Ssshh! Falling Asleep the Way You Like To

by Nina

"The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases." Carl Jung

I've had more than one person ask me the same question about my post recommending practicing breath awareness or pranayama in bed for insomnia (see Yoga for Better Sleep: Workshop and Tip). The question had to do with the position you should take while you are practicing in bed:

Was wondering whether this breath practice was to relax you enough so that you can then turn over and fall asleep or to fall asleep while doing this practice? If you are to fall asleep while doing the practice and you happen to be someone who cannot fall asleep laying on your back, do you then do the practice in the position that you fall asleep in?

The simple answer is: it's up to you! The description I provided of practicing on your back with your hands on your belly just happens to be the way I do it, at least most of the time. It was never meant as a prescription.

Although breath awareness and pranayama are typically taught either in seated positions or supine positions (on the back), in this case your aim—the opposite of that for a formal breath practice—is to fall asleep. So you will need to experiment to see what works best for you. Maybe you'll practice on your back until you feel ready to turn over and fall asleep. Or maybe you'll practice in your typical sleeping position and fall asleep while practicing. As it happens, I've also been taught to practice pranayama in supported Child's pose, feeling my breath in my back body, so practicing in a prone position (face down) even turns out to be legit!

Supported Child's Pose

Or, if you practice on your back, you might, to your own surprise, find yourself drifting off to sleep in that position, maybe even turning over in your sleep. (To be honest, I'm pretty sure I've done all these things, at one time or another.) And what works one night (or one month) may not work at another time, for any number of reasons, including physical ones, such as having a cold or a physical problem that requires a change in your sleep position.

The point is: Ssshh! It's dark, no one is looking, and you can do whatever you want!

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LEG PRESSING NOTES: Form, Foot placement and Stance. By Vic Goyaram

 Leg pressing notes: 
Form, Foot placement and Stance 

Researched and composed by Vic Goyaram

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Leg press form

The leg press is a good exercise for the legs. It is a great adjunct to exercises like squats and lunges. There is less back involvement, allowing you to focus more on your legs.   The leg press lends itself well to intensity techniques like drop sets and rest pause. However, it is it more often than not made to be an ego exercise because one can really move some serious poundage on the leg press. You can easily impress yourself on the leg press because of the number of pounds you can pile on this machine. 

A. Leg press 500+kg but can squat only 60kg
Very often you will read or hear about somebody claiming a 500kg+ leg press. His legs may or may not match these poundages (more often it is the latter case). Secondly, you  may also see someone "leg press" 500kgs but can only half-squat 60kg (with an added 100kg of excuses, if he ever squats at all). I have put the leg press between inverted commas because their technique is not that of a leg press. 

B. Pressing only for a few millimetres, with assistance from two hands and two spotters

I am sure everyone has seen beginners and intermediates load up the leg press machine with heavy weights and move down only an inch. Sometimes you don't really see any movement in the legs but rather movement in their elbow joints. why? Because they are also pressing on their knees with their hands and two other persons helping. This is not called leg pressing. It is not even an exercise and we still have to come up with a name for this movement. 

C. Ass off the bench

Finally, you will also see people using an "overzealous" range of motion. Meaning, they will allow their butts to lift off the seat on the way down. This is potentially dangerous to the lower back. Do not do this. It does not equal more growth. 

Proper form: knees move to the chest, butts do not lift from the seat. 
Hands to the side and only on rare occasions can be used for assistance.

Photo courtesy: Dylan Ridley, South African elite bodybuilder

The Regular Leg pressing stance

The "normal"  stance for the leg press consists of the feet placed at a shoulder width and in the middle of the platform. The leg press appears to not be too versatile but this isn't true. As you will see below there are many variations, each with a different effect. You can create variations by placing your feet at different positions on the pressing platform.  Keep in mind that leg press machine designs differ a lot and some machine have large pressing platforms while others are quite small and does not allow for too many variations in foot placement.

