Leg Power Equals Brain Power

by Nina

Bhavani Cooper, Age 56

“Leg power predicts both cognitive ageing and global brain structure, despite controlling for common genetics and early life environment shared by twins. Interventions targeted to improve leg power in the long term may help reach a universal goal of healthy cognitive ageing.” —Steves, CJ, et al.

I have to say that even I always repeat to myself what Ram wrote about the brain “what is good for the heart is good for the brain,” I am so used to thinking about the brain as somehow being separate from the rest of the body, I was flabbergasted to read about a recent study of aging twins that showed that powerful leg muscles resulting from physical exercise correlates with sharper minds. Yes, even though the brain is just another organ in your body, like your heart or your liver, we’re so used to being told that doing mental exercises, like, God forbid, crossword puzzles, is the best way to keep our brains healthy as we age, that is hard for a lot of us—me included—to take in that something like doing yoga standing poses could actually be much more effective.

In a recent study Kicking Back Cognitive Ageing: Leg Power Predicts Cognitive Ageing after Ten Years in Older Female Twins. scientists at Kings College London set out to test whether muscle fitness (measured by leg power, since the thigh muscles are the largest muscles in the body) could “predict cognitive change” in a healthy older population over a 10-year time interval. Twins were used in the study so genetic factors could be ruled out. And leg strength was measured as a more objective indicator of exercise patterns than self-reporting (since self-reporting is notoriously unreliable). 

The study was performed on 324 female twins (average age 55, range from 43-73) at two time points ten years apart. The scientists performed cognitive testing on all the study participants, and for 20 pairs of identical twins, they also conducted brain-imaging scans. According to the New York Times, the scientists found that those who had had the sturdiest legs a decade ago showed the least fall-off in thinking skills, even when scientists controlled for factors such as fatty diets, high blood pressure, and shaky blood-sugar control. The Times reported that the differences in thinking skills were particularly striking within twin pairs:

“If one twin had been more powerful than the other 10 years before, she tended to be a much better thinker now. In fact, on average, a muscularly powerful twin now performed about 18 percent better on memory and other cognitive tests than her weaker sister.

“Similarly, in the brain imaging of the identical twins, if one genetically identical twin had had sturdier legs than the other at the start of the study, she now displayed significantly more brain volume and fewer “empty spaces in the brain” than her weaker sister.”

So this is very dramatic evidence about how important exercise is for maintaining cognitive health! The funny thing is that even the main author, of the study, Dr. Steves, was surprised by the results. The New York Times quoted her:

“I was quite surprised by the strength of the findings,” Dr. Steves said, “because to be honest, I am someone who has always in the past prioritized work of the mind over work of the body. This study brings home to me that the brain needs exercise to keep fit.”

For more information about the study, see Brawn and Brains (only the abstract for the study is available to general public).

Now we’ve been recommending exercise in general for cognitive health for some time now (see 6 Ways to Foster Brain Health with Yoga and Featured Sequence: Brain Health Practice). But if you’re interested in working on leg strength in your yoga practice, my post The Importance of Yoga for Strength had some basic recommendations for lower body strength. In general, though, the following are strengthening for your legs:

• Standing poses where you stand one or two bent knees, such as Powerful pose (Utkatasana), Warrior 2 pose (Virabradrasana 1), Extended Side Angle pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana), and Lunge pose 
• Standing poses where you balance on one leg, such as Tree pose (Vrksasana), Half Moon pose (Arda Chandrasana), and Warrior 3 pose (Virabradrasana 3)
• Backbends where you lift your legs up away from the floor, such as Locus pose (Salabasana) and Hunting Dog pose
• Stretching poses for your legs, such as Reclined Leg Stretch (remember, stretching is also strengthening—see Just Stretching is Not Just Stretching)

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Friday Q&A: Strengthening the Legs

Q: “I am having knee problems and can’t bend my knees very deeply. But my legs are very week overall, especially my inner legs and I want to strengthen them. What poses do you recommend for strengthening my quads, my hamstrings, and my inner legs?"

A: The timing of this question could not be better, as I have been preparing this week to teach my almost annual workshop Yoga for Healthy Knees  at Mountain Yoga in Oakland, CA. So, I have already been thinking a lot about the health of our knees, one of the essential joints that allow us to walk upright. And so many of my students struggle with the same issue of limitation in bending (flexion) the knee joint. The underlying causes are varied, from wear and tear arthritis to a variety of injuries, especially meniscal tears and anterior cruciate ligament injuries, to other less common reasons. 

