place and invite people to back off if they needed to. I never felt I needed to ... until I came out of the pose with a muscle strain. Like, every single time I did his class.

[indysteel]

Catrin,

I just took a look at your gym's yoga/pilates schedule. I saw an "Andrea B" on there for reformer. I have to wonder if that's the Andrea Bergeman that head's up my yoga/pilates studio's reformer program. If so, I've heard really good things about her (although I have no direct experience with her other than in passing). Some of the other names make me wonder, too. Granted, it could be nothing but a coincidence, but there is some overlap in teachers in Indy because no one studio or gym offers enough to employ them full time. In any event, if Andrea B is Andrea Bergeman, you might reach out to her for some suggestions as to what pilates or yoga classes, if any, might be suitable for you given your current issues.

But I also tend to agree with Bluebug to some extent. I'm not sure adding something new right now is a great idea, unless you get your PT to sign off on it with some specific instructions.