As we will see later. Placing the feet at different heights on the leg press
platform impacts on the level of quadriceps and hamstring involvement

Feet high v/s feet low
------------------------------------

Some machines with large platforms allow you to safely place the feet higher up. This recruits the glutes and hamstring muscles to a greater extent in addition to quadriceps. However, placing the feet lower down recruits more quadriceps. Experiment to see to which extent you can SAFELY use these two variations, depending on the size of your leg press machine platform.

Leg pressing with feet higher up on the platform (if the platform is wide enough to safely allow it) brings the hamstrings and glutes into play more.

Personally, I have a sciatic nerve impingement. The pain is very very mild but I use it as a training aid, in a "blessing in disguise fashion": it gives me hints about my form in several exercises and tells me to what extent my lower back skeletal system is starting to take stress through the pain signals that it sends me. Placing the feet relatively low on the leg press platform takes my lower back out of the equation. It can also tell you that putting the feet too high also puts a bit of stress on your lower back. From experience I have also seen that taller people prefer placing their feet high up the platform.

Proceed with caution. Women like this variation because it works the glutes

quite well. But safety is key here. You don't want you feet to slip.

Note that the knees are in line with the ankles in the bottom position

This variation works the quadriceps more than the hamstrings

Keep are kept fairly low on the platform.

Foot stances (Wide v/s Narrow)
-----------------------------------------------------

Secondly, adopting a wider than shoulder width stance recruits the inner thigh muscles like the adductor and the glutes, giving more inner development to the legs, a great contributor to overall leg size. It is common belief that keeping feet together works the outer sweep (vastus lateralis) but there is no scientific proof that this is true.

Performing leg press with a rather wide stance stresses the

inner leg muscles as well.

Reference:
Escamilla RF, Fleisig GS, Zheng N, et al. Effects of technique variations on knee biomechanics during the squat and leg press. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2001 Sep; 33(9) :1552-66.

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Friday Q&A: Pranayama on an Airplane

Q: I have a question for your esteemed teachers on Pranayama: I do a lot of air travel: Internal (within US) and international. My international trips involve a minimum of 10-12 hrs of continuous travel. Flying at an altitude of more than 30,000 feet and with the air pressure being so low outside, we are breathing in compressed air inside the plane. Is it safe to do Pranayama inside the plane on long flight duration since the air is primarily re-circulated?

A: I have had the good fortune to travel to Estes Park, Colorado on a number of occasions to teach or study at an annual yoga conference there. Many of the classes held there include breathing practices or pranayama. The altitude at Estes Park just happens to be 7552 feet above sea level. I had no problems, personally, adjusting to the altitude and participating fully in my classes. In the history of yoga, there are many stories of yogis doing their training in the mountains of India, Nepal and Tibet, at high altitudes. My reason for mentioning these facts is that a pressurized, temperature controlled modern jet plane creates an atmospheric pressure of somewhere between 5 to 8000 feet above sea level, not unlike my elevation while studying in Colorado. This means that the percentage of oxygen in the air inside the plane is the same as it would be in Estes Park. So, from a purely atmospheric pressure standpoint, pranayama could safely be practiced on your flight.

Regarding the safety of the air you breathe on planes, I found this online article by an airline pilot illuminating and reassuring in regards to both the amount of fresh air and re-circulated air (50:50 mix in most cases) and the high quality filters that are used on modern jets, considered hospital quality (To read the pilot’s full post, see Cabin Air Quality. And if you want to understand how pressurized cabins in airplanes developed, here’s a great article for Air and Space Magazine online that will give you all the details: How Things Work: Cabin Pressure) In fact, when I posed this question to my colleague Richard Rosen, author of two books on pranayama, he pointed out that the air quality in a plane is a lot better than the hot, polluted air in Pune, India, home of the Iyengar family.