However, regardless of why your knees might not be able to bend easily, the good news is that you can certainly do many poses that can help address the leg weakness that our reader would like to improve. Some of these poses can be performed reclining, others on hands and knees (I am going to assume that most readers can bend the knees safely to 90 degrees of flexion and can tolerate kneeling if using a blanket for padding), and still others standing. Today I am going to limit myself to more common poses that Nina and I are including in our list of YFHA recommended poses (something we are organizing for our upcoming immersion in August). 

To start, as a way to start thinking about how yoga builds strength, you might want to take a moment and review my overview of strength Yoga for Strength: An Overview

Next, I’ll give you a few general guidelines. Generally, I suggest coming into and out of all of these poses with your breath for 6-8 rounds of dynamic movement, and then coming into the fullest version you can safely perform and holding the posture for a while, gradually working your way up to 90 seconds or so before releasing. In this way you will get both the dynamic effects of what are technically known as concentric and eccentric muscle contraction and the static effect of isometric muscle contraction, all of which will contribute to better overall strength of your targeted muscles. 

Now let's look at a few poses that you can do lying down, on all fours, or standing that can build strength in the front hip muscles, home to not only the quadriceps, but also the equally important psoas, the back hip muscles, the hamstrings, and the inner thigh muscles, the adductors.

Reclining Poses

Reclining Leg Lifts (Urdhva Prasarita Padasana). This pose builds strengths in the quads and psoas. You can do these leg lifts one leg at time or with both legs simultaneously. If you want to add in adductor strengthening, use a block between your thighs for the two-legged version. If you have a week or painful lower back, use caution with two-legged version if you have a weak or painful lower back.

Locust (Salabhasana). This pose builds strength in hamstrings and back hip muscles. You can do Locust one leg up at time or with both legs simultaneously (see Featured Pose: Locust for basic instructions). For additional adductor strengthening in the two-legged version, you can squeeze a block between your thighs. This pose is generally safe for all, especially the one-legged version.

Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha). This pose another good hamstring and back hip muscles strengthener, and if you squeeze in a block between your thighs, you can add more adductor strengthening. If you have neck issues, be cautious about how high you lift into the backbend.

Poses on All Fours

Hunting Dog Pose. This pose strengthens the hamstrings and back hip muscles along with a whole bunch of other muscles as well. See Featured Pose: Hunting Dog basic instructions. I don’t usually do this pose dynamically, so let’s stick to having you hold it statically for at least 6 breaths on each side.

Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana). This pose strengthens the quads, psoas, and adductors—pretty much any version you do can help to strengthen the quads. If you start from Hands and Knees position, you can do a nice dynamic version, inhaling into a bit of the Cow position (see LINK), and then exhaling up into Downward Dog. Move back and forth from Hands and Knees pose to full Downward-Facing Dog a few times with your breath, before coming into the static version. In the static version, actively contract your quads (front thigh muscles) while you hold the pose. To work the adductors, once again, squeeze a block between your inner thighs. See Featured Pose: Downward-Facing Dog for basic instructions on the pose.

Standing Poses

Generally, practicing the following basic standing poses while engaging the muscles of your upper legs will building strength in the desired muscle groups:

• Mountain (Tadasana)
• Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana)
• Powerful pose (Utkatasana)
• Warrior 1, 2, & 3 (Virabradrasana)
• Extended Side Angle pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)
• Pyramid pose (Parsvottanasana)
• Wide-Legged Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana)

Today, I will focus on just a few recommended standing poses.

Powerful Pose (Utkatasana). This pose strengthens the quads, psoas, and adductors. You can do this pose with or without a block between your thighs, but, as you are beginning to see, squeezing a block between your thighs in the poses helps to address the adductor muscles directly. And you do not need to bend the knees much to get some good results. You can also do this pose with your buttocks on a wall. See Featured Pose: Powerful Pose for basic instructions.

Warrior 3 (Virabhadrasana 3). This pose strengthens the hamstrings and back hip muscles. Your lifted back leg is where you will getting the most hamstring action, but you also will get a some quad strengthening in your supporting leg. If your balance is poor, consider doing a wall version with your hands on a wall in front of you. See Featured Pose: Warrior 3 and Featured Pose: Warrior 3 (Wall Version)for basic instructions.

