It’s been a long, long time since golf has been the domain of men alone; women have played, and excelled at golf, for years. But the societal pressure for women to have thin waistlines may end up getting in the way of having a powerhouse swing.

All healthy abdominal muscles stick out from the body, like an inner tube around your middle. This means not just the ‘six-pack’ that we’re all constantly encouraged to develop, but also the oblique muscles that run around the side of the body. Because of this, when the obliques are strengthened appropriately both to support the core and to create a strong swing, the female body becomes less like an ‘hourglass’. However, it’s been a long time since a healthy, strong, competitive sportswoman has had to concern herself with fitting in with outdated ideals, and hopefully this misinformed image will start to fade from all of our minds and be replaced with that of a strong, healthy woman.

To get the obliques active, try the Boomerang pose which I posted in my last blog, or you can also find it in the Yoga Tune Up® 10 Minute Quick Fix for Lower Back video here. Both men and women golfers alike will benefit from creating a strong oblique line, and will enjoy this core exercise!

A client of mine has been an avid golfer for years, but one morning he confessed to me that he’d been finding his swing lacked the grace and power it used to have. “It can’t just be because I’m getting older,” he mused. “There must be a different reason – and there must be something I can do about it!” Without wanting to step on that potential landmine by commenting on the fact that he was getting older, I explained about the importance of the oblique muscles and how it might help to incorporate some stretching through the side of the body to keep the torso supple and fluid as he swung his golf club. As with most people, he had a vague sense of what these muscles are, but lacked a clear understanding of their function for the core. Once we discussed the obliques and had him find the muscles on his body, he agreed that they needed some attention!

I had him start practicing the Boomerang pose, posted below, and called it his “Golf Flexibility Exercise.” You can also find in the Yoga Tune Up® Quick Fix for Lower Back here. After only a few times doing the pose, he reported that his swing felt smoother and that connecting with the ball was easier. Landmine successfully avoided!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Strengthening the obliques will improve any golfer's swing.

Golf is an enormously popular sport for people of all ages: approximately 25 million people step onto a golf course at least once a year. And for those who play regularly, crafting your golf swing can be a lifelong pursuit. Minor tweaks and changes to the way you stand, the movement in the pelvis, and the twist of the torso can add score-improving feet to your drives and of course, bragging rights with your friends. To effectively and efficiently create that twist in the torso, the hips have to engage the oblique abdominal muscles and use them to drive the upper body through the swing. In this article we’ll look more closely at what exactly those muscles are for, and how we can get them working for us as effectively as possible using golf flexibility exercises!

It’s All Oblique to Me

There are several major muscles groups in the abdominal cavity, but for our golf-related purposes, we’re going to look more closely at two of them: the internal and external obliques. These two sets of muscles run in opposite diagonal directions and overlap each other around the sides of the body.

The external obliques start on the front of the body, attached to the bottom of the ribs, and wrap diagonally down and around the side to insert on the back of the pelvis. Meanwhile, the internal obliques begin attached to the bottom of the ribs on the back of the body, and wrap around to the front of pelvis. In this way the muscles criss-cross over each other and provide support for the sides, front and back of the torso.

Get These Muscles On Your Side

The primary function of the oblique muscles is to stabilize your core by aligning the ribs over the pelvis and holding this relationship in place. However there are many different reasons why the obliques may not be able to do their job properly: scoliosis, hip problems, even an ankle injury can throw off their natural balance.

For many of us, these muscles are simply overlooked and weak, because so much of the time when we think of core strength, we immediately go to the infamous ‘six-pack’ or rectus abdominus muscles on the front of the body. You can do crunches to your heart’s content and get those muscles to pop out and look impressive. But if you’re a golfer, they aren’t really going to help your golf swing, as they’re not the primary movers for the twist of the torso! (And on a separate note, too many crunches can start to ‘crunch’ your spinal vertebrae and cause damage over time). Instead, start to pay a little attention to the obliques and stabilize your core in every direction.

