My dear Yoga enthusiasts, namaste. I want to briefly talk about my newly discovered attraction to Tai Chi.
Tai Chi has been practiced for centuries. But until recently, I had never studied it, even though I had been curious about it for some time. I was very interested to see if it shared any of the same benefits as Hatha Yoga, which Continue reading
If you have a job that requires a lot of sitting, this stretch could be for you. LA-based yoga instructor Vytas Baskauskas demonstrates his reclining pose in this quick video to help relieve stress and tension built up from a long day.
What you’ll need is a yoga strap (or a long belt form a robe, etc), and a yoga block (or a rolled up towel). This pose can provide stretching and relief in the hip and leg muscles as well. As always, we suggest consulting with your physician before taking on any physical activity that is new to you.
In my previous post I reviewed the Theracane. I told the story of how I used it to cure 15 years of chronic neck pain by applying trigger point therapy. I learned how to do this from The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies. It describes in detail everything you need to know to treat your specific condition. I definitely wouldn’t have figured out how to treat my pain without this book.
Trigger points are knots in your muscles that can cause pain in other parts of your body. Sometimes the pain is far from the trigger point. That’s called “referred pain”.
The best way to treat trigger points is with direct massage. The Theracane allows you to locate and work on your trigger points yourself. Massage techniques vary a lot for different Continue reading
I suffered from chronic neck pain for 15 years. I tried everything, including physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, and going to a chiropractor. I bought therapeutic pillows and even a new memory foam bed. Eventually I resigned to living with my pain, and thought I’d be rushing to the ibuprofen bottle first thing every morning for the rest of my life. At the end of a physical therapy session one day, my therapist had an idea. She showed me a Theracane and told me to buy one online. I literally haven’t been to physical therapy since!
I followed my physical therapist’s advice and ordered a Theracane, which allowed me to perform “trigger point therapy” on myself. To learn how I also bought “The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook” by Clair Davies (Update: I’ve reviewed the book here). The key to how trigger point therapy works is the concept of “referred pain”.
Trigger points are basically knots in a muscle. What most people don’t realize is that these knots can cause pain in Continue reading
I have a lower back injury that creeps up on me now and then. That’s actually one of the reasons I started to practice yoga more seriously. So, I have a particular interest in yoga for back pain relief and core strengthening.
When I began focusing on yoga for back pain specifically, I found some YouTube videos to get me started. One short practice I liked was Esther Ekhart’s “Hatha Yoga Routine for Lower Back”:
It’s about nine minutes long and is low impact, instructed with live cuing (as opposed to voiceover). The instructor explains Continue reading