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You’ve probably heard yoga teachers discuss “deepening into the pose.” There are a whole lot of different approaches as to learn how to do that, and lots of of them include using yoga blocks. But to actually understand what “deepening” means, we want to approach the word holistically. Although you’ll be able to make the physical expression of just about any asana more physically difficult, the practice of yoga goes beyond our physical bodies.

Yoga is a practice of deepening our entire experience, which may be felt in additional ways than our muscles and fascia. Deepening into an experience means being aware of and accepting whatever is going on for you within the moment without identifying, or confusing your sense of self, with what’s—or will not be—actually going down.

The way to “deepen” right into a yoga pose

When you concentrate on “deepening” your physical practice, first be interested in why you must intensify a posture. Then be realistic about your body’s abilities. To take a pose to a recent depth requires that you simply not force or rush it. You wouldn’t go straight from the shallow end of a swimming pool to deep-sea diving. Approach your yoga practice in the identical way.

In the event you are still working on reaching your toes in Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend), straining to achieve a yoga block in front of your feet will not be in your best interest. On this instance, it’s higher to practice deepening your understanding of your individual physical limitations. Your flexibility is continuously changing and evolving, just as you’re at all times changing and evolving. Deepening your yoga practice sometimes means deepening your ability to practice patience and self-control.

As you practice, it may be easy to position judgments or labels on yourself, but it surely’s essential to distinguish your identity out of your thoughts about yourself. You aren’t what exists in your mind or your aesthetic performance of any yoga pose. As you end up in familiar poses, listen to your breath and any subtle sensations in your body. In the event you end up holding your breath or tensing your body, it might be an indication that you could lessen the intensity.

In any pose, you’re not only deepening your stretch, but additionally deepening your experience.

How using yoga blocks can aid you deepen your yoga practice

Once you’re able to take an asana a little bit further and feel it in a recent way, yoga blocks can assist you. Below are nine common yoga poses and ways which you can use blocks as tools to deepen, or intensify, the physical stretch you experience.

As you’re employed right into a recent or deeper or more difficult expression of an asana, proceed to pay attention to your breath and your body. Remember, your objective with yoga is to make sure the protection and the longevity of your practice.

Chances are you’ll find that not all the following variations meet your current needs. Take what works for you. Keep your mind open and your ego off the mat.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

1. Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge)

Block profit: Placing a block beneath your front foot intensifies the stretch within the psoas (hip flexor), hamstrings, and quadriceps.

The way to: Start in Low Lunge together with your hands framing your front foot. Slide a block on the bottom level beneath your front foot, ensuring it supports your entire foot. Press down through your big toe mound. Interlace your hands on top of your front thigh and press the thigh muscles away out of your hip crease as you draw your lower front ribs toward the spine. Stack your shoulders over your hips. To deepen the stretch much more, bend your knee deeper. Draw your pubic bone toward your navel to forestall sagging in your lower back. Breathe. Repeat on the opposite side.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

2. Utthan Pristhasana (Lizard Pose)

Block profit: Taking a block beneath your back thigh lifts your knee, which helps your thigh loosen up and, in turn, allows for deeper hip opening.

The way to: Start in Downward Dog and step your right foot outside your right hand. Place a block on the bottom level beneath your back thigh. (The precise placement of the block will rely upon what feels comfortable for you.) Draw your right knee toward your right upper arm. To accentuate the stretch, come onto your forearms, whether on the mat or blocks. Allow your chest to release toward the mat in Lizard Pose. Breathe. Repeat on the opposite side.

Tip
You may tilt the block to match the slope of your back thigh if that’s more comfortable for you.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

3. Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)

Block profit: Using a yoga block as a rest on your front foot and reaching for it creates a more intense hamstring stretch. Holding onto the block also strengthens your arms and helps you reach your torso farther away out of your hips.

The way to: Sit together with your legs prolonged straight in front of you and your feet flexed. Place a block in front of your feet. Sit tall through the spine and hinge at your hips as you reach your chest toward your toes in Seated Forward Bend. Once you cannot reach any farther, begin to release your chest toward your thighs and hold the outer edges of the block together with your hands. Press your heels and thighs into the mat. For a more intense stretch, gaze toward the block and keep your spine elongated. For more of a restorative stretch, round through your upper, middle, and lower back as you release your chin toward your chest.

Tip
If you’ve tight hip flexors, sit on the sting of a folded blanket.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

4. Parsvottanasana (Pyramid or Intense Side Stretch)

Block profit: Sliding a block beneath your front foot intensifies the stretch along the back of your leg.

The way to: Start in Pyramid Pose. Flex your front foot, bringing your toes toward your shin. Slide a block on the bottom height beneath the ball of your foot. Bring your fingertips to the mat directly beneath your shoulders. Inhale and lift halfway as you press through the ball of your front foot, contracting your calf muscles. Exhale as you fold forward again and flex your front toes toward your shin to release your calf muscles. Repeat on the opposite side.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

5. Uttana Shishosana (Prolonged Puppy Pose) with blocks beneath elbows

Block profit: Bringing blocks beneath your elbows creates a deeper opening in your chest and shoulders.

The way to: Start in Tabletop with two blocks in front of your hands, the long side of every block running parallel to the long side of the mat. Bring your elbows onto the blocks and adjust your knees in order that they are directly beneath your hips. Bring your hands together in prayer and bend your elbows to bring you thumbs toward your upper back. Allow your chest to release toward the mat in Puppy Pose. Imagine you’re drawing your shoulder blades toward your side body. Breathe into your chest and back, specializing in creating extra space in between your ribs. To accentuate the stretch, press down through your elbows as you breathe in and release as you breathe out.