How to Get The Obliques Working For You

The side of the body can often be both weak and stiff – but the following tips will help with both conditions!

1. Stretch through the side body. Read my blog post called “Core Strength: Find Your Obliques” for video of a great side-strengthener called Boomerang, part of the Yoga Tune Up® Quick Fix for the Low Back.

2. Strengthen without a sit-up. The 10 Minute Yoga Tune Up® Quick Fix Low Back Video is a great way to continue to build low back strength.

With just a little more attention to these potential powerhouse muscles, you’ll be able to get your swing in shape in no time!

In last week’s Yoga Tune Up® Teacher Training in Los Angeles, I introduced the trainees to the importance of dynamic stretching. This style of stretching involves engaging the body in continuous perpetual movement and is extremely beneficial as a warm-up for any pre-athletic endeavor. In YTU, we specialize in creating nuanced, specific and innovative dynamic stretches and we get incredible results with our students. In YTU-lingo, we call these types of repetitive flowy moves, “Minivinis.” Everyone has a favorite, mine is the Half-Happy Baby Minivini for the lower back and buttocks, others love the Pranic Bath to lubricate the shoulders, and the overall winner last week was PRASARITA LUNGES! This speed-skating Minivini has numerous benefits which include a deep hip warmup, awakening of the inner and outer thigh muscles, quadriceps, and strengthening the ever-important pelvic floor muscles. ENJOY!

Our breathing patterns change when we are under stress. Breaths shorten and become more shallow, and rather than breathing from our diaphragm, we begin to breath from our upper chest and shoulders. This places undue stress on those shoulder muscles and quickly tires them to overuse. Test yourself right now: are you tensing your shoulders as you sit at your computer? Can you relax, depress your shoulder blades, release some tension, and breath more into your diaphragm? How does that feel?

This pattern of tension leads to an overdevelopment of the trapezius and levator scapulae muscles and hikes them up to our ears. Bringing conscious awareness to our bodies during our activities can help to decrease tension and keep it away. Put a sign on your computer or work station, or in your car that says, “RELAX”. Eventually, the pattern of relaxation will take over for the pattern of tension!

Keeping the shoulders supple prevents other shoulder problems such as rotator cuff injuries, bursitis, tendonitis, and arthritis from developing. For a Quick-Fix, try this shoulder rolling move from the blog I posted earlier this week. You can see more shoulder exercises in the Yoga Tune Up® Quick Fix Video here. In addition, bring some massage therapy products into your regular routine for neck pain relief. I recommend the Upper Back and Neck Series using the Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls which you can find here.

Fresh from the oven, the latest batch of YTU Teachers.

I remember sitting with YTU Teacher Maura Barclay in her office last spring (April 2009), having newly arrived from New York City, ready to make my mark on Los Angeles with all my East Coast yoga teacher expertise. I remember listening to her talk about the Yoga Tune Up® Teacher Training that was coming up in a few weeks, and how it was so clearly the next step for me in my teaching, and that I would benefit so much from it, and all I could think was: I just got here. I’m already a yoga teacher (with two certifications!). What did I need with another training?

Thankfully, wise Maura prevailed, and she convinced me to take just one Yoga Tune Up® class. After class was over, I walked out a convert. My hips, so often a source of pain, were moving fluidly and painlessly, and I knew that if I could get that much from one class, this was a method I wanted to be able to share as a teacher.

Training was intense, and deep, and broke open my world. My knowledge of movement, anatomy, alignment, and teaching technique was taken to a new plateau. The experience shook me up enough that I wrote a whole blog entry about it! As I’ve continued to train in the Immersions, I not only deepen my capabilities as a teacher, but I get to keep expanding my mind with cutting edge techniques and data.

