Last week I raised the question of allowing your spine to have its own agency and explored how to develop strength, stability, and mobility with a simple spinal articulation practice. The problem with the subtle strength of the spine is that it can be so easily overpowered by the big muscles of the back and front body, and by the arms and the legs. This past week, in both my fundamentals and intermediate/advanced classes, we explored this in twists, an excellent example of where this can happen. Here’s the principle reduced to its kernel, including a simple practice you could try on its own, use as a foundation for a longer yoga practice, or as a break from sitting and working.

Yanking and Cranking

At its most fundamental level, in a twist, the head and rib cage turn one way while the pelvis turns the other. At a subtler level, a twist can include the balanced rotation of the vertebrae into a spiral, but that needn’t necessarily be the case if you are overworking your arms and legs to lever your rib cage and pelvis in opposite directions.

A good, strong push and pull of your limbs can crank your rib cage and pelvis away from each other dramatically while gripping and bracing all the articulations that connect to your spine, stopping it from spiraling as freely as it could and putting a lot of stress on more mobile or weaker joints, which is potentially dangerous. The sacroiliac joint in the back of the pelvis is one that often takes a lot of beating when twists are performed this way, which can lead to huge problems if the joint is pulled out of alignment or the ligaments that stabilize it are overstretched.

Strength for Stability

The strength of your big muscles is important, especially if you want to do more than a gentle seated twist. The key to balancing out the big efforts needed in a pose with the equally important small articulations is to understand how to use those big efforts. Your arm, leg, and torso muscles can work to support and stabilize you in two ways:

1. By overworking to brace and restrict your joints

2. By coordinating effort to stabilize and create space for the smaller articulations, and by working with the articulated movement to support and promote it

That’s a lot of words to describe a very simple principle: reach your arms, legs, and head away from your body to create length and width.

A Simple Twisting Practice

Here are four poses you can do that require a minimum of space and equipment so you can explore this idea for yourself. All you’ll need is some floor space to lie down on, something to go under the back of your head so your neck can lengthen, and a chair.

Benefits

Release compression in your torso and spine
Release your shoulders and neck
Strengthen the twisting muscles of your torso and spine
Develop coordination of your limbs, torso, and spine

Pose 1: Semi-Supine Position

Lie on your back with a little height under your head so your neck can lengthen and your neck muscles can release.
Bend your knees and plant your feet flat on the floor a comfortable distance apart.
Allow your arms to release away from you.
Spend 2 to 3 minutes like this allowing yourself to soften and expand.

Pose 2: Knee Drop

From Semi-Supine Position spread your arms out at shoulder height, palms up, and bring your feet a few inches apart, no wider than your hip joints.
Drop your knees to your right, rolling over to the inner edge of your left foot and the outer edge of your right. Allow your right thigh to rest on the floor.
Turn your head to your left.
Allow your spine to spiral, releasing anything in you that might be preventing it. Stay like this for a minute or two.
Gather yourself back to Semi-Supine Position and repeat on your second side.

Pose 3: Seated Spinal Articulation

Sit at the front edge of a chair with your feet placed about hip width apart and your hands on your thighs.
Stay here for a minute or two allowing your head to release up toward the ceiling and your whole torso to expand.
Turn your head to the right and articulate a spiral through your entire spine, all the way down to your sacrum.
Come out of the spiral from bottom to top, your head turning to face front last of all.
Repeat to your second side.

Pose 4: Seated twist in the Chair

Sit at the side edge of your chair with the back of the chair to your right.
Put your hands on the back of the chair,
Spiral your spine, initiating with your head the way you did above. Use your arms as little as possible.
To add the arms, pull out on the back of the chair with your hands to spread your elbows, widen shoulders, your chest, and your back, and to deepen the twist.
As you deepen the twist, reach your right thigh away from you so your pelvis continues to face forward.
Release and repeat on your second side.

Twist Yourself into Shape

Even simple twists can have a balancing effect on you, giving you a boost when your energies are flagging, or helping you to release the outside world if you’ve become overstimulated. Try the sequence yourself and let me know how it went, either via email or before/after one of my classes this week!