New Practices and Techniques I'm Exploring Lately

Glazed Cruller in Space by Kenny Scharf

In my post My Evolving Home Practice ) in April of this year I described some of the main things I had been focusing on in my home practice. Although it has not been a full year since my last check in with you all, there are two different ways of practicing I’ve been experimenting with that I felt warranted an update.

Making Space in Joints 

One of the most common complaints I hear from my students is that they have pain around the joints. The technique of creating more space in affected joints is one that I have found helpful for this problem both personally and for my students. For example, when my knees are feeling cranky and sore, I will actively lift my thighbones away from my shinbones in standing poses to create more space between the boney surfaces of the knee joints. For me, this results in more muscular engagement around the joints and usually lessens any pain that was there before. I apply this way of working to just about any movable joint in the body when any of these joints are troubling for my students or me.

What has shifted recently is the idea of sequentially involving as many joints as I can in a pose. For example, in Mountain pose, I start by feeling grounded evenly in the feet, then lift the shins away from the feet, the thighs away from the shins, the pelvis away from the thighs, and the individual spinal bones up off one another, all the way up to lifting the skull away from the cervical spine. When used in the static version of poses, this technique establishes a clear lift away from gravity, engages the muscles around many joints, and feels very strengthening and quite good on the joints. It is also a great way to focus the mind on remaining in the body for longer holds. As I have been getting familiar with this expanded way of making space in joints in many poses, I have started to share it with my classes lately with good feedback from my students. I hope to share more specifics via my YouTube videos in the coming months. Stay tuned by subscribing to my YouTube channel.

Slow Motion/Outer Space Yoga 

Here at YFHA, we have often discussed how to use yoga poses to build strength, via different ways of contracting muscles (see Strength Building: How Long to Hold Poses). But recently I’ve learned about some new research that gave me some new ideas. In addition to reading blogs about yoga-related research and practice, I also follow the blog The S&C Research Reviewof Chris Beardsley, a British athletic trainer and writer, who focuses on evaluating the research on weight training and strength building. He recently pointed out that multiple studies are showing that eccentric muscle contraction is as or more effective in building strong muscles as static holds and concentric muscle contractions. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, eccentric contraction (which I discussed in my post Strength Building: How Long to Hold Poses is when a muscle is still contracting while slowly lengthening. What?? You might be saying to yourself, “That does not seem to make any sense!” Let me give you an example of how it works: as you slowly lift your arms out to the sides and up from Mountain pose up into Arms Overhead pose, the muscle at the tops of the shoulders, the deltoids, are contracting and shortening on the way up (this is known as concentric contraction). However, if you slowly lower the arms back down, that same muscle is continuing to contract, but it is lengthening, to allow for a smooth even descent of your arms. 

This is eccentric contraction. Several of the studies on resistance weight training to build muscle used eccentric muscle contractions of 3-4 seconds (for instance, taking 3-4 seconds to lower the arms to the sides as described above). If you want to read more on this topic, see here.

In those studies, subjects are using weights of some sort. In yoga asanas, we use our own body weight instead, but that’s still “lifting weights”. So, with all that in mind, I have been taking dynamic versions of poses and my mini-vinyasas and slowing the time in and out of poses (4 to 6 seconds for each specific movement) while keeping the breath relaxed. That might mean you take two full breaths to make the move instead of just one inhalation or exhalation. When you practice this way, it looks like you are moving in slow motion and even has that look of weightless movement you see with astronauts on space shuttle missions, ergo the name. But it feels like you are working in a very different, stronger way than when moving in and out of a pose on just the inhalation or exhalation. The slower movement also requires more concentrated focus, which I consider an added benefit. I’d love to see a future yoga study on strength improvements comparing dynamic poses (moving in on and inhalation and out on an exhalation) with static poses and this slow-motion version to see which is more effective in building strength. It is also my intention to create some videos on this style of practice to share with you in the near future. Stay tuned by subscribing to my YouTube channel.


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Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

A Different Way to Twist: Hands-Free Twisting

by Baxter 

A while back, I started playing around with what I call “hands-free” twisting in seated and standing poses. I can’t recall exactly why I started playing around with this idea, but it may have been inspired by a dynamic standing sequence my wife Melina Meza teaches that includes a hands-free twist. In any case, I became curious about how this way of twisting might be of benefit.