This past weekend in Los Angeles I was honored to assist Jill as she took a new group of teacher trainees through their paces. It reminded me once again of the joy of learning, and seeing this group of brilliant, smart, talented people step out of their comfort zones and submit to our critique was a humbling experience. We were there to teach them, but they certainly taught us as well. And I am re-convinced, and re-reminded, that to be a teacher means to continue to be the student, to learn and expand and grow. Which is a relief, because the alternative would be unbearably dull!

For more on Yoga Tune Up® Teacher Trainings across the country, go here.

I noticed Roger in my class right away. He was having a lot of trouble doing downward facing dog, unable to fully extend his elbows and bring his arms overhead. After class he came to me and asked, “Jeff, is there anything I can do to create more flexibility in my shoulders?”

I could tell this wasn’t just about yoga, but a quality of life issue - there was emotion behind it. He was feeling insecure about not being able to do what he thought a person of his age and health should be able to do. He felt pain when he moved certain ways, when he slept the wrong way, and when he lifted weights. He had been to doctors who had told him the problem was a frayed rotator cuff, which was followed by some physical therapy – but the pain never really ceased and he was looking for something else.

I took a quick look over Roger and had him go through some range of motion exercises. He said he felt a huge relief from doing Shoulder Circles which you can find in the video below. Try it and see if this helps you to loosen the family of muscles that surround and stabilize the shoulder joint.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more on healing shoulder pain or rotator cuff injuries, including the sequence that leads up to Shoulder Circles, watch the full Yoga Tune Up Shoulder Quickfix Video here. In addition, I’ve just posted a great article that gives even more information about Rotator Cuff injuries and shoulder pain.

Happy Healing!

Here is a version that is easily done against a wall or sturdy piece of furniture. It’s helpful to have a yoga strap, but you can also use a long towel or a tie instead. ENJOY!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

For more great poses, go here and get a new pose each week.

An inside look at the muscles of the rotator cuff.

Severe pain around the top, front, and side of the shoulder is quite common and can often be traced to problems in the Rotator Cuff, the group of muscles surrounding the shoulder joint. In this article, you will learn about this delicate muscular collection and discover important steps toward healing your shoulder pain.

The shoulders are perhaps the most overused and under-cared-for joints in the body. They are essential in the performance of everyday activities such as typing, driving, reaching, lifting, etc, but also take a lot of strain in more strenuous activities like tennis, weight lifting, rowing and other sports.

Rotator Cuff Basics

The four muscles of the rotator cuff wrap around the arm bone, attaching it to the bones of the shoulder and holding it in the hollow of the joint.

The rotator cuff plays a key role in all movements at the head of the arm bone. It helps lift the arm forward, pull it back, lift it to the side, and circle it all the way around. When a pitcher winds up to send the ball over the plate, the rotator cuff is what gives him the control to follow through with force.

The repetition of daily tasks can cause limited range of motion, as well as a hardening and shortening of the muscles in the complex structure of the shoulder, which can lead damage and inflammation. Going from everyday repetition to the demands of sports takes an even greater toll on the rotator cuff.

Understanding the Common Problems of/associated with the Rotator Cuff

Think of these muscles like the cuff of your shirt. Ideally, the rotator cuff muscles should be supple and pliable, allowing the arm to move in the socket with ease.
However, these muscles are often either over-used or tight from inactivity and the cuff becomes more like a stiff t-shirt. In this condition, the rotator muscles can easily become frayed or even torn through repetitive motions or sudden movements. They can also become irritated by rubbing against the bones of the shoulder. In these conditions, inflammation is virtually inevitable, which can severely inhibit motion, even to the point of preventing it altogether, causing a condition known as Frozen Shoulder.

The road to recovery: Steps to a Healthy Shoulder

The first step is to give your shoulder a break—playing or working through the pain will only lead to further injury. Your first priority is to remove inflammation from the muscles of the rotator cuff by applying the RICE treatment (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) along with pain and/or anti-inflammatory medications. Removing inflammation will help relax the muscle, which accomplishes three objectives:

1.Relaxed muscles occupy less space and therefore there is less chance of abrasion of the tendons and muscles on the bones of the shoulder joint.
2.The relaxed muscle exerts less pull on the irritated tendons and therefore less pain.
3.Relaxed muscles allow greater circulation of blood and nutrients and therefore give the damaged tissues greater efficiency in healing and a speedy recovery.

