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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders

by Baxter

As a follow-up to my post on Friday last week about tight shoulders (see Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders), and with the stellar prelude that Nina provided you with yesterday (see Living Proof), I am excited to share with you a sequence of shoulder opening poses. You may notice that some of the poses presented today resemble but are not necessarily formal yoga asanas or poses. In modern yoga practice, teachers and home practitioners have found that there are many “warm-up” poses that are a great way to get the body ready for the more formal yoga poses that might require quite a bit of openness or strength in a particular area of the body.

In this sequence, you will be able to address limits to movement in the shoulder joint in several directions. For those with tight shoulders, we recommend that you do the poses for 60-90 seconds in order to set the stage for more permanent changes in mobility. I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking (thanks again to Erin Collom for her generous help!), and keep my written instructions to a minimum. We will likely revisit many of these poses down the road, and can fill in any gaps in your understanding at that time.

So, without further ado....

1. Arms Overhead with arms angled

Arms Overhead pose (Urdhva Hastasana) is a very common pose in all levels of practice, and is required for both Sun and Moon Salutes, so it is a good one to practice and, if necessary, modify, as shown here. The idea is to bring your arms slowly out to the sides and up and stop when you feel pain, significant stiffness or if the elbows start to bend.  Do all the good stuff you would normally do in Mountain pose, and let it feel like the outer shoulder blades lift faster than the inner shoulder blades toward your arm bones.

2. Bear Hug

This is a modified way to work towards full Eagle pose arms. Try to reach around the sides of your upper arm bones, not over the top of your shoulders. Hold on where ever you can. Lift your elbows to parallel with floor, and push them slightly forward to create a stretch of the muscles located between the shoulder blades. You can invite your breath into that area to experience more stretch. Be sure to repeat the pose on the opposite side.


3. Modified Eagle pose arms
You saw this one last Friday (Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders).  When you bend your arm at the elbow, the stretch around the shoulder area changes from that of the Bear Hug.  For some, it is much tighter.  Keep the “Eagle arm” humerus bone parallel to the floor, chest broad, and use your other hand to gradually draw your elbow toward the opposite side of your chest. You can also push the Eagle arm elbow forward to increase the back stretch. Be sure to repeat the pose on the opposite side.

 

4. Arms Overhead at the wall

This is a variation of Arms Overhead pose. Facing the wall, stand about six inches from the wall facing with your arms overhead. If you are really tight in the shoulders, your arms may have to be angled as in pose 1. Come up onto the balls of the feet, sliding your hands a bit higher.  Imagine you are gluing your hands as high up the wall as you can. Then, slowly begin to lower your heels to the floor while keeping your hands as high as possible.  Be careful not to let your lower back dramatically arch as you descend your heels, but let it feel like the outer shoulder blades lift faster than the inner shoulder blades toward your arm bones. Keep your neck relaxed.

 

5. Half Arms Overhead at the wall

 This is a great way to open up your side chest and armpit, areas that can limit your arms going overhead. Stand with your body sideways to the wall, with your inside foot about 6 inches from the wall and your outer hip resting against the wall. Take your arm overhead in line with your side body, palm to the wall. Come up onto the balls of the feet, sliding your hand a bit higher.  Imagine you are gluing your hand as high up the wall as you can. Then, slowly begin to lower your heels to the floor while keeping your hand as high as possible.  Monitor the arch of your lower back and keep the side of your neck relaxed.  Repeat on the other side.



6. Arm out to the side and back with wall

This is a great way to lengthen part of the pectoralis major muscle that lies under the breast tissue. It is also a great prep for the next pose. Stand about a foot or foot and a half away from the wall, with the side of your body to the wall.  Reach your arm back about a foot or so behind you, parallel with the floor, palm on the wall with fingers pointing away from you.  Press your hand into the wall, and slowly and carefully turn the chest away from the arm until some stretch arises.  Hold there. Skip this one if you have a history of dislocating your shoulder.  Repeat on the other side.

 


7. Cobra with Doorknob
Tight Shoulder Version
This is another way to address tightness in the front chest that limits your arms moving into extension behind your body. It is a bit more challenging than the last pose, since both arms are doing the action at the same time. Find a door with a good set of doorknobs on both sides of it, and then open the door slightly. Stand Stand a few inches in front of it, then reach back and grab onto the doorknobs.  Keeping a nice lift up your front body, begin to lean forward. Try to keep the sensation happening in your upper chest, not the lower back. You will resemble the figurehead on the front of a 17th century ship.
More Flexible Version

8. Reclined Arms Overhead
This one comes from our teacher Donald Moyer. With a block next to you, and a strap that you have adjusted to a shoulder-width loop, lie down on your back in Savasana, but with strong legs. Place the strap over your arms just beyond your elbow joints towards your hands, then press out against the strap as you pick up the block between your hands and firm your hands against the ends of the block.  You may have to make the loop bigger or smaller to keep your arms straight as you press on the block. Then, take your arms up and over head slowly, heading towards the wall behind you.  If your thumbs don’t touch the floor without bending your elbows, you can put a lift of some sort, such as a folded blanket, under your hands. I put this pose at the end of the sequence as I feel that it requires the most openness and strength of the poses presented here. Nina, however, often does this at the start of a practice and finds it helpful in that position of the sequence.
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