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Ask any yoga student what they’d wish to give attention to in school and there’s an affordable probability that they’ll request—or perhaps demand—“core work.”
What lots of us don’t understand is that it’s almost not possible to create a yoga sequence that doesn’t work the core in a roundabout way. Every time you bend or twist or squat or otherwise shift your body weight, you depend on your core to create and maintain stability around your spine. These movements engage the muscles that surround your core in other ways: some will shorten, whether actively or passively, while others will lengthen. Sometimes the work is intense, other times it’s subtle. We simply fail to recognize this as core work.
So what exactly is core work?
There’s no single approach to constructing your core that’s complete. There’s nothing unsuitable with practicing poses which are obvious core strengtheners, corresponding to Paripurna Navasana (Boat Pose). But true core work means working the entire muscles that surround your midsection, including the external and internal oblique abdominals, deep transversus abdominis (TVA), quadratus lumborum (QL), erector spinae, the psoas, even the pelvic diaphragm.
Your core also includes your external obliques (left), internal obliques (center), and muscles along your back body (right).(Photo: Eraxion)
Comprehensive core work also allows your midsection to develop into flexible enough, through stretching and mobility exercises, to accommodate an array of body positions in addition to the give and take of full, unrestrained respiratory. This balance of strength and suppleness is how yoga postures prepare the muscles surrounding your core to work together without one region dominating the others. This creates a 360-degree cooperative tensioning system that supports you as you negotiate the numerous movements required by your practice in addition to your on a regular basis life.
35 yoga poses which are stealth core work
The next breakdown of common yoga poses, while not comprehensive, explains most of the less-obvious ways in which yoga supports core work. Once you begin to note the stealth strengthening and stretching happening, you’ll understand how your practice may also help stabilize all points of your core.
(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)
Rounded spine core work
Imagine yourself lying in your back and lifting your head and shoulders in a crunch or coming into Ardha Navasana (Half Boat Pose), through which your back and legs are lower and closer to the ground than in Navasana. We tend to consider these as core-focused poses since the scooped belly requires a powerful ab contraction you can feel.
But any rounded spine shape requires you to contract, and due to this fact shorten, your anterior abdominal muscles. Holding Bakasana (Crane or Crow Pose) uses the identical muscle group. Even coming into Marjaryasana (Cat Pose) requires the same abdominal contraction. In “gentle” poses corresponding to Cat, the contraction is automatic, but in case you are in search of more core work you possibly can be more deliberate about drawing your belly in or scooping your belly.
This effort might be felt primarily within the rectus abdominis and infrequently results in the satisfying burn and even shaking that lots of us like to hate. You wish this type of strength to allow you to stand up from the ground after lying down, to allow you to stay upright when kayaking or canoeing, and, to a lesser extent, if you’re doing on a regular basis tasks corresponding to mopping the ground or raking the yard.
(Photo: Andrew Clark)
Poses that help your spine resist gravity
There’s a more subtle sort of anterior abdominal engagement that takes place in certain poses. This sort of strengthening asks you to interact different core muscles so you possibly can maintain the neutral spine that you simply experience in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Unopposed, gravity would act on our abdomen and hips and cause us to sag right into a backbend. Maintaining this alignment requires some contribution from the rectus abdominis, which you might or may not notice, together with subtle support from the deeper transversus abdominis to cinch within the waist.
Consider Plank, Chaturanga Dandasana (4-Limb Staff Pose), Virabhadrasana III (Warrior 3 Pose), and the kneeling balance pose generally known as Bird Dog or Superman. Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand) also requires this type of abdominal engagement to keep up a decent plumb line but with a special relationship to gravity.
(Photo: Photo by Andrew Clark; Clothing by Calia)
Balance poses and transitions
The true-world role of your core isn’t related to static strength. You require the sort of strength and stability that lets you transfer your weight from one foot to the opposite as you walk, negotiate unstable or slippery footing, turn your head in response to a noise, and make your way between sitting, standing, and plenty of other positions—all without falling.
Your core is involved if you balance on one leg, as in Vrksasana (Tree Pose), Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose), Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Prolonged Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose). It is usually engaged if you transition easily from one yoga pose to a different as if you step forward from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog) to High Lunge. Reasonably than rigid contraction, this type of core work teaches us to embody strength in suppleness, which is the sthira (effort) and sukha (ease) referred to by Patanjali within the Sutras that helps us find balance as we adapt to situations in yoga and in life.
(Photo: Andrew Clark)
Backbends that work against gravity
It will possibly be surprising to learn that backbends are core work. Picture Salabhasana (Locust Pose) or Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) along with your hands lifted off the mat. Since they take the body right into a position that’s typically related to stretching the abs, they’re not typically understood as core work. But backbends require you to lift your head, shoulders, or legs against gravity which strengthens the muscles of the posterior core, mainly the erector spinae and QL.