Typically you use your hands to push and pull you in a twist, for example, as you would in Easy Sitting Twist with one hand on your knee and the other on the floor. However, when you twist your torso without using your hand to push or pull on anything, for example in Easy Sitting Twist with your arms raised to shoulder level, you are experiencing your “active” range of motion of your spine. This is the actual amount of movement that your spinal rotating muscles can create on their own, including both the deep rotator muscles, such as the rotatores muscles (that’s right—they rotate you!), and more superficial muscles, such as your middle abdominals (the obliques), as well as many others. I feel this is beneficial for two reasons. First, by only using your rotating muscles, you are targeting them specifically for strength building. And because those muscles attach directly to your spinal bones, they can also help to keep the spinal bones stronger. Second, you may be avoiding over-rotating your spinal bones. Over-rotating, which you are at risk of doing when you involve the hands and arms more actively in creating your twists, take you into “passive” range of motion, which could lead to soft tissue or bone injury. 

To feel the difference between your active and passive range of motion, you can try a little experiment (as long as you do not have osteoporosis or osteopenia, in which case, it is best to watch someone else try this): 

1. Sit in Easy Sitting pose and find your inner lift (see Friday Q&A: Can You Straighten Your Spine).

2. Bring your arms into Bird Wings (take them out to your sides at shoulder level, with your elbows bent to 90 degrees and your hands pointing to the ceiling).

3. Slowly rotate your upper belly, chest, and head to the right until you cannot go any further, noting where you are. This is your active range of motion.

4. Now, bring your hands to knees and floor. Then carefully and gradually push with your back hand and pull with your front hand to see how much further you are able to turn. This extra distance is your passive range of motion.

5. Release to center and repeat on the second side.

Passive range of motion involves adding an outside force in addition to using the muscles needed to create an action at a joint (in this case, rotation between spinal bones), and in the seated and standing twists, that outside force is usually your hands and arms. (In other types of poses, there can be other outside forces. For example, in Child’s pose, it is the weight of your body pressing down on your legs that takes you into deeper bend of your hips and knees and in Reclined Leg Stretch pose, it is using the strap to pull on your leg that takes your hip joint into a deeper bend.)

If you are generally healthy, and as long as it feels okay and you do it mindfully, you can certainly add in the passive range of motion to your twists, which, of course, take you further in your range of motion. 

You can certainly practice your twists the classic way, which includes moving into your passive range of motion. However, I have noticed some of my students very aggressively using their arms to go further into twists, which I regularly caution against due to the risk of injury from practicing this way. And for those with osteoporosis and osteopenia who have been warned about twists in general, skipping the passive range of motion may allow safer exploration of turning of the spine while lowering the chance of breaking a spinal bone. However, I’d recommend you do this under the guidance of an experienced yoga teacher or yoga therapist (The most commonly fractured bones in osteoporosis and osteopenia are the spinal bones, or vertebrae, in the rib cage area). 

The biggest drawback to hands-free twisting is more about personal preference than anything else; you don’t rotate as far as you would if you used the arms to push and pull you deeper into the twist, which for some people is not as satisfying, especially if the belief is that a deeper twist is a better twist (obviously, from what I have said already, I am not one of those people). In addition, you might best explore this in your home practice, as your teacher may have different ideas about twisting in a class setting. 

I hope that the reasons presented will at least inspire you to experiment with the hands-free style and see what effects you notice. You can also play with your arm position. For example, sometimes I take my arms into Bird Wings or Airplane position (arms straight out to sides) if I want some additional strengthening for the arms and shoulders and other times I just lift my hands a bit above where they’d normally to make the pose easier. To date, I have applied this technique for dynamic and static versions of Easy Sitting pose, Sage’s Twist 3, Half Lord of the Fishes pose, and Upright Revolved Triangle Pose (no forward bend done in this version). See the links below to view and try some of them!

Easy Sitting Twist, Hands Free
Sage’s Twist 3, Hand Free
Half Lord of the Fishes, Hand Free 

I’ll be adding videos soon of the modified Revolved Triangle pose and Melina’s standing sequence! 


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Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

Sequence for Cold and Sinus Infection Season

by Baxter 

Well, it has started again—with the arrival of Fall, my yoga students are sneezing, sniffling, and coughing in class. It’s a clear reminder that we are heading into cold, flu and sinus infection season. Can yoga help with this? In the past, we have provided information on how yoga can help support good immune function, especially as a preventative tool (see How Yoga Helps Your Immune System ) But what can you do when you actually still get sick? 