Tip
For added cushioning, drape a folded blanket over the blocks.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

6. Uttana Shishosana (Prolonged Puppy Pose) with blocks beneath hands

Block profit: Resting your hands on blocks creates a deeper stretch throughout your upper body.

The way to: Start in Tabletop with two blocks in front of your hands, the long side of every block running parallel to the long side of the mat. Bring your hands onto the blocks and adjust your knees in order that they are directly beneath your hips. Turn your upper arms out and down toward the mat, stretching your upper back. Allow your chest to release toward the mat in Puppy Pose. As you inhale, press your hands firmly into the blocks, feeling as you’re drawing your armpits in toward one another. As you exhale, stop pressing and release your chest deeper toward the mat.

7. Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose)

Block profit: Supporting your sacrum with a block helps release the hip flexor and deep abdomen muscles in addition to the lower back. It also creates a supported backbend, which may be profoundly restorative to body and mind.

The way to: Lie in your back together with your knees bent and your feet flat on the mat hip-distance apart in preparation for Bridge Pose. Press down through your feet and lift your hips enough to slip a block on the bottom level beneath your sacrum, which is the triangle-shaped bone at the bottom of your spine. Straighten your legs, in front of you, hip-distance apart or wider, together with your feet falling toward the far corners of the mat. Roll your inner thighs down toward the mat and loosen up through your glutes and chest. Breathe deeply into your belly, low back, and hips. In the event you like, bend one knee at a time and draw it in toward your armpit, hold for five breaths, after which switch sides.

Tip
A standard mistake in supported Bridge Pose is situating the block beneath your lower back somewhat than your sacrum. Ensure that the block will not be beneath your lumbar vertebrae. You wish the bottom of the tailbone to feel stable and supportive of your entire body weight. In the event you feel any pain in your back at any time during this pose, come out of the pose.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

8. Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend)

Block profit: Standing on blocks effectively increases your distance from the mat, which brings a greater stretch to your hamstrings once you try to achieve your hands to the mat. The variation also helps stretch your upper, middle, and lower back.

The way to: Place two blocks, side by side or hip-distance apart, on their lowest level. Stand on the blocks in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Begin to hinge at your hips and fold forward, bending your knees enough to bring your chest toward your thighs. Rest your hands on the mat in front of the blocks or allow them to dangle and release the highest of your head toward the mat in Standing Forward Bend.

Slowly straighten your legs as you retain your weight evenly distributed between the back and front of your feet. Lift through the inner and outer arches of your feet. Remain here as you’re employed on lengthening through your low back and reaching your chest toward your shins. Breathe into your lower back to open more deeply through your hips.

Tip
To practice the alignment of pressing into Handstand in your upper back, play with keeping your palms on the mat on this pose and round barely through your upper back as you draw your shoulder blades away from each other (shoulder protraction).

(Photo: Renee Choi)

9. Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend)

Block profit: Standing on blocks (just like Uttanasana above) requires greater hamstring flexibility to achieve your hands to the mat. This also creates a deeper stretch within the muscles of your upper, middle, and lower back.

The way to: Take a block in each hand as you come into Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend with the back of your legs facing a wall. Place a block on its lowest level between each foot and the wall. Step onto the blocks and produce your heels and the backs of your thighs to the touch the wall. Bring your hands to the mat, either straight in front of you or reaching out at an angle.

Keep your weight evenly distributed between the back and front of your feet. Shift your gaze between your thighs in order that your head releases toward the mat. Breathe into your lower back to open more deeply through the hips. For a more intense stretch, flip your orientation so your toes face the wall and lean your back against it.

(Photo: Renee Choi)

10. Ardha Bhekasana (Half Frog Pose)

Block profit: Bringing a block beneath the shin of your bent leg creates a deeper stretch through your hips and groin muscles. It also reduces pressure in your knee.

The way to: Lie in your back with a block on the bottom level near your left hip. Draw your right knee in toward your right armpit and barely out to the side, avoiding your rib cage. Take a couple of breaths here. Gently guide your right knee across your body to the left, coming right into a reclining twist. Eventually, your knee will make contact with the block; adjust the position of the block as needed. Proceed to roll all of the method to the left, onto your belly, sliding the block and knee a little bit more out to the correct in order that they’re perpendicular to your body.

Rest your hands on top of each other to make a pillow on your brow. Breathe deeply into your lower back and hips, softening through the hip flexors and belly every time you breathe out.

Encourage rolling the inner thigh of your prolonged left leg down toward the mat and pressing the highest of your left foot onto the mat. In the event you feel any strain in your right knee, flex your toes.

To come back out, begin to roll onto the back, reversing the direction you got here in, and gently bring your right hip back toward the mat. Repeat on the left side.

Tip
In the event you’d like more cushioning on your knee, drape a blanket over the block.

About our contributor

Jenny Clise has been teaching yoga since 2012. Her classes are inspired by many faculties of yoga, and her favorite variety of yoga to show is alignment-based flows. She leads retreats around the globe and is the creator of the yoga e-book BLOCKASANAS. To learn more about Jenny, her classes, or upcoming events, take a look at her website JennyClise.com or follow @jennyclise_.