Even holding yourself erect in poses corresponding to Dandasana (Staff Pose) can create a slight backbend by engaging the muscles that hold you up against your postural tendency to slouch. In these poses, the posterior core muscles of your back contract and shorten while the anterior core muscles lengthen.
Clothing: Calia (Photo: Andrew Clark)
Backbends that work with gravity
In other backbends, gravity and the fixed position of your hands and feet are inclined to draw you deeper into the pose. Take into consideration Udhva Hastasana (Upward Salute Pose), Ustrasana (Camel Pose), Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog Pose),and Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel or Upward-Facing Bow Pose). In poses like these, contracting the anterior abdominal muscles of their lengthened position (that’s, eccentrically) creates the sort of support that lessens low back compression.
(Photo: Andrew Clark)
Twists and side bends
Any time you rotate your torso, you engage your lateral core muscles. This is very the case if you initiate the movement out of your core somewhat than counting on bracing your arm or leg against one another to initiate the movement. You may feel this type of work in standing and seated twists corresponding to Parivrtta Utkatasana (Revolved Chair), Parivrtta Anjaneyasana (Revolved Lunge), and Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes).
In these poses, the external obliques on one side of the body work with the interior obliques on the other side to attract one side of the rib cage toward the other hip. If you contract in a diagonal manner across your core from left to right contract, you get a twist. Conversely, when the left side contracts, you get a side bend to the left.
In side bends, each the interior and external obliques on one side and the corresponding QL contract together to shorten one side of the waist. You may feel this type of engagement if you lift your bottom rib cage away from the ground in Vasisthasana (Side Plank). You may as well feel it along your top rib cage if you hold your shape against the downward push of gravity while lifting your bottom hand off the support of your leg or the ground in Utthita Trikonasana (Prolonged Triangle Pose), Utthita Parsvakonasanaside (Prolonged Side Angle Pose), and Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose).
You employ these same muscles way more subtly if you transition your body to face the long fringe of your mat, for instance, if you come into side-facing poses including Virabhadrasana II (Warrior 2) and Triangle.
(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)
Hip adduction
For those who’ve even taken a Pilates class, you most likely noticed that a high percentage of movements involved squeezing your inner thighs together or into the resistance of a prop between them. That’s because among the inner thigh adductor muscles share fascial connections with the pelvic floor to create a more complete core-strengthening exercise.
You may tap into this sense of pelvic support or uplift by practicing Surya Namaskar A (Sun Salutation) with a block hugged between your thighs, by drawing your legs toward and into one another in Garudasana (Eagle Pose), or, more subtly, by attempting to drag your feet toward one another without moving them (i.e. isometrically engaging the adductors) in standing poses including Chair, Warrior 2, and Utkata Konasana (Goddess Pose).
(Photo: Andrew Clark; Clothing: Calia)
Breath work and supported poses
There’s perhaps nowhere in yoga that you simply explore that balance of effort and ease, not to say the real-world importance of the core, greater than pranayama or breathwork. Certain breath practices, amongst them Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath) or Bhastrika (Bellows Breath), require specific core muscles to be strong enough to emphatically engage to pump air out of the lungs. These techniques also require the muscles that surround the abdomen and rib cage to be sufficiently flexible to permit the torso to expand and make space for a full inhalation.
Because of this, true core work can’t be limited to constructing strength through muscle contraction. It must also construct elasticity in these same muscles through mobility work and passive stretching. Consider gentle, passive backbends, corresponding to the restorative version of Matsyendrasana (Fish Pose) and Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclining Sure Angle Pose), which permit the anterior abdominal muscles to slowly lengthen as you chill out into the support of props and the ground.
Even passive forward folds, corresponding to the standing forward bend Uttanasana, encourage the erector spinae and QL muscles of the posterior core to release. Likewise, passive and supported side bends and twists release the tissues of the lateral core. Every muscle that you should strengthen also must be supple.
The following time you or your students ask for “core work,” consider the array of poses and ways in which can feel and look. There’s nothing unsuitable with generating a satisfying burn or quiver in your abs, but bear in mind that’s such a small a part of what you want to support your yoga practice and your on a regular basis life.
About our contributor
Rachel Land is a Yoga Medicine instructor offering group and one-on-one yoga sessions in Queenstown Latest Zealand, in addition to on-demand at Practice.YogaMedicine.com. Captivated with the real-world application of her studies in anatomy and alignment, Rachel uses yoga to assist her students create strength, stability, and clarity of mind. Rachel also co-hosts the brand new Yoga Medicine Podcast.