To begin, I recommend that if you are at the start of any one of these acute infections—which is usually the time you are most contagious— that you consider skipping your public classes for the next week, both to give yourself the rest and attention you will need to recover more quickly and to spare spreading what you’ve got to your fellow yoga-loving class members.

But if you still have the desire to do some sort of practice at home while recovering from these seasonal intruders, I generally recommend a gentle practice, with slow, easy dynamic sequences and short static holds in the sitting and standing poses (if you have the energy for standing poses) and with restorative postures that keep the chest and head a little elevated to avoid worsening nasal congestion and sinus pressure. If you have a fever, skip practice altogether until you back to normal temps. Here is a practice for you to try out, subtracting any poses that seem too taxing as you see fit. 

1. Grounding Meditation

Set up in Easy Sitting Pose (see version 3 at Featured Pose: Easy Sitting Pose ) with your back supported by the wall. Take a moment to assess your overall energy level. Notice if your thinking in clear or clouded. Notice if you can breathe through your nose or if you have to breathe though your mouth. These observations can help guide how you practice today. Set an intention for both honoring where you are at today and for healing.

2. Seated Warm-Up

My short seated warm-up sequence (see Seated Warm-Up ) is a great option to start your practice with gentle movement. Since you have already done your centering at the wall, you can skip the Hero pose that starts the sequence and begin with the Seated Cat-Cow pose. You can also leave off the last pose, Boat Pose, if it feels to strenuous on any given day. 

3. Mountain Pose, a few breaths

From sitting, come up to standing and hold Mountain pose (see
Featured Pose: Mountain Pose) for a few breaths to see how standing feels today. If you are feeling like you have adequate energy, move on to the other standing poses in the sequence. If not, skip them and move on to Restorative Childs pose.

3. Dynamic Crescent Moon Pose, 3-6 times, side to side

The side bending in this pose is good for releasing tightness in the sides of the chest muscles that you use for breathing and coughing. See this video for instructions. Move as slowly as you want as you move into and out of this pose. 

4. Half Downward-Facing Dog at the Wall, version 3 or 4, 15-60 seconds 

This pose also releases tightness in the sides of the chest muscles that you use for breathing and coughing. But be sure to practice either of the two versions of Half Downward-Facing dog Pose where your torso and arms are higher up to avoid any partial inversion that could increase sinus pressure and congestion. See Featured Pose: Half Downward-Facing Dog Pose for instructions. Hold the pose from 15-60 seconds, depending on your energy level. 

5. Dynamic Warrior 1, 6 rounds

This is a good pose to help open up chest and shoulders. See this video for instructions Practice 6 rounds on each side or less if you are feeling tired.

6. Restorative Child’s Pose, Supported Version with Block, 2-5 minutes

This restorative pose (see version 2 at Featured Pose: Child's Pose ) is always great resting position, but for this sequence you should add a block under the far end of the bolster, so the bolster is slanted. The block at the far end (under where your head will rest on the bolster) keeps the head higher than heart, which can be helpful for those with head congestion. If nasal congestion or sinus pressure still makes breathing uncomfortable, experiment by turning your head to each side for a breath or two. 

7. Reclined Cobbler’s Pose, Restorative Version, up to 10 minutes

This restorative pose (see Featured Pose: Reclined Cobbler's Pose) is deeply restful. So, I recommend you stay in this pose for up to 10 minutes, but you can also stay longer if desired. However, I’d set an alarm to make sure you don’t fall asleep for too long. 

While in the pose, for the first few minutes, you can practice mental alternate nostril breathing (see Breath Practices for Balance) and then practice simple breath awareness or you simply 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go? (Rerun)

by Baxter

Let’s talk about the shoulder blades today. Recently, while evaluating my newest batch of teacher trainees during their teaching intensive, I was surprised to hear the instructions to “move the shoulder blades toward the pelvis” when the arms were in the overhead position, such as in Urdhva Hastasana. I heard it in Warrior 1, in Utkatasana, in Downward-Facing Dog, and virtually anytime my young wards had the arms overhead. And I flinched each time they uttered it, which just about every one of them did for the four classes they taught. Without naming names, I should mention “always move your shoulder blades down your back” is an instruction that I have heard on many occasions from very experienced teachers. These trainees did not hear me utter such words, but I realized that some of their instructors were still using this outdated understanding. This is too simplistic, as it is not what actually needs to happen for healthy movement of the arms overhead and it can actually restrict the mobility of the shoulder joint for most students.

