Went for an afternoon yoga class at Mission Street Yoga today, level 2 Anusara, was quite painful to say the least, mainly because my left hamstrings after a one-day respite have decided to go all tight on me again.

The teacher, Jennifer, kept reminding us to be adventurous and playful in our practice.  Those two thoughts were definitely much needed during the 10 seconds of hanumanasana (full splits) on each side, once at the very beginning of class and one towards the end.  I had to restrain myself from cursing my left hammies because even by the third uttanasana (forward bend), I could feel my hips tilting away on the left side.

The class was invigorating and one of my favorite poses from the sequence must have been the handstand to bakhasana (crow pose), thoroughly challenging my sense of balance.  I am so inspired by the fact that Jennifer, going into her second trimester, was doing full handstand, unsupported in the middle of the classroom.  She also trained with Patrick, from Pure HK, which I guess explains why she’s so amazing. 

Anyway, back to my ode to the hamstrings.  Why should you care?  Some of you may be blessed with loose and flexible hamstrings, but for those of you who aren’t, or who are confined to hours of endless office sitting, tight hamstrings can cause a plethora of health problems, if not now, definitely at some point down the road.

Low-back pain: Too-tight hamstrings pull back on the pelvic bone, placing strain on the lower back.
Joint injuries: Tight hamstrings often alter movement patterns during sports and exercise activities, which may put excessive strain on certain joints. It’s like having bad alignment in your car. Take bicycling, for example. Tight hamstrings cause some cyclists to ride with their knees splayed wide, putting strain on the knees and causing injury.  Given that hammies are the posterior support muscles on your knees, tightness on these muscles can also cause you to lock your knees, pulling them excessively back.
Inefficient movement: Tight hamstrings reduce the efficiency of sports and exercise movements in two ways. First, as noted above, they can limit range of motion — negatively affecting form, limiting stride length and potentially reducing running speed. Tight hamstrings are also unable to properly relax during thigh lifting and leg-straightening movements, creating internal resistance against these movements.

So why do some people have tighter hamstrings than others?  In part, it’s a function of body structure due to genetics — some people seem to naturally possess more flexibility than others.  But even when the hamstrings are not naturally tight, they often become tight to compensate for weakness or instability elsewhere in the body.  Specifically, tight hamstrings are often an indication of weak lower-abdominal muscles and/or weak lower-back muscles.  Yikes!

All three of these muscle groups — the lower abdominals, the low-back muscles and the hamstrings — attach to the pelvis. The lower-abdominal and low-back muscles tend to tilt the pelvis forward, whereas the hamstrings tend to tilt the pelvis backward. If either the lower-abdominal muscles or the low-back muscles are weak (both common ailments), these muscles can’t counterbalance the pull of the hamstrings, which will shorten and tighten as they tilt the pelvis backward…leading to low back pain. (Also see my previous post on the Psoas muscle)

Now, what can you do about these obnoxious tight hammies?  Yoga to the rescue! You can try the following poses which will help to stretch and rejuvenate the hamstrings:

Paschimottanasana – seated forward bend, use a strap to keep your spine straight and to target the stretch at the hammies rather than your back.
Uttanasana – standing forward bend.  Go deeper with each breath.  Start with your legs slightly bent if necessary, then wrap your arms around the backs of the knees and pull yourself gently further down, lengthening the backs of your thighs.
Wide-legged forward bend – standing pose targeting the insertion point of the hammies, you will feel the tug at the back of your buttocks.  Be sure to keep your thigh bones over your shins, do not push your thighs back, it will jam the tendons at the top of the hammies and cause very unpleasant pain!
Trikonasana – triangle pose, is a gentle stretch.  Can also try the revolving triangle for a deeper twisting stretch.  Keep the front leg slightly bent in the twisting version as necessary.
Warrior III – must activate the lifted leg and feel the lengthening in that leg, try to bring it parallel to the floor as much as possible.  This should help to stretch the standing leg, targeting the hammies of the grounding leg. 

In other news, I bought a Jade Yoga mat today in forest green! I’m going to take it for a test drive tomorrow when I go check out a class at Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga studio in Santa Monica.  Definitely looking forward to Bryan’s class, I’ve heard so much good stuff about him.