102 B – Basic muscle and body movement

Our muscles help move our body.

The muscles can either contract or release. And when you are releasing a muscle, it cannot take load/generate movement.

Therefore we are designed with muscles that work in opposition, for example the biceps and triceps in your arms; the quadriceps and hamstrings in your legs.

If you only had biceps and no triceps, you would be able to bend your forearm, but would have trouble straightening it!

When you flex¹ (elbow/hips), you contract one set of muscles (biceps/quadriceps) and relax the other set (triceps/hamstrings).

When you extend (elbow/hips), you contract the other set of muscles (triceps/hamstrings) and relax the other (biceps/quadriceps).

Apart from the above 2 motions, There are multiple kinds of movements that we can perform based on the different joints (all joints are not equal!).

For example the hip (and its joints) can be moved in the following different manners:

1. Hip Flexion: Pavan muktasana (Wind release pose) – the hip with the bent knee is flexed
2. Hip Extension: Ushtrasana (Camel pose), Pavan muktasana – the hip with the straight knee
3. Hip Rotation: Internal and External – Garudasana (Eagle pose) and Kapotasana (Pigeon pose)
4. Hip Abduction and Adduction – Virbhadrasana 2 (both hips are abducted when you get into the pose, and adducted when you are moving out), and Garudasana (squeezing your thighs together)
5. Hip Tilt, posterior and anterior:
   1. Ardha uttan asana (standing half forward fold), Adho mukha shvanasana (downward dog) are examples where your pelvis should be anterior tilted in forward folds. Dhanurasana (Arrow pose), Ushtrasana, Sethu band asana (Bridge pose) are backward bends where you are hips are anterior tilted.
   2. Two examples of the posterior tilt occur at different phases of Veerbhadrasana 1 and Paschim uttan asana.
      • Veerbhadrasana 1: When in the pose, one should be lifting the torso up towards the sky, by pulling the abdomen in, and a slight posterior tilt to get a neutral alignment.
      • Paschim uttan asana: Towards the end of this pose, after you have bent past 90 degrees with a straight back, you transition from an anterior tilt to a posterior tilt to bring your chin to your legs. NOTE that this is only for advanced students, or those who are flexible. Else, practice until your ardha uttanasana is correct first (i.e. do NOT try to do a posterior tilt!).

On top of this, it is possible to move the skeletal structure itself, for ex the shoulders. In addition to the above hip movements that also apply to the shoulders, it is possible to move the shoulders forward, backward, and even the oft repeated, roll your shoulders back and down!

¹ flex/flexion (reduction of angle) and extension (increase of angle) between 2 bones.