If you look at photos of Mr. Iyengar in the classic “Light on Yoga,” you can see that he is not doing that. His shoulder blades are clearly moving towards his arms, not away from them. (I refer you to the following plates: 12, 23, 42, 91 and 96.) So what is going on here, or more accurately, what is going on with the shoulder blades when the arms go overhead?

When your arms are hanging at your sides, your shoulder blades have several common ways they move: sliding upwards is called elevation, such as when you shrug your shoulders; sliding slightly downwards, called depression, like when you tug the bottom of a shirt downwards; sliding them apart or side ways, called protraction or abduction, like when you give yourself a hug; and squeezing them together called retraction or adduction, like when doing the Cobra with a doorknob.

Shoulder Blade in Neutral (Mountain Pose)

In these four basic movements, the shoulder blades don’t rotate much. Instead, they slide around in the general way they sit on your back upper rib cage. But in addition to those movements, there are two more movements that require a bit more imagination on your part, since we can’t quite see what is going on under the skin and muscles. The first happens when you take your arms overhead, whether forward and up or out the sides and up. It is called upward rotation of the scapula.  There is usually a bit of elevation of the entire shoulder blade from its neutral position, like in Mountain Pose, and a bit of protraction. But more noticeable is the out and up swing of the shoulder blade that allows for the greatest reach of the arms overhead.

Rotating Shoulder Blade

The opposite action is required to get the arms back down to your sides, and is called downward rotation. It is likely that a bit of depression of the shoulder blade and retraction also accompanies this action.

My teacher Donald Moyer refers to the rotational movement of the shoulder blades as “traffic circles.” Depending on which way the arms are moving or how they are positioned on the body, the traffic around the outer edges of the circle will flow in one direction the other. As an example of how you might imagine this, you might start with your awareness at the lower tip of your right shoulder blade. You can likely reach around and feel this with your fingers of your left hand. When your arm goes overhead, the traffic flows up the outer edge, across the top edge from right to left, and down the inner edge back to the lower tip of the shoulder blade. You might have to imagine there is a central pivot point in the shoulder blade, and the traffic causes the shoulder blade to rotate around that point. Then the traffic flows in the opposite direction as the arm comes down to Mountain pose position.

You might be asking yourself if there are times when saying “move the shoulder blades down the back” would be appropriate? And the answer is yes. For instance, with new students who have hunched shoulder blades that are semi-permanently elevated and forward rounded, you might have to ask, show and encourage them to depress the shoulder blades in Mountain pose.  I will keep a slight feeling of downward movement even as the arms approach the 90 degree mark, such as in Warrior 2 pose. In Warrior 2, there is a bit of upward rotation of the blades, but mostly protraction or widening away from the spine. The downward movement is helpful for those with the tendency to hike the shoulders in these lower arm positions.

But so what if you draw your shoulder blades down the back when they are overhead? What’s the big problem? Well, as your arms and shoulder blades swing up, the upper arm bone, the humerus, rolls slightly outwards, so as to have a better contact with the shoulder blade. If you then pull the “shoulder blades towards the pelvis”, the shoulder blades start to downwardly rotate, the arm bone pulls down with it, and the shoulder joint gets narrowed and pinched, meaning that the soft, non-bone structures can get pinched in an unhealthy way. I dislike demonstrating this “wrong” way of doing it for my students, because it quite literally pinches my gleno-humeral joint.

Having a clearer understanding of how the shoulder blades change positions on the rib cage will be very helpful to you as you try some of the shoulder openers we share with you because so many of them work more effectively if you encourage the upward rotation, protraction and elevation of the scapulae I have shared with you here today (see Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders and future posts about the individual poses). 


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Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

Why Sitting Might Harm Your Brain

by Baxter

The Chair by Salvador Dali*

Most of us have received the memo by now that sitting is the new smoking! Today, I will share with you a new study that may provide you with one more reason to get you up out of that chair frequently, whether at work or elsewhere. Although the study I will review looked at a workplace setting, Ram has noted previously that “sedentary activities include the time spent sitting in an automotive on a long commute, sitting at a desk at work, sitting on the couch after work, watching television, reading, and playing games or surfing the internet.” And the average American adults spends an impressive 10-12 hours sitting each day in these ways, with surveys of other countries around the world pointing to similar trends. So, this topic is likely relevant for all of us! 

