Movement Snack: Mobile Hips
October 20 2022 | Written by Leticia Padmasri
This movement snack brings a couple of elements that we don’t find much of in traditional yoga poses:
internal hip rotation and active range of motion.
We tend to do a lot more external rotation than internal rotation in yoga and a lot more passive stretches than active ones. Have you noticed?
For a healthy and functional hip joint, it is a good idea to move it through all its range of motion and to add more active ranges to strengthen the communication between the brain and body.
In active stretch practices, you don't use any external accessories like a strap, gravity, or your own hands to move into the position. The resistance you create is using your own neural-muscular control.
This movement snack is one of many ways to work on hip mobility, and its benefits can carry over into not only our more traditional yoga poses but also into our regular day movements.
Taking Ayurveda to the Mat
Following one of Ayurveda’s basic premises, which is that we should adjust our activities (and foods too) with the change of the seasons, the fall season is then the time to increase our focus on managing Vata energy in the body & mind.
The major home for Vata energy is in the pelvis, so adding some extra work to your hips will increase the circulation of blood and prana in this area, which in turn will support Vata dosha.
This movement snack explores a sitting pigeon pose where you take one hip into external rotation and the other into internal rotation. In addition, it challenges us to hold our hips in external rotation without the support of the other leg, making us use our own neural-muscular control.