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A lot of us equate “core strength” with strong abdominal muscles and use various types of sit-ups to develop it. That’s definitely a very good start. There are lots of poses in yoga that also intensively work the abdominal and hip flexor muscles, although the one one which is often taught in most yoga classes (often to a chorus of groans and sighs) is Paripurna Navasana (Boat Pose).

The oft-overlooked Lolasana (Pendant Pose) is another choice. It doesn’t require as much flexibility as Navasana, and although you would like considerable arm and core strength to perform probably the most difficult expression of the posture, it could actually easily be adjusted for nearly anyone.

(Photo: Getty Images)

What’s Lolasana?

Lolasana known as Pendant Pose for a reason: Your body literally dangles between your arms and should even swing a bit of. From kneeling on the mat, you place your hands beneath your shoulders, spread your fingers wide, and shift your weight into your arms as you cross your ankles (or not) and lift your knees and feet off the mat and draw them toward your chest.

The pose is very effective for strengthening all the abdominal muscles, many of the hip flexor muscles, and several other shoulder muscles. It also places extraordinary demands on the external oblique abdominals, making it adept at strengthening the often-overlooked sides of the waist.

Lolasana, like other poses that strengthen your abdominals and hip flexors, improves your ability to maintain your chest, back, and abs stable whilst you extend and move your legs and arms into various positions in your asana practice. This stability is crucial for locating steadiness and stopping back pain.

But Lolasana offers some added perks that Navasana and sit-ups don’t include: It also strengthens your arms and shoulders and trains your nervous system to coordinate that strength with powerful abdominal and hip flexor motion. This provides the muse for projecting power forward through your legs and arms, which you must do in on a regular basis life every time you open a heavy door or play tennis.

Lolasana also advantages your yoga practice by preparing you for tougher arm balances and improving your ability to “jump through” from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose) to Dandasana (Staff Pose).

In fact, to achieve these advantages you could have to make it some extent to often include Lolasana in your practice and to practice it as if you actually mean it.

External obliques, internal obliques, and rectus abdominis muscles. (Illustration: Eraxion)

The anatomy of Lolasana

The moral of the story is that you could have to make use of all your abdominal muscles if you find yourself within the pose, especially those alongside the midline, to attract the front of your pelvis as near the front of your rib cage as you possibly can, curling your hips and trunk into a good ball, while at the identical time using your hip flexors to attract your thighs toward your chest as strongly as you possibly can.

Three sets of abdominal muscles work together to offer the pelvic lift in Lolasana: the rectus abdominis, the external obliques, and the interior obliques. The web effect of this complex arrangement of muscles is that the simultaneous contraction of those muscles draws the pelvis strongly upward toward the ribs and flexes the lumbar spine to create far more lift in your front body than in back.

The rectus abdominis creates the familiar appearance of “six-pack abs.” It consists of several segments embedded in a sheath of tough connective tissue that connects the bottom of the sternum (the xiphoid process and nearby cartilage) to the center of the lower front pelvis (the pubis).

The external oblique abdominal muscles lie alongside the rectus abdominis to cover the rest of the front of the waist, the perimeters of the waist, and a part of the back waist. Their fibers attach to the perimeters of the lower rib cage and run diagonally down and forward to connect at the opposite end to the rectus sheath in front or to the highest rim of the pelvis in back.

The interior obliques lie underneath the externals; their fibers connect with the rectus sheath in front and run diagonally down and backward, roughly perpendicular to the fibers of the external obliques, to connect to the front and sides of the pelvic rim.

While you’re learning Lolasana, it helps to loosen up your abdomen and hips, allowing your pelvis and legs to hold so all of the work is in your arms, chest, and shoulders. Notice that the triceps muscles on the backs of your upper arms tighten to straighten your elbows, and two other muscle groups—the pectorals, on the front of your chest, and the serratus anterior muscles, which run out of your inner shoulder blades to your side ribs in front of your armpits—work together to lift your rib cage upward. This upward pull tends to make your ribs swing up and away out of your dangling pelvis, much like the movement they make if you inhale deeply.

How one can practice Lolasana

The very best option to learn Lolasana is to begin with a better version of the pose and regularly increase the extent of challenge as you grow stronger. You’ll want to aim Lolasana during a well-rounded practice that prepares your body and mind by first working your arms, core, and the world around your spine.