There are a few other points I feel are worth revisiting from past posts before we get to this new study. So, let’s start with a review of what we already know from those posts. I’ll then discuss a new study that showed why sitting might be bad for the health of your brain.

What We Already Know 

How does sitting specifically affect health?

Sitting is right behind smoking in contributing to shortening your lifespan, even ahead of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In the study Patterns of Sedentary Behavior and Mortality in U.S. Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A National Cohort Study that demonstrated this, which Nina discussed in our post Pop Upright for Even a Minute or Two, it was also noted that getting up every 30 minutes and moving—even if your overall time sitting was similar to non-standers—lowers your risk of early death. 

Prolonged sitting is also associated with many other health issues, such as obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and several types of cancer. In addition, it affects the structure of the body, negatively impacting the spine, neck and hips.

Maybe as important to keep in mind is that there is research that shows that even if you exercise regularly outside of the 8-10 hrs of sitting you may be doing for work, it does not undo the ill effects of prolonged uninterrupted sitting! (See Sitting time and all-cause mortality risk in 222 497 Australian adults.) 

How does sitting specifically affect cognition? 

From another study Acute effects on cognitive performance following bouts of standing and light-intensity physical activity in a simulated workplace environment, which Nina reviewed previously in Pop Upright for Even a Minute or Two, we know that standing frequently and light physical activity in the workplace improves overall short-term cognitive function. 

What is the effect of decreased blood flow to the brain in the short term and over time? 

We know that sudden, complete disruption of blood flow to the brain, that is, stroke, can permanently damage parts of the brain and in some instances result in sudden death. But strokes are typically cause by a blocked or ruptured blood vessel. We don’t know, however, if being sedentary, our topic of today, can cause a stroke, but it can contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease, which increases your chance of strokes.

In Brain, Aging, and Cognition, Ram points out that cognitive changes we experience with age, such as memory loss, are in part related to an overall decrease in blood flow to the brain, often as a result changes to the circulatory system of the brain, such as narrowing of the blood vessels. This low flow state can cause cell death and therefore diminished function in the affected areas. However, we are still uncertain of the effects of small, intermittent decreases in blood flow, such as from sitting, at this time. 

About the Latest Study on Blood Flow to the Brain

An August 15th, 2018 article in the New York Times Why Sitting May Be Bad for Your Brain discussed the results of a new study, which adds yet another potential reason for us to get up regularly when sitting for long periods of time. The study measured changes in blood flow to the brain in three different scenarios, which I will discuss below. But generally regarding the importance of steady blood flow to the brain, the Times noted:'

“Past studies in people and animals indicate that slight, short-term drops in brain blood flow can temporarily cloud thinking and memory, while longer-term declines are linked to higher risks for some neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia.” 

They also note that past research has demonstrated that long periods of sitting decreases blood flow to the legs, but no studies had been down to date to look at blood flow to the brain. 

To try and find out about the effect of prolonged sitting on blood flow to the brain, researchers in England studied 15 healthy adults, both men and women, who worked jobs that involved long periods of sitting (see Regular walking breaks prevent the decline in cerebral blood flow associated with prolonged sitting). The researchers used an ultrasound machine to track the blood flow through the middle cerebral artery, one of the brain’s main arteries, and also monitored the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the subjects' exhalations to see if that might correlate with any blood flow changes. Subjects were monitored in three separate situations:

1. Sitting for 4 hours straight, either reading or doing computer work, and only getting up when using a bathroom close by if needed
2. Sitting for 30-minute intervals doing the same work and getting up and walking on a treadmill machine next to their desks for 2 minutes at a comfortable pace, over the 4 hours.
3. Sitting for 2 hours doing the same work, with an 8-minute walk on the treadmill at the same comfortable pace as in the second scenario, over the 4 hours. 

The subjects had their blood flow and CO2 levels checked right before and during each movement break and at the end of 4 hours. What did the researchers discover? The sessions of 4 hours of straight sitting resulted in a small but noticeable decrease in blood flow by the end of the session. For the times when subjects sat for 2 hours, the blood flow increased during the 8-minute exercise session, but was lower at the end of 4 hours than at the start. Most impressively, overall blood flow was higher at the end of 4 hours when a 2-minute break occurred every 30 minutes. (CO2 levels remained the same in all groups in all settings, so was not apparently affecting blood flow.)