As you can see, there area lot of different poses to play with, so start by picking a handful that you can begin your journey with, and as you get better at those, add another one or two into your home practice. Try to practice every other day, allowing either a rest day in between or doing a more restorative practice on your strengthening “off” days. Don’t be surprised to find that the strength in your legs starts to improve rather quickly, despite your limited knee flexion ability!

—Baxter

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Featured Sequence: Lower Body Strength Practice

by Baxter

Warrior 3 Pose

Lower body strength is vital to so many of our daily activities, from the simplest tasks, such as, getting out of bed in the morning and moving around the house as we start the day, to elective activities, such as, getting up and down in the garden on a lovely spring day, to unexpected events, such as helping to move furniture for your best friend. So, from from my perspective, we are talking about strengthening the muscles around your hip, knee, and ankle joints as well as the bones that make them up. I’ve designed this Lower Body Strength Practice for you with all that in mind.

In previous posts we have described how yoga asana practices can build both muscular strength and bone strength. Modern exercise physiology and other research has given us suggestions for how long we might want to hold our static poses to either build new muscle or new bone. And although different timings are suggested in the literature, I’d recommend that when you try out these poses on your own, you start by noticing when you start to feel tired or weak or shaky as you try holding the poses. Make a mental note of how long it was before those sensations arose and then make that your starting goal point. And as you practice over time, add a few seconds to your baseline hold until you can safely work up to my suggested hold times. 

Research on bone building has suggested that holding poses or doing weight-bearing poses for up 10-70 seconds will turn on the bone-building activity in thin bones. For building new and stronger muscles, you will want to shoot for 90 second holds of the static poses. So, for combining these two goals, I suggest that you gradually work your way up to 90-second holds over the course of a few weeks or even months if you tire quickly when you start out. I will emphasize both the static poses variations and dynamic mini-vinyasa sequences (moving in and out of a particular pose). The mini-vinyasa sequences make use of strength, while at the same time requiring and challenging agility and balance, two of the other skills we want to develop in yoga for healthy aging!

And even though the following sequence is designed to address lower body strength, keep two things in mind. First, any time you are doing a yoga asana practice, you get way more then just your intended focus. So, even though I am recommending the following poses for lower body strength, know that you are also likely getting some core strengthening, upper body strengthening, and a decent amount of opening or stretching as well. Second, this is by no means an exhaustive list. I am focusing on some of the more common and accessible modern yoga poses, but you could add others on your own, if you find they challenge your lower body strength.

Warming Up 

Dynamic Reclined Hip Stretches: Since we will be working with all the joints of the lower body, it is nice to start by warming them up to their fuller range of motion. Do this a few times on each side. 

Active Practice

1. Bridge pose: Do six rounds of dynamic Bridge pose, inhaling your hips up and exhaling them down. Then come up into the pose and try to hold it for six breaths, gradually working up to a 90-second hold.

2. Locust pose: Lying on your belly, do six rounds of full or half Locust, inhaling while lifting your chest, head and either one or both legs, and exhaling back to the starting position. Then come up into the pose and try to hold it for six breaths, gradually working up to 90 seconds over time. Take your time with this one, as it can be challenging for some lower backs.

3. Boat pose: Sit with your knees bent and your feet on the floor in front of you. Hold onto the back of your knees and rock back to balance on your buttocks with your feet just off the floor. See how long you can stay before your front thighs begin to tire. If Version 1 is easy, try Version 2, which involves bringing your shins parallel to the floor and holding there. If Version 2 is easy, try Version 3, letting go of your knees and stretching your arms forward. Finally, if Version 3 isn’t challenging enough, try Version 4, straightening your knees so your upper and lower body forms a “V” shape. Start with six breaths and work up from there.

4. Hunting Dog pose: Come to your hands and knees. Extend one leg back behind you with your knee straight and toes on the floor. Keep your pelvis and lower back steady as you lift up your back leg about parallel with the floor. Hold for six breaths, gradually working towards 90-second holds. Repeat on the other side, of course!

5. Mountain pose: Practice Mountain pose with a block between your thighs and your feet set so you feel a nice squeeze of your inner leg muscles against the block. Stand for 60-90 seconds with your legs actively squeezing the block. This will strengthen your inner thigh muscles in addition to working all of the standing muscles in your legs.

6. Dynamic Arms Overhead pose with Heels Lifted: Starting in Mountain pose (with or without the block in the previous pose), inhale your arms overhead and lift your heels a few inches off the floor, keeping the balls of your feet evenly on the floor. Then exhale as you return your arms and heels to the starting position. Repeat six times. Then try to hold your heels up for six breaths, adding time gradually. This is great way to strengthen your calf muscles and work on balance!

