BrickhouseBodymind.com is a mind body fitness blog, encouraging personal transformation and bringing about total fitness through informative articles on integral lifestyle issues such as stress relief, sexuality and relationships, and transformative practices like strength training, meditation and yoga. The website is designed to help you train your body, sharpen your mind, and unleash your spirit, making total fitness a reality for everyone.
Well, it has been a while since the first blueprint came out, but as promised this is a series of documents, so here’s the second one. It’s called “Biotensegrity and Musculoskeletal Traction in Hatha Yoga Posture Practice.” It represents an amalgam of ideas I’ve been mulling over for a while now, but only really came to fruition after reading Scott Sonnon’s blog post, Biotensegrity = Circular Strength Training. As is my modus operandi, I began digging through the search engines to find out as much as I could about the subject, and what I found validated much of what I already felt to be true of the value of hatha yoga posture practice.
Biotensegrity is a subject that has recently come of age, which observes the principles of tensegrity structures at work in living, biological systems. This dynamic dictates that certain conditions be present for living systems such as the human body to function efficiently. In this blueprint, I discuss the principles of tensegrity structures, how those principles apply to the human body, and then how the practice of hatha yoga asanas can help bring equilibrium to such a system.
This blueprint will, like the first one, be freely available to anyone who drops by. I encourage folks who enjoy these essays to subscribe to my e-mail feed, or via rss. This insures two things - 1) that you’ll be among the first to know when the next blueprint comes out, and 2) once these documents become available to subscribers only, you’ll already be on board.
This is the first lecture-based installment of BrickhouseBodymind TV. The idea came out of a brief discussion on the RMAX Forums about the differences between vinyasa and prasara flow. Do they differ? If so, how do they differ, and how can they be integrated into a single practice?
The first pitfall is to think of prasara yoga as a type or brand of yoga. It is not. It is simply one of the software programs that comes with the Hatha Yoga 2008 package. I am grateful to Scott Sonnon for re-introducing this piece of the puzzle. The other two pieces of software are vinyasa and asana. To find out how they work together to integrate the hardware of the human body - breath, structure and movement - check out the video below.
One final note - I’m trying out a new video player to see if I can deliver a better quality video than YouTube. If this copy doesn’t work for you, you can view the crappy YouTube version here.
Just in time for summer, one of the best flat-tummy core exercises I know - the spinal rock. In this episode I explain some tips for getting better results from the killer ab exercise, the spinal rock.
Special thanks go to Becca Davis for the production photos, Robert for his camera work, Signal Path for the intro music, and as always my wife for allowing me to spend time on this exhilarating diversion. Please let me know how you like the video content by commenting below, and don’t forget to subscribe via e-mail or rss so you don’t miss the next great recipe, article or video on integrating mind and body fitness.
Hey all. This is just a quick note to let you know that I’ve made a couple improvements to the first episode of BrickhouseBodymind TV originally released in this post about shoulder pain and stiffness. Graphics package has improved a bit, and I tried to place the exercises earlier in the video, while leaving technical exposition for later. As always, please comment below if you have suggested improvements or suggestions for future episodes.
Chronic neck and shoulder stiffness and pain are symptoms many of us deal with on a daily basis. Whether it’s a nagging crick in your neck, a pain that keeps you from being able to turn and check your blind spot while driving, or inhibited range of motion in your shoulder joint that keeps you from doing certain exercises in the gym, most of us in the modern world are affected by some form of this discomfort in the neck and shoulder area.
While there are cases where severe shoulder injury will require surgery or some other invasive intervention to realize recovery, these symptoms are more often a result of the modern human lifestyle, and that means you have the power to eradicate them by making a few of the following lifestyle changes.
Identify where you carry stress – Many of us, myself included, carry the bulk of their stress load in their neck and shoulders. The next time somebody cuts in front of you on the interstate, take inventory of your posture. Are your shoulder blades splaying outward? Are your shoulders creeping up toward your ears? Are the muscles in your neck collapsing your cervical vertebrae? Take note of these things and try to be more mindful in times of stress. Breathe deeply. As a rule, try to keep your shoulder blades parallel to the midline of the body and relatively close to the spine. Also work on relaxing your shoulders down away from your ears.
Push and pull together – A common cause of these symptoms is muscle imbalance between the front and back of the body. For this reason it’s imperative that you work your back at least as much as your chest when you’re in the gym. Overdeveloped chest muscles are a big culprit as they tend to pull the shoulders forward, causing the shoulder blades to splay outward, decreasing their stability. It’s important to pay attention to your levator scapulae, rhomboids, and infraspinatus muscles. These are very important in stabilizing the shoulder joint in overhead presses and other movements involving external rotation of the upper arm (humerous). Check out this great article by Medhi at stronglifts.com for more on working with the infraspinatus muscle.
Know your ergonomics – Another reason we have such problems with posture is the amount of time we spend sitting in front of computers every day. Slouching at the desk is probably inevitable, but check out this website for some great info on workstation ergonomics that could help you get your posture back on track.
Develop your range of motion – The shoulder joint is a ball and socket configuration, giving it a wide range of possible movements including flexion and extension, abduction and adduction, rotation around the center-line of the humerous, and circumduction (which is basically drawing a circle in the air with your hand). Take a look at the video tutorial below for some great mobility exercises to take your shoulder joint through its entire range of motion. This will help improve your kinesthetic awareness and increase your ability to stabilize your shoulder joint and your shoulder girdle (collarbone and shoulder-blade).
I’ll warn you, this video is a full 10 minutes long. I’ve made some improvements on the first edition, though. The exercises all happen in the first five minutes, while the latter five minutes is more technical. Please comment below and let me know how I might improve on my communications. Thanks for reading and watching!