Now, this was a small study, which always affects the certainty of conclusions that came be made from the results. The study also did not test whether the changes in blood flow affected short-term cognitive function or tell us anything about the long-term impact of such decreases in blood flow on overall mortality and the development of the disease mentioned earlier. So, there is obviously more research needed both on larger groups of people and to answer questions. 

So, what’s the takeaway? Despite the limitation of the study, I feel it confirms certain recommendations we have made here regarding how to address long spells of sitting, such in our post Pop Upright for Even a Minute or Two, which recommends taking a break every 30 minutes. And we may want to consider updating other recommendations we have made in the past, such as those made in The Ill Effects of Prolonged Sitting to simply move 10 minutes for every hour of sitting. I recommend that instead of taking a 10-minute break every hour that you take a 2-minute break (or slightly longer) every 30 minutes.

Yoga asana can be a great movement break and is much less expensive than having a treadmill next to your desk! So I recommend for your two minute breaks either doing one static standing pose or two, as Nina suggests in her post Rethinking Office Yoga post or some simple dynamic versions of those poses to create as slightly more aerobic effect. And a great follow-up study for us yoga practitioners would be identical to this British one but using yoga breaks instead of treadmill ones.

Oops, there’s my timer telling me I’ve been sitting for 30 minutes! Time for me to get up and move for two minutes before getting back to work.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

All About Your Feet

by Baxter 

Feet by Vincent van Gogh

One of the most frequent requests that I receive from our readers is for information about conditions related to the feet, and one of your all-time favorite posts is one I did about bunions. And the importance of healthy feet really came home for me when I read Atul Gawande’s powerful book on issues of aging Being Mortal, and I noted the emphasis gerontologists place on assessing foot health in the older patients as a predictor of future function. 

On a personal level, I have noticed as I am getting older that the health of my feet is vitally important for independence and my continued participation in activities that are important to me, including my asana practice, my new-found love of tennis, desire to travel, and walking and hiking. In fact, over the past few months, I have experienced an unusual periodic tender swelling around the ball of my right foot that lingers for up to a week and definitely interferes with my regular activities when it shows up. Fortunately—even though I am not yet clear on why—a modified approach to my asana practice including practicing non-weight bearing poses and lots of Legs Up the Wall pose seems to help resolve my symptoms. 

A 2014 survey by the American Podiatric Medical Association of 1000 adults aged 18 and older noted that 77 percent had experienced foot pain. And as people age, there is an increase in complaints of foot pain! The presence of foot pain is also associated with an increase chance of indoor falls in older adults, and a 2011 Australian study showed that a foot care program, consisting of foot exercises, inexpensive orthotics, and shoe advice, reduced falls in older adults with foot pain by 36% over a one year period. So, addressing various causes of foot pain with yoga could not only decrease pain and improve function, but could hopefully even reduce falls due to foot pain. 

After receiving yet another inquiry recently on a condition of the feet (see Friday Q&A: Sesamoiditis and Yoga), I was curious to review the past posts we have done here on the feet and consolidate them so our readers would have a single place you could refer to when searching for foot-related information on the blog. I hope this will be useful for you as yoga practitioners and for those of you that are also yoga teachers. 

I've divided the posts into three categories: basic information about the feet

Basic Information about the Feet

In Video of the Week: Anatomy of the Feet I provide an introduction to the anatomy of the feet, including basic structures, landmarks, and functions.

In Video of the Week Anatomy of the Feet, Part 2 I focus on the movements you make with your feet and ankles and how these movements related to some yoga poses.

In Video of the Week: Anatomy of the Toes along with basic toe anatomy, I discuss how your toes move, what their functions are, what which kinds of common problems they can have.  

In Getting to Know Your Ankles I focus on the basic anatomy of the ankles. 

In Parallel or Not: Aligning Your Feet I share my recommendations for how to position your feet in standing poses.

In Your Feet On My Mind I identify some of the basic variations there are among different people's feet. 

Importance of Healthy Feet for Healthy Aging

In Want to Improve Your Balance? Take Off Your Shoes! Nina writes about the importance of practicing yoga with bare feet and going barefoot in preventing falls.

