POTM: Locust Pose

Locust pose strengthens the muscles and connective tissues around the upper back and shoulders, helping to alleviate many back or spinal problems such as slipped disc and sciatica. Stretching the elbow joints with your body weight applied helps prevent or cure tennis elbow, tendonitis, arthritis and carpel tunnel syndrome. Lifting your legs like that is also excellent for firming your buttocks and hips!

A Few Tips for Locust Pose:

• Keep pain tolerable. When your instructor says, "Your elbows are supposed to hurt," she doesn't mean they should hurt sharply, or so much you can't breathe! She means: a dull, achy sensation that goes away when the posture is over. If your elbows hurt too much, again bring your arms out from underneath, then work them back under again, little by little. If your wrists hurt, make sure your arms are completely straight- even if that means you have to bring them out from underneath you. Don't sacrifice straight arms for getting hands underneath.
• Get your arms underneath you. If you have having trouble getting your arms all the way underneath your stomach, focus on trying to rotate your arms externally at the shoulder joint, rather than the elbow. Try lifting your hips and rolling side to side to help you get your arms closer under you.
• Grip the floor with your fingertips! Make sure you spread your fingers wide apart and "grip" the floor like you are trying to push the floor away. This will help you engage your arms muscles and move your weight forward toward your chest and shoulders, which will then help you contract the upper back muscles and get your legs higher. Practice using your fingers in all 3 parts of the posture.
• Don’t fret about how high your legs come off (or even don't come off!) the floor on the 3rd part of the posture. To an extent the height you can achieve is dictated by your body proportions, as opposed to how flexible or strong you are. Or maybe you still have some strength or flexibility to gain- good news, you have the rest of your life to do yoga! As always, just do the best you can today and you will get 100% of the benefit.

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