Although the treatment options following this vary, the most important thing is restoring resiliency to the muscles and keep them from pulling the rotator cuff into further damage. Self-massage of the rotator cuff muscles using Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls and the accompanying Rotator Cuff Series can be a great help. For strengthening and stretching exercises check out the Yoga Tune Up® Shoulder Quick-Fix Video.

The muscles of the Rotator Cuff are delicate, complex, and prone to injury, however with a little maintenance, and a regular exercise and massage routine, you can have healthy shoulders for life!

I remember getting the call from my mom a few years ago; at age 58, she had been diagnosed with osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis. “And your aunt has it too … you better watch out,” she warned. There are many factors that contribute to the weakening of our bones as we age: poor nutrition, genetics, smoking and lack of exercise, to name a few. But a new study tells us that a yoga practice can not only help prevent these crippling conditions — it actually builds the bones back up! Here’s how to use the 72-second rule plus photo and video how-to’s for two yoga moves to help you build bone density.

In early March, I attended a Yoga Therapy conference in Los Angeles, www.sytar.org. Dr. Loren Fishman and his study partner Ellen Saltonsall presented the most compelling information about this killer disease. They emphasized that bones need STRESS (no, not the anxiety building kind) to maintain strength. Yoga poses act on the bones by “applying forces of opposing muscle groups to them that greatly exceed gravity, stimulating bone cells (osteocytes) to create more bone.” They also suggest that yoga greatly improves arthritic joints by circulating synovial fluid, and stimulating all of the connective tissues around the joints, helping to mobilize these stagnant tissues.

The 72 Second Rule

Fishman then said that there is a magic number to initiate this process of new bone growth. 72 seconds. Yes, you must hold your pose for 1 minute and 12 seconds to reap the benefits. This should be approached gradually, as building up the strength to maintain a pose for 72 seconds may take months — but it will be well worth it. Plus, you will be rewarded with less stress (the anxiety-producing kind) and improved breathing, sleep and coordination. You have nothing to lose … and you can gain bone density!

Before she began studying Yoga Tune Up® with me at Equinox in Santa Monica, 57-year-old Judy came to me with doctors’ orders to begin practicing yoga because of her newly diagnosed condition: osteopoenia. In a year, she made significant changes in her posture and health. Although Judy’s progress came to a screeching halt in February when she suffered a terrible skiing accident and fractured her pelvis and collar bone, her improved bone condition has helped her heal quickly from what could have been tragic

“My recovery from the multiple pelvic fractures has been remarkable,” Judy says. “I attribute this to my ‘core strength’ that has improved a lot from taking your classes. I was able to get in and out of bed on my own four days after I fell, and was able to drive after two weeks. Each day I had so much more strength and mobility than the day before, and I was dancing after four weeks! I also think that I am much more aware of my body and how to isolate and work different parts of it which has helped in my physical therapy.”

Judy’s progress has been off the charts in part because she has “banked” a lot of new bone in her body over the course of the past year, priming her tissue to quickly and easily repair the damage caused by the accident. In this picture, she is performing a supported version of “Leg Stretch #2″ at the wall, where she can push her strong legs into the wall for 72 seconds without placing too much undo stress on other parts of her body. Voila!

Hey Mom, this Stretch Is for You! Safe Spinal Therapy

Try this gentle seated side bend from my new Yoga for Weight Loss DVD. It has all of the components of a healthy stretch for the spine. This will lubricate your vertebrae and tone the finer muscles of your spine, as well as open the ribs and abdominal obliques. This is a perfect stretch to begin a safe therapeutic exercise practice that can help you keep your bones healthy for a lifetime, and it can also be included as one alternative therapy for arthritis sufferers.