In The Importance of Preventing Falls, inspired by the book Being Mortal, I describe why maintaining foot health is so important as you age.

Specific Foot Problems 

In Friday Q&A: Flat Feet I discuss what flat feet are and how to work with them in your yoga practice.

In New Tricks for Old Dogs: Working with Bunions I discuss how to use your yoga practice to improve your bunions.

In Friday Q&A: Bunions, a Can, and a Rubberband I recommend a simple practice you can try to improve your bunions.

In Friday Q&A: Foot Cramps I discuss what foot cramps are, how to practice when you're having them, and how to avoid future cramps.

In Friday Q&A: Plantar Fascitis I discuss what plantar fascitis is, how you can practice when you have it, and how you might use yoga to help the condition.

In Friday Q&A: Morton's Neuroma I discuss what Morton's neuroma, a condition of the ball of the foot, entails and how you can use yoga to help you heal. 

In Friday Q&A: Difficulty Standing on the Balls of the Feet I discuss how to practice when there is difficulty standing on the balls of feet after surgery for Morton’s neuroma.

In Friday Q&A: Sesamoiditis and Yoga I discuss what sesamoiditis (a condition of the toes) is and how to practice yoga as you are healing form it.

In Friday Q&A: Hammertoes I discuss what hammertoes are and provide a sequence to practice for those who have the condition.

In Friday Q&A: Big Toe Stiffness (Hallux Limitus) I discuss hallux limitus, which causes big toe stiffness, and provide tips for how to practice for those with the condition.

In Friday Q&A: Feet and Comments Shari and I both weigh in about how to practice yoga if you wear orthotics in your shoes.

In Yoga for Foot Pain I discuss how to practice yoga after a traumatic foot injury.

In Ankle Sprains  I recommend how to practice yoga after an ankle sprain. 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

A Sequence for People Who Sit for Long Periods

by Baxter

Baxter At Music Camp

I was thrilled to see that in Yoga for Traveling Nina compiled all the posts we have done over the years related to yoga for travel and the stresses that can accompany it, especially long periods of sitting. Several of the posts she linked to were applicable to other common situations that involve sitting for long periods of time, the most obvious one being sedentary jobs, often in front of the computer. But one less common is for musicians who sit for long periods of time when practicing or performing. 

I saw this up-close a few weeks back when I attended a week-long adult music camp for the second summer in a row. I was in several hour-long lessons each day where everyone but the bass player was sitting the entire time, and often with poor posture. And in the evenings, there were music jams, where participants often sat for 2-3 hours straight, absorbed in making music. On top of sitting for long periods, the way many musicians have to hold their instruments creates lost of weird asymmetrical holding patterns in the body. Imagine the guitar player’s different arm positions and tendency to round forward over their instrument or us violin players, with arms doing different things and the head often tipped and turned to one side. 
And of course I know plenty of musicians who spend many consecutive hours each day practicing and many do so sitting. All of this makes yoga asana practice especially beneficial for musicians!

For you non-musicians, prolonged periods of sitting—whether or not you’re making asymmetrical movements—are associated with a whole slew of negative outcomes, from increasing your chances of premature death (up eight-fold compared to those who are active most of the time and sit rarely) to the development of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. In his post The Ill Effects of Prolonged SItting Ram goes into more detail about the negative effects of being sedentary as well as the reasons why this happens.

After my return from music camp, I remembered that a while back I had created a longer video practice for YogaUOnline as part of a stress reduction series on their Practice Channel that was designed especially for those who spend long periods in chairs. I reached out to see I they would be willing to let me share that particular practice with our readers, and they said yes! I should mention that the vast majority of the practice, up to the 25-minute mark (of 31), is done standing. (As Nina rightly points out in Rethinking Office Yoga, why would you do chair yoga poses when you have to sit all the time in a chair for travel, work, or rehearsal if you are physically able to stand up? So, get out of that chair!) 

If you are somewhere where you can do floor work, the last two poses, Child’s pose and Savasana, allow you to relax at the end of the active practice. For those at work who can’t practice on the floor, end your practice at the 25-minute mark by doing a simple Mountain pose pause for a minute with eyes open or closed before returning to your work.

If time is short, you could do just one pose of these two poses from this sequence each time you take a yoga break. 

You can find the video at vimeo.com. I hope you find it helpful!

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.