As I researched this topic, the one fact that did jump out at me that could have an effect on the quality of your pranayama practice is the relative humidity of the air in a modern jet. It runs around 12%, which is equivalent or lower than the humidity in a desert setting, which is pretty darn dry! So, the one recommendation I would make regardless of whether you are practicing yogic breath techniques or just napping on the plane, is to drink more water than you might normally at home. This would be doubly true for longer flights. This way you will avoid the dehydrating effect of air travel and you will likely feel better physically when you land at your destination! Richard mentioned that caution should be used with any pranayama technique that you’d be careful with at home or if you were inexperienced. He mentioned bastrika, or bellow’s breath and kapalabhati, or skull brightening breath, as two he would suggest you avoid. Richard did suggest that the “best bet” for airplane breathing is the modern version of ujjayi (in the traditional version the right nostril is closed on exhale), with a “special focus on the exhale and then a pensive pause at the end of each exhale.” So, there you have it, some common sense advice and some expert suggestions from one of the experts on pranayama in this country. To learn more about yogic breathing, check out Richard’s two books on the topic:

The Yoga of Breath
Pranayama, Beyond the Fundamentals

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When Pain is Persistent

"When pain is persistent or increased, then the action is wrong. Self-protection is also spiritual knowledge." —B.K.S. Iyengar from Sparks of Divinity

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The Yoga Injuries Debate Continues! Telesummit with Dr. Baxter Bell and Dr. Timothy McCall

by Nina

Well, we might not agree with New York Times "science writer" William Broad about his stance on yoga injuries (see, for example, Dr. Timothy McCall's response and Dr. Ram Rao's response to his claims that yoga is "remarkably dangerous for men,") but he certainly has given us in the yoga world a lot to talk about!

One of our favorite MDs (Baxter)

So we’re very excited here at Yoga for Healthy Aging that two of our staff members, Dr. Baxter Bell and Dr. Timothy McCall, will be participating in a YogaUOnline telesummit Yoga Injuries—Fact or Fiction from April 10-14, 2013. Along with our two favorite MDs, the telesummit will also feature Judith Hanson Lasater, Dr. Loren Fishman, Roger Cole, Julie Gudmestad, and other expert teachers.

The other favorite MD (Timothy)

Eva Norlyk Smith, Ph.D., the managing editor of YogaUOnline, has this to say about why the debate about yoga injuries is important:

“Why is this debate worth some serious attention? Because Broad offers up some pretty strong claims about a practice otherwise known for its extensive health benefits. In his book and accompanying articles, William Broad argues that yoga comes with a more extensive and severe risk of injury than the yoga community has faced up to.

Leading members of the yoga community, on the other hand, have pointed out that Broad's writings -- while replete with implied connections -- offer no solid evidence to back up the serious claims. Others have pointed to the somewhat suspicious timing of Broad's enthusiastic drumming of the alarm, which coincides with first the hardcover, then the softcover publications of his book."

For a preview of the telesummit, you can check out the interview with Timothy that Eva Norlyk Smith, Ph.D., recently published on the Huffington Post The Yoga Injuries Debate: How 'Dangerous' Is Yoga, Really?

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Voting With Your Feet: Avoiding Abusive Teachers

by Baxter

Another View of Clear Water by Nina Zolotow

After Nina posted yesterday about abusive yoga teachers (see When to Fire Your Yoga Teacher), we received a follow-up message from another reader who had a similar experience of being humiliated when she attended the workshop of a visiting teacher to her community. In her case, she voted with her feet and did not attend a follow-up visit by the same teacher this year, but instead chose to study with a local teacher, and loved her experience. 

In discussing the humiliating teacher’s behavior with her regular teacher, the student was told, “That’s how they do it in India.” Well, this may indeed be true, but does it make this kind of behavior acceptable? In my own experience of studying with many teachers over the past 19 years at workshops and conferences and retreats, I have come across my fair share of angry, condescending, overtly or subtly demeaning behavior by teachers from at least two different traditions. In fact, I  studied with a well-regarded teacher a few times before a more subtle way of demeaning students on a fairly regular basis made me decide to give up the class despite some "good" asana instructions I was learning.  I could not justify continuing to support that kind of treatment of me or my fellow students.

 I also heard stories about a teacher I came to respect about how he had been a bear to study with when he was younger and how he had mellowed out as he aged. I felt blessed to have missed his “abusive” period since I learned so much and witnessed compassionate behavior from him regularly. I did carry a background concern about whether the other side might re-surface at some point; fortunately, I never had to encounter that situation from this particular teacher.