7. Powerful pose (Utkatasana): From Mountain pose (with or without a block between your thighs), inhale yours arms overhead. Then exhale into high squat, with your knees bending forward, your hips sitting back a bit and your torso leaning out over thighs a bit. Then inhale back to Mountain pose with your arms overhead. Repeat six times. Then try holding the pose for six breaths, gradually lengthening over time. This pose works your hips, knees and ankles.

8. High Lunge: From Mountain pose, take an easy forward fold, placing your hands either on blocks by your feet, or on the floor. Then step one leg way back into a high lunge as you bend your front knee. Position your front knee over your front ankle joint and keep your feet hips-distance apart, side to side. Press down into your front foot and the ball of your back foot and try to use your arms less for support to increase the work of your legs. Start with six breaths and gradually increase to 90 seconds over time. Repeat on the other side.

9. Straight Leg Standing poses: You’ll be doing a dynamic sequence as a warm up for the full static hold. I will use Triangle pose to illustrate this, but you could do this with Pyramid pose as well. Start with your legs apart and feet aligned as usual for Triangle. Inhale your arms up parallel with the floor, and then exhale into Triangle. Inhale back up with arms out to sides, and then exhale your arms down to your sides. Repeat six times. Then hold full Triangle for six breaths, and work on increasing your time in the pose. Repeat on second side. So, do the dynamic sequence as a warm up for the full static hold.

10. Bent Knee Standing poses: You’ll be doing a dynamic sequence as a warm up for the full static hold. I will use Warrior 2 to illustrate this, but you could do this with Warrior 1 and Extended Side Angle Pose as well. Start with your legs apart and feet aligned for Warrior 2. Inhale your arms up parallel with floor, and then, as you exhale, bend your front knee over the front ankle joint. Inhale while straightening your front knee and exhale as you release your arms to your sides. Repeat for six rounds, and then hold the full pose for six breaths, working up to 90 seconds gradually. Repeat on second side.

11. Balancing Poses: You’ll be moving with your breath to enter the pose. I will use Warrior 3 to illustrate this, but you could do Half Moon Pose, Tree Pose or Eagle Pose similarly. Stand with your feet and torso aligned as for Warrior 1 pose. Then inhale your arms overhead. Next, exhale and bend your front leg over your front foot, and as you inhale, tip your torso forward over your front leg, pivoting onto the ball of your back foot. Exhale and step your back foot toward your front foot about six inches. On your next breath cycle, with hands to hips, tip forward and balance on your front foot, straightening your front knee, lifting your back leg up for Warrior 3.  Hold for six breaths, then step back foot down to the floor. While in the pose, attempt to keep your hips square with the floor beneath you, and work toward getting your back leg and your torso parallel with the floor. Repeat on second side. Gradually add more time in the pose.

Cooling Down

After strong standing pose work, it is a treat to rest your legs nicely for a few minutes. I recommend any of the following three poses:

Savasana with a bolster under the knees (see Corpse Pose Variations): 

Easy Inverted pose:

Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani), my favorite:

Aim for 10 minutes to try and cultivate the Relaxation Response for your body and your mind!

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Friday Q&A: Strengthening Your Quads

Q:  My parents have started to suffer from osteoarthritis and have a transfer problem due to knee pain. I have started including some asanas to strengthen my quads. Do you think it is a good idea to use ankle weights to strengthen the quads?

A: As long as you have a relatively healthy body and joints, I think using something like ankle weights to strengthen the quads could be quite reasonable. Now, if you have significant knee or hip arthritis, you would obviously want to be guided by the amount of pain in the joints that the extra weight might cause. And if you were not particularly keen on using yet another extra item in your practice, rest assured that using your own body weight for resistance and strengthening can help to strengthen you quads, as well as longer hold with some of your standing poses. See Ram’s excellent post on Endurance Training for more information.

The ankle weights would be most likely to help build more quad strength when you take your leg into flexion a the hip joint, especially in poses like the standing pose Hasta Padangusthasana. In this pose, you start in Mountain pose and balance on one leg as you lift the other one up parallel with the floor or higher and use your same-side hand to hold that lifted foot (or use a strap if you are limited by tightness or leg/arm length challenges).

