Stability Inside Your Movement System

I was having a conversation with my wife about the “bandahs” in yoga. I don’t know what started it, but I do know that it was something that perked my ears up. She said the bandahs are “locks” inside the human body. They help create stability in movement. Well it just so happens that in performance and rehab we’re always looking for ways to increase stability inside the movement system. Any time there is slack in your movement system, something grinds, packs, stretches against it’s will, holds tension in a spot that shouldn’t, takes pressure at a location that shouldn’t, and generally clogs up your kinetic workings. So I researched bandahs and it turns out yoga is very correct.

Yoga has been around for a long time. Yoga knows its sh*t! Every time I branch out and learn more about a movement discipline, be it technique, style, positioning, action or internal working, from strongman, powerlifting, martial arts, dance, fencing, gymnastics, or sports, I always end up intersecting myself somehow in research or random conversation in which I discover that everything I just learned, yoga knew it first. So in this case of movement stability I’m not surprised, but I am delighted.

There are three bandahs along the spine. They are the located at the perineum, the middle of your waist, and the front of your throat. Activate one to become more stable in that region, activate all three to become stable in the spine. Activate all three during movement in order to preserve force production, maintain proper joint alignment, share force across a wider range of muscular systems during strength movements, transfer force more efficiently and effectively in explosive movements, reduce risk of bone, joint and muscle injury, increase your natural agility, balance and coordination, and breathe better.

Muladhara Bandah is your pelvic floor muscles.

Uddiyana Bandah is your transverse abdominis muscle.

Jalandhara is your anterior neck muscles.

To engage your pelvic floor muscles, simply pretend you’re in 5 o’clock rush hour traffic and you have to go number one, AND number two. Clench and hold while you breathe.

To engage your transverse abdominis, place the webbing of your forefinger and thumb directly on the thinest part of your waist, just below your ribs. Reach your forefinger and middle finger around to just outside where your “six pack” would be on each side, and pinch those fingers and thumbs together at that spot. Flex between your fingers and thumb and hold while you breathe.

To engage your anterior neck muscles pull your chin down towards your chest until you’re looking down and your chin is touching your chest. Then drag it upward and backwards until your gaze is straight ahead. Hold while you breathe.

And the fourth one I’d like to use today in combination with all three; flex your lats and pull your shoulders down towards your hips.

Stand, engage all four, and see what you feel like.

The first method of training these locks is through breathing. Engage all four, breathe, and feel the massive amount of mental concentration that is required to engage all four. You are stable. If you cannot hold all four locks while breathing, you are not ready for movement. Practice breathing while holding them while you breathe, sit, stand, walk, drive, chill or eat. They should be active in some way, 100% of the time you’re awake. 

When you have no problem holding them active in stillness, then you are ready for movement. Try locking your body and breathe in the following positions;

Plank

Bridge

Squat

Handstand

Deadlift

Bottom of Pushup

Bottom of Pullup

But don't take my word for it. Read more about the bandahs below;

http://www.michaelblackrolfing.com/articles/2014/5/22/want-more-freedom-hold-your-bandhas

http://injuryfreeyogapractice.com/blog-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEFF2pOZfo

Geeking Out On Biomechanics (Part 2)

Movement is not just for olympic athletes. I’ve had to good fortune to be able to fixed dozens of chronic and acute problems with people’s knees, ankles, neck, wrists, hips, low back, upper back, and shoulders by geeking out on biomechanics.

You may not realize it, but you’re made up of 650+ muscles, that work in conjunction with 200+ bones, all to sustain and locomote an organism, YOU, properly through this dimension. You are more than the sum of your parts. When it comes to the body, just simply having all your parts doesn’t guarantee that you won’t one day injure yourself, or develop some chronic problem in a joint or muscle that eventually some doctor will cut on, into, or prescribe a pill for. I’m here to tell you that taking your biomechanics into your own hands can not only alleviate a lot of chronic and acute symptoms when used properly, but will elevate your awareness and consciousness to boot! Whoa… heavy bro. You want some of what I’m smoking? Okay, here we go.

The body is meant to take an incredible beating and still move on. It’s meant to heal itself through even the worst injuries and continue to house your consciousness. You are meant to move, and anything that tries to stop you only changes how you move, until you don’t anymore.

It would seem that we humans are one of the most incredible movement engines on the planet. Adaptive, creative and efficient. We have the ability to move in a wide range of planes and movement styles. We can locomote ourselves in a multitude of ways, bipedal, handstand walk, hopping, sprinting, bounding, leaping, rolling, crawling, cartwheeling etc… we can hang from objects, swing, kip, spin, rotate etc… and to boot, our fingers can grasp objects to operate for any task we can think of. Generally we find most animals move one or two ways really well, but not humans. We’ve been gifted with the ability to apply all facets of our intellect to our movement.

Our greater intellect doesn’t make us a more advanced species, it makes us better movers. In our greater capacity for movement, we're able to apply creativity to our bodily expression. Long ago this gave us adaptive movement patterns during the hunt, or discovering a tool that could aid the body in a task. From tools came structures; from structures came villages, from villages came society as we know it. But all that originally came from moving well.

This is how we came to be; movement. Movement was our expression, our tool, our intelligence and our way of life. Our minds were built around movement. Not just a small piece but the entirety of your mind is built for movement. All your senses, your emotions, thoughts, creativity, personality and even spiritual paradigm contribute to how you move. Even though we don’t move very well in today’s society, that doesn’t mean your DNA isn’t yearning for fluidity and motion. It is.

Everything that ails you, it seems, can be alleviated through movement. Every day a new research article is coming out talking about the benefits of exercise on things like diseases, viruses, sickness, even injury. Yes, even injury is now healed through movement. Ice is becoming a thing of the past; just move.

That’s why it’s very important to honor where we came from through fitness, and to do so intelligently, not mindlessly. We need to apply our intellect again to our movement every moment of every day. The gym isn’t the place to move, you’re moving right now! Not moving well doesn't mean you're not intelligent, but it takes intellect to move well. Like any other discerning endeavour we have to apply intelligence to movement in order to succeed. Movement is the discipline that all other things arise from. Give over to movement and understand that the answers DO lie within yourself, and taking time to understand your own biomechanics can feed your soul and help you live a better life.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.