Monday, April 21, 2014

Working your arms

Here are some fun things you can do to work on  your arm strength and shoulder flexibility.

Place a loop around your wrists behind your back.  Press out into the strap to broaden across your chest and bring your shoulder blades into your back.  This will also help to straighten your elbows.
Now, grab a block and place it between your palms.  Press into the block with your palms without using your fingers to hold onto the block.  Feel those triceps working!  Also, work on straightening your elbows.  Yours truly has difficulty with this one.  You can also see here, why it's important to stand in Tadasana with your feet in one line.  If you look down at my feet, the left one is ahead of the right - notice what that does to my hips - you can see my shirt is more wrinkled on the right side.  An unevenness in the feet creates unevenness in the hips.
Now, let's take our hands in the air.  Here again, you can have a strap around your elbows to assist you in straightening your arms.  Press out into the strap to work your arms more.
Now, we switch to the block again.  Press into the block to straighten the elbows.  A wooden block gives you extra incentive to work your arms.
Here's a really fun one I learned from Anne Schultz who I think learned it from Laurie Blakeney.  Place a looped strap lower down on your arms, so the strap presses against the bottom of your skull.  This will open up your shoulders quite a bit.  You can tighten the belt enough to get your hands together in Urdhva Namaskar, if your shoulders will allow it.

Please don't eat the straps.

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