Another pose in which you could use the ankle weights is Reclining Leg Lifts, which in the yoga practice is called Urdhva Prasarita Padasana. I do these starting in Savasana, inhaling the arms overhead, then while exhaling the arms back to my sides simultaneously swinging one or both legs up to vertical. On my next inhale, I simultaneously lower the leg/legs back to the floor and take the arms back overhead, and finish by exhaling the arms to my sides. This can be repeated for a set of six or more. The ankle weights will make it a bit more challenging, and could potentially result in more muscle building in the quads.

Other postures that you could do that would not necessarily require or benefit from the ankle weights but would work to strengthen the quadraceps muscles in whole or part (since one of the four muscles that make up the quads flexes the hip joint, but all four extend the knee to straight), would include all of the straight leg standing poses done with attention to creating an isometric contraction of the muscles while in the held pose for a while. I usually shoot for about 90 seconds when working on muscle building and strengthening. You can actually check to see if you are engaging the muscles group by touching the front mid quad with your fingers to verify the muscle is firm and working. The straight leg poses poses I am referring to include Mountain, Triangle, Pyramid (Parsvottanasana), Half Moon pose (Arda Chandrasana), and Warrior 3 to name the most common.

You can get a slightly different effect of strengthening the quads by doing the standing poses where one or both knees are bent and once again working towards longer holds (gradually, of course, if you are starting out from a weaker places) of 90 seconds or so. My favorites are Powerful Pose (Utkatasana), Warrior 1 and 2 and Extended Side Angle pose. 

Extended Side Angle Pose

I also like to do a wall version of Powerful Pose, with my back to the wall, feet about two feet from wall and a block in between the legs near the knee joint so the part of the quads towards the inside of the leg, the vastus medialis, will get stimulated to contract due to the block squeeze. (This part of the quads is notoriously weak in many people, even regular yoga practitioners and can cause kneecap-tracking problems that can lead to arthritis in some.) You then slide your torso and hips down the wall until your thighs are no lower than parallel with the floor, and your knees are positioned over your ankle joints, and you hold the pose for a bit. This pose is often more challenging to weaker quads, so start off holding for a few breaths and very gradually over the course of weeks or months, extend the time in the pose.

So, with and/or without ankle weights, you can definitely improve quad strength with your yoga practice!

—Baxter

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Arthritis, Exercise and Yoga

by Nina

Hey, I heard this really nice little piece on arthritis and exercise on NPR that I wanted to share with you. Fortunately, NPR has both the audio and a transcript of the piece on their web site (see here). What I liked so much about this particular piece was how simple and clear it was about why it is important to continue to exercise when you have arthritis (even though most people don't) because exercising, while it cannot reverse arthritis, is the only way to prevent the arthritis from getting worse. Here's why:

1. Arthritis breaks down your cartilage, the natural shock absorbers in your joints. As a result, blood doesn't circulate as freely and doesn't deliver adequate nutrition to your cartilage. Exercise massages the joints, improving the blood supply to the joints, providing your cartilage with more nutrition.

2. The stronger the muscles are around the joint, the more protection your body can provide for the joint. Your muscles take up the weight and pressure, instead of the joint itself.

The end of the piece even mentions yoga as a good way to improve the strength of the muscles around your joints! (That's refreshing because most people are under the misconception that yoga is only about stretching.) But yoga is also a good way to massage your joints to get the blood flowing because in a well-rounded practice you move your joints in every direction. Just think of all the directions in which your hip joints move in the various standing poses. And your knee joints are bent or straight, turning out to the side or even turning in slightly (such as in Eagle pose). Your shoulder joints really get a workout, too, as you hold your arms overhead, out to the side, behind your back, or across your body (again, as in Eagle pose).

For strength building, it's easy to think of standing poses (especially those with bent knees) and balancing poses that strengthen the muscles around the knees and hips. But what about your shoulder joints? Downward-Facing Dog and Plank pose spring immediately to mind because you are bearing weight on your arms as they extend forward. But there are also other poses that you can use to strengthen your shoulder joints in which you bear weight on your arms reaching sideways (such as Vashistasana, sometimes called Sideways Plan pose) or behind you (such as the backbend Purvottanasana, sometimes called Upward Plank pose). Here's Esther doing Purvottanasana:

That looks like it does a good job strengthening the hip joints, too! Yeah, it can definitely be a challenge to practice with pain in your joints or to practice modified versions of poses you used to be able to do without props (I know because I have mild arthritis in one of my hip joints), but enjoying more mobility in your daily life and possibly avoiding joint replacement surgery, well, that's a pretty big payoff.

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