I do feel that teachers who study in a “lineage” that permits or even subtly approves of this bullying, degrading treatment of students tend to be more likely to participate in such behavior and maybe are even drawn to it. I don’t want to get into some deep exploration of trauma and its long-term effects, as it is a complex topic and I am not an expert in it. But, as Nina pointed out yesterday, you can vote with your feet, and I myself have done so more than once over the years. And that old observation that a happy customer tells one person about their experience, but a dissatisfied one will tell ten certainly has played out for me. I am asked all the time for referrals to other teachers or recommendations for teachers to study with at conferences. If a student happens to ask about a teacher I have had a bad experience with, I will recommend someone else instead.  I do not always go into the why of it, but do on occasion share my specific experience if I know that my personal experience was also confirmed by other yoga friends of mine. The good news is that we have more and more choices all around the country—and even internationally—when it comes to yoga instructors. So, don’t settle for anything less than a good instructor who is also respectful and kind.  

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When to Fire Your Yoga Teacher

by Nina

Clear Water by Nina Zolotow

Yet another famous yoga teacher has been in the news recently for improper conduct. A former student has sued Bikram Choudhury, accusing him of sexual harassment, discrimination and defamation (see Lawsuit Accuses Founder of Yoga Empire of Misconduct).

Well, I could go on about that, and the tendency toward sexual abuse that appears to be a serious risk for some high-profile male teachers, but actually I’d like to focus on something a little more mundane. Recently we at YFHA received an email from one of our readers saying that she, a very long-time student, had attended a class where the female teacher had humiliated her in front of the class by angrily correcting her pose (which she was adapting for her particular body type) telling her that she was doing it completely “wrong.” This experience made our correspondent very upset. So, you see, abuse by yoga teachers comes in many forms, including simple verbal abuse and even, so I’ve heard, physical abuse.

Our correspondent was still trying to decide how she should handle this—maybe she should be considering forgiveness?—and asked us to address some of the issues that this situation raised. Because our reader was so upset, I decided to respond immediately by writing directly to her. And it was actually pretty easy for me to respond, because I said what I always tell people in this situation: you should never study with a teacher who you don’t respect or who doesn’t respect you.

In this case, I recommended, talking with the teacher, if possible—since it was a one-time occurrence, maybe she was just having a bad day—and seeing if an apology was forthcoming. But if a confrontation was out of the question or if the teacher defended her behavior, I recommended simply leaving the class for good. After all, you are paying your teacher to help you. Why would you put up with mistreatment? And isn’t the only way to stop this kind of behavior to vote with your feet (and your wallet)?

The question is, why does this kind of behavior continue? Why aren’t these teachers shunned by everyone? This brings us back to the NY Times article on Bikram because it included a quote that I found very perceptive about why students of any school of yoga will put up with inappropriate behavior from their teachers.

“Vulnerability and devotion are big parts of the practice,” said Benjamin Lorr, the author of the memoir Hellbent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga. “Bikram creates this mentality that the outside is phony. There is no path but this path, and everything that happens in this path is just a part of your yoga, that you have to learn to be strong and get past it.”

I think this myth that “There is no path but this path, and everything that happens in this path is just part of your yoga” is cultivated by more than one school of yoga and maybe even by some teachers in all the schools. Students feel like they can’t leave the teacher because of their emotional investment in "the path," their financial investment in "the path," or because they’ve been encouraged to believe this is a “good” teacher to guide them on "the path." And it takes strength and courage to resist this ideology.

But can a teacher who is abusive or corrupt really have anything important to teach you?

So, please, don’t hesitate to fire a yoga teacher who is mistreating you in any way. And if your teacher isn’t mistreating you in particular, but you witness him or her mistreating other students, you might want to consider the same action. That is the only way we can bring about change. And, trust me, there are many wonderful teachers out there who know that being a “good” teacher means something different than being able to get you into challenging poses or giving you access to some particular “lineage” of yoga.

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