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With the warmer weather, I’ve been more active outside and have been clocking a lot more miles on my bicycle. And gauging by all the bikes I’ve been seeing on the roads, a lot of you have been doing the same. With more riding comes tighter leg muscles, especially the quadriceps, hip flexors, hamstrings and hip rotators. As these muscles tighten, they act like shrink wrap on the lower back, pulling at the spine and pe

Although I’ve been teaching yoga since 2005, I’m disinclined towards New Age philosophy, and tend towards a more scientific, earthy approach in yoga, and generally in life. I was therefore suspicious when I learned that the prime indicator of health in the upper body is ‘pranic fullness.’ I’ll admit that I dismissed this claim as excessively New Agey and esoteric, and instead invested my time in learning anatomy and

Restorative yoga is a style of yoga that supports the body with props in fully passive poses. This practice allows for poses to be held for long periods of time, bestowing deep relaxation and soothing the nervous system. A passive practice is a great compliment to a more upbeat, muscle-driven practice, and it’s simultaneously very easy to overlook. Although we take the time to practice savasana at the end of yoga cla

When we hear “hip openers” in a yoga context, most of us think of poses that stretch our outer hips — and specifically that primary outer rotator, the piriformis — like pigeon pose, lizard pose, and related. But recently, I was working with a private client who has very tight hips and she showed me what she’d been doing to open them, which was pigeon pose. However, because it was the only stretch she was doing, the s

  Many modern yoga classes are structured around downward dog and other weight-bearing positions on the hands. This requires strong and sometimes flexible wrists. To keep your wrists happy and healthy over a long-term yoga practice you must practice good alignment. I also recommend Second, stretching the wrists and forearms in the inverse placement. Because of the repetitive movements and positions in yoga, coun

In the name of all that is right and good, quit standing around with your feet turned out all willy-nilly! The tendencies to turn the feet out, and also to kick the hips to a side and shift our weight primarily into one leg, causes structural imbalances in the low back and the legs, especially the knees. Ideally, stand with your feet parallel as much as you can, and line your kneecaps up to point over the center of y