Stonehenge: Back Pain Relief – Hugger Mugger

Savasana (relaxation installation) is a welcome respite, the dessert well deserved after your practice in Asana. It is a moment of rest and integration, the moment when you lie down motionless and absorbs the advantages of your Asana practice.

But for some people, it is actually not so relaxing. I often see that students lighten me on the ground, only to start agitating, leaning on my knees, placing a roller under the lower spine, etc. It is then that they need support, not under their back, but rather under their lower legs. When I put the support under their legs, the relief of back pain is almost always instantaneous.

Why does support under the legs relieve the rear tension?

When your legs are stretched on the ground, hip flexors stretch. When the flexors of the shortcut hip stretch passively, as in Savasana, the low back is pulled in hyperextension. This is where the discomfort of the back comes from. The flexors of the shortcut hip are quite common in our culture. Due to our omnipresent cultural habit of the seated marathon chair, many people end up with shortcut hip flexors. Indeed, seated puts all our joints in a bent position. Over time, the muscles are shortened.

This is one of the reasons why the practice of Asana is so important. There are a lot of poses that counteract our joints usually bent. While we do an active practice, we expect to feel a feeling of stretching. This is part of the process. So, a feeling of stretching in hip flexors, as well as an extension of the back, feel normal in most poses. It is generally not before we went passively in Savasana that we really feel our chronic hip hip greenhouse – in the lower back.

Savasana is more effective when we are able to relax completely. If we feel agitated and uncomfortable, our nervous systems will continue to feel agitated. We did not feel the calm feeling of ease which is the brand brand of a deep Savasana. The good news is that relief is easy to find.

Stonehenge: relief of back pain in Savasana – and more

There are many ways to support legs in Savasana. In Hugger Mugger’s blog, you will find many items detailing the options to strengthen the legs. These options involve using standard, round, junior and pranayama yoga boulmages, and combinations of these. I learned Stonehenge many years ago during training as a repairing yoga teacher with Judith Hanson Lasater. Several of my students find that Stonehenge is the most effective way to find relief of back pain in Savasana, and they settled in this class in this way.

Stonehenge has certain characteristics of a very light inversion. Pose can be a good substitute for poses such as Viparita Karani (legs on the wall) or even Salamba Sarvangasana (shoulder) for people for whom complete inversions are contraindicated. This includes people with unregulated blood pressure, detached retina, heavy menstrual flow or glaucoma. So, instead of simply installing these people in the standard Go-To, Balasana (childhood installation), install them in Stonehenge, which will give them some of the benefits of inversion without risks.

How to install Stonehenge

1. Gather your accessories: a yoga carpet, two 4 -inch yoga blocks and a standard yoga box. Do not use 3 -inch yoga blocks for this installation. They are more likely to switch than the 4 -inch wider blocks.
2. Adjust your blocks, in their highest dimension, at the end of the foot of your carpet. Configure them so that they are roughly the width of the hips. This width is important because of the blocks that are too close to each other, the weight of your legs can cause a collapse of energy on each side, which could destabilize the blocks. The same applies if the blocks are too far away; The comfortable can sag in the middle. So you want the blocks to be just below your legs for the best support.
3. Place your width set on top of your blocks, so that it is transverse oriented on your carpet.
4. Lie on your carpet with your folded knees and the sole of your feet on the floor. Fold your knees to your chest, then place your calves on the machine. You may need to adjust your hips to or away from the bra to find your most comfortable position.
5. Relax and enjoy.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and started teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyding Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. His third book is entitled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Pratitioner’s Guide to Protect of the Hips and Avoid Si Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly chronicle for Catalyst Magazine and is online Yoga U publisher. Charlotte is a founding member of the board of directors of Greentree Yoga, a non -profit organization that brings yoga to poorly served populations. Musician for life, Charlotte plays an oboe and an English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and the Sextuant Folk Red rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy Awards.