Lessons in Yoga 8: Am I stretching correctly and safely?

How do you know if what you are feeling in a yoga position is what you are meant to feel?

Tue, 20 Aug, 2013 - 01:00

Jessica Hatchet

The feeling of a deep stretch can be very strong. Some people enjoy this, others call it pain.

So how do you know when a stretch is helpfully lengthening your fibres or potentially damaging them?

We can only guess how others are feeling.

Body language and verbal clues are all we have. Relating these external clues to our own internal sensations gives us some understanding of what another is feeling.

But in a yoga class the clues on what someone is feeling tend to be very subtle. A teacher has to carefully navigate the fine path between an instruction that challenges people to feel something, to go past their comfort zone. And an instruction to be careful, to mind themselves and not to practise in pain.

All the while observing clues given through body language to decide if the position being practised is working.

When you are in a challenging stretch ask yourself ..."is this practice serving me, or am I serving this practice"?

If your yoga practice is serving you, it will be helpful, supportive, insightful, interesting and enjoyable.

On the other hand, 'serving' your yoga practice is when you struggle to get it right all the time. Working towards an unclear goal and feel under pressure to do something that might not suit you, just because everyone else is doing it. Or being so worried about what the teacher and the other students think of you that you risk hurting yourself. Serving yoga feels like being a slave to the practice, it's not nice, its not healthy, but we all do it sometimes.

Simply asking, 'does this hurt?' is often not enough.

If I'm not sure if something I'm doing is right, for me, I ask myself these sort of questions:

Is this serving me? Am I doing this for me or for someone else? Does this feel helpful? Am I enjoying this?

Sometimes I can be in a very simple position and it just doesn't feel right.

Or I can be sweating away in a strong flowing practice and my body is saying 'stop, lie down rest'! Or maybe it's time to get up and move a bit.

This overall 'checking in' with yourself insures that your practice suits you and your needs. This maintains a healthy sense of interest and enquiry and can lead you to explore different types of yoga and follow your body's signals along the way.

One of these signals is getting to know if you are stretching tendons rather than muscles. Or, more specifically, the connection point between tendon and muscle which is a vulnerable and easily damaged area in our joints.

To understand how to look after and work this area safely in a stretch, I will offer you an edited section on Myofascia from Bernie Clark's book 'Yin yoga':

Imagine three rubber bands looped together in a chain. The first rubber band is very thick and hard to stretch, this is your tendon. The third rubber band is long, of medium thickness and can stretch a bit. The middle rubber band is short, thin and very stretchy, this is your MT junction, the point where your muscle becomes your tendon.

If you pull on this chain of rubber bands from both ends, it's the middleband that stretches first and easiest, but is also most easily damaged.

When you stretch this MT junction it doesn't hurt but can feel like a 'good strong stretch'. Your teacher encourages you to breathe into the stretch and go deeper, and deeper, and deeper and then ping! You have ruptured your tendon attachment and will need to spend some time resting and healing this area, before you can go back and try again.

So, I will give you some instruction on how to safely stretch your tight fibres and avoid over-stretching the soft vulnerable ones.

The main thing to consider is that this MT junction is close to the joint.

So if you are feeling a stretch around your joint, you might well be getting too close to your tendons. Most of the time when you 'pull' a muscle you feel it close to your joint, it's this tendon point that you have damaged.

It will heal, but most likely you will need to mind it when stretching again.

Practising a ham string stretch is a good way to feel if you stretching your muscles or if you are getting too close to your tendons.

Start by lying on your back. Bend your right knee and draw your leg into your torso. On your exhale squeeze your knee towards you. On your inhale relax your leg, and belly. Continue for a few breaths. This will warm up the muscles around your hip.

Now take hold of the back of your leg and keeping a close eye on what you can feel, start straightening your knee.

As you pull your straight leg towards you and push your heel to the ceiling you should feel a stretching sensation in the back of your thigh, or your calf. Experiment by bending your knee a bit, then fully straightening your knee and pulling your leg as close to your body as you can. This change of position should move the stretching sensation around to different places in the back of your leg.

If you can only feel a strong sensation in the back of your knee, or deep in your buttock, then it is likely that you are stretching the MT junction, the rubber band of sensitive tissues close to the tendon. If you keep working here, your muscles will not be getting as good a stretch as they could do but you could also be risking injury.

If you feel able to try holding your big toe with your right fingers, and drawing your leg even closer to your body. But remember to only do this if you feel a manageable sensation in a large area.

If you focus more on being able to go into the 'full' pose than the signals your body is giving you, then you are serving your yoga practice, your practice is not serving you.

Then you can also stretch the outside of your leg and give your spine a nice twist. Swap your hands. Hold your right foot or your right knee with your left hand.

Slowly draw your right leg over to the ground on the left, being careful not too let your right shoulder lift off the ground too much. You should now be able to feel the stretch in your outer leg and hip.

Explore moving around a bit to feel the sensation change, and remember that if it doesn't feel right, discomfort is a signal, a possible warning from your body, listen, respond and adjust. It's your body, your practice and it's ok to enjoy it!

Jessica Hatchett teaches yoga in West Cork.

For more info on her classes and events go to www.yogawestcork.com.

Photography by www.luluash.co.uk