Getting began with Lolasana

To get an intuitive sense of the muscles involved in Lolasana, sit in a sturdy chair, place your hands on the seat on either side of your hips, lean forward about 45 degrees, and push down firmly to take many of the weight off your pelvis.

Now exhale and push your hands down harder as you pull your thighs upward as if to lift them toward your chest. Your abdominal muscles connect your rib cage to your pelvis, so that you’ll feel them engage as you try to lift the pelvis and ribs. Your front hip muscles connect your pelvis and spine to your thighs, so that you’ll also feel those hip muscles engage, no matter whether you lift your feet off the mat.

Lifting into Lolasana

It will probably take plenty of practice to accumulate enough strength to lift into Lolasana. To make the pose more accessible—yet still plenty difficult—try a variation with blankets and blocks. Fold one or two yoga blankets to create a rectangle wider than your shoulders and about one to 2 inches high. Place two yoga blocks, shoulder-width apart, on the bottom level with one short end resting on a folded fringe of the blanket(s) and the opposite on the mat. Kneel on the blanket along with your knees between the blocks. Lift your pelvis off your feet. Place your hands on the blocks with the heels of the hands directly above the blanket edge. (Don’t put your hands too far forward, or the blocks might flip.) Cross your ankles.

Lean forward and, with an exhalation, push firmly down along with your hands and check out to lift each feet off the ground. Move your shoulder blades apart to lift your body as high as possible, and at the identical time, draw yourself into as tight a ball as you possibly can by pulling your heels up and curling your trunk, bringing your thighs as near your rib cage as they may go. Exhale fully as you contract your abdomen as tightly as you possibly can.

In case you can, stay here and create a “Cat Pose” movement of your entire spine, curving the center of your back up away from the ground. At first, it’s possible you’ll must look down at the bottom, but when you’re balanced, regularly lift your head and, without straining or wrinkling your brow, gaze straight ahead. Swing your body gently forward and back for several breaths, after which come down. Repeat three to 5 times, alternating the way in which you cross your ankles.

(Photo: Getty Images)

When you’re working toward Lolasana, you possibly can leave your feet on the mat. As you push your arms right down to raise your body high, press the tops of your feet into the ground and unbend your knees partway to help the lift. Use the pressure of your feet into the ground to provide help to draw your thighs near your chest. Curl your trunk, just as you’d in the normal version of the pose. Now regularly push down less and fewer along with your feet so your arms, abs, and hip flexors support you an increasing number of. Challenge the bounds of your strength by getting as close as possible to lifting your feet off the ground. Omit the swinging motion at the top.

Troubleshooting Lolasana

Although all the abdominal muscles contribute to lifting the lower body, meaning that each one of them get conditioned by the pose, the work of the external obliques is particularly intense. It’s because their frontal fibers connect on to the side ribs, pulling them downward and inward. The oblique abdominals prevent the ribs from swinging forward and translates the lifting power of the serratus muscles into elevation of the abdomen and hips. Which means to do Lolasana effectively, you could have to pay special attention to contracting the perimeters of your waist in front.

Let’s take a better have a look at the way to get your legs off the mat in Lolasana. The core muscle that does many of the heavy lifting here is the iliopsoas, which consists of two deep hip flexors: the iliacus and the psoas. Several superficial hip flexors assist the iliopsoas.

Since the hip flexor muscles use the front of the pelvis or the lower spine as their anchor points, you possibly can lift your legs off the ground provided that the front of the pelvis stays lifted and also you hinge forward at your hips. The abdominal muscles help provide this lift and flexion; in the event that they are too weak, the front of the pelvis will sag, the spine will lose its flexion, and the legs will droop toward the ground. In fact, the hip flexors should be strong, too; in the event that they are too weak, you won’t give you the chance to lift your legs, regardless of how high you raise your pelvis and spine.

This text has been updated. Originally published February 26, 2010.

About our contributor

Roger Cole, Ph.D., is an authorized Iyengar Yoga teacher and a research scientist specializing within the physiology of leisure, sleep, and biological rhythms. He also trains yoga teachers and students within the anatomy, physiology, and practice of asana and Pranayama. He teaches workshops worldwide. For more information, see http://rogercoleyoga.com.