Hi, Dr. Ginger Garner again.
To finish out this hip series, there are several parts to it.
There's abdominal diaphragmatic breathing, the belly breath video.
There's the power breath or the TATD breath video.
We have videos on what not to do in class when you're lying down, what to do in class
when you're standing up.
I give you a couple of standing postures as examples.
And the final video is another classic, often miscalibrated pose.
What I'm going to do is show you what to do with this pose in class.
And the pose in question is the quintessential downward facing dog.
This pose is probably the most often used and misused pose in yoga.
With hip pain often comes pelvic pain and back pain and other related issues, even gastrointestinal
type issues.
That can be flared up if you have any abdominal scars, etc.
There's a lot of things that go into treating the hip successfully and managing any pain
that you may have.
If you're going to go to yoga class and you have hip pain or if you want to prevent hip
injury or if you've had surgery or a replacement, I need you to carefully follow the suggestions
that I'm going to give to you for making downward facing dog much safer and more effective.
The very first thing I'm going to have you do is to ditch downward facing dog and do
this pose instead.
The only thing that you need to be able to do in order to substitute this new pose is
to be here.
Now, I often tell my patients, my students, you don't need hands to do yoga and that is
true.
You don't have to stand on your wrists.
A lot of people can't tolerate that and that's totally fine.
You don't need hands to do yoga, you can use your forearms.
If that's the case and the wrists bother you, please come down to your forearms and just
line your arms up shoulder width, get your knees underneath you, separate them about,
hip width apart, and this is perfectly great substitution.
For demonstration purposes, I'm going to demonstrate from my hands, I want a really wide base of
support with your hands, not closed, but a really open palm finger, your little finger
I want at the edge of your yoga mat on either side.
We want another arm spiral which means face of the arms, face of the elbow forward, shoulders
away from the ears.
We have a very long spine, one that isn't dropping or sagging and one that isn't rounded either
but happily somewhere in between.
This is roughly spinal neutral, not a detail we'll get into right now.
The spine, a happy place for your spine and then if your toes will turn under, I would
like for you to do that.
Turn your toes under and breathe through the arches of the feet, through the achilles
tendons and up the back of the calf, breathe so that the back of the neck finds an open
airway is very long, shoulders away from the ears, the shoulder blades at their tips may
draw in and towards the spine.
The only thing that I want you to do here is lift the knees one inch, that's it.
This is called downward facing dog prep or DDP for short.
Notice I'm still breathing because I'm talking.
I'm using that power rack without even thinking about it and you can also glide a little if
you would like to.
But the point is to be able to breathe and maintain DDP, realizing that you're going
to do a whole lot of strengthening through the arms, through the shoulder complex, through
the trunk and through the hip.
This is the pose I would like for you to substitute for downward facing dog.
If you have hip pain or hip replacement, you should have no groin pain at all.
If you do a downward dog prep and you have groin pain, that's a red flag and I would
like for you, I highly recommend for you to go see your physical therapist who specializes
in hips and or an orthopedic surgeon.
Physical therapist is going to do a very detailed neuromuscular and musculoskeletal exam.
Surgeons will be looking for things that are surgical in nature.
I would recommend seeing your physical therapist.
They're going to be most well versed in what to do to help you.
Grin pain is a red flag that means discontinue downward facing dog and downward facing dog
prep.
Look for those red flags.
To progress into downward facing dog with strength, to prevent injury and also again,
hip preservation, arms spiral, turn the toes under, try your down dog prep, glide, glide,
breathe.
You're doing your power breath here, breathe, and then you're going to move your feet back.
I may have to move my hands forward just because I ran out of room.
Move your feet back.
You see how I'm not moving my spine as I've gone to downward facing dog.
I'm just moving the arms and the legs.
This is my first downward facing dog of the day, so I'm not going to cram my heels to
the floor or force anything.
I'm just going to bend the knees.
I'm going to do what I call ringing the bell, do my ears, knees, my arms, they should, but
my head in a good position.
I have an unbroken wrist through the hand, which means I'm not like this.
I'm about five or 10 degrees out.
That's what I call an unbroken wrist.
And I have a spinal neutral, a happy place that's not rounded or sway.
It's halfway in between.
I should be able to breathe.
And the last thing that you're looking for is no brain pain, no pinching, no clicking,
no popping, especially as you transition back down.
Try a few times, breathe through your GDP, hiss if you need to, and that is your new
entry and exit, an advanced version of downward facing dog that is therapeutic,
combining the principles of physical therapy in the evidence base with yoga.
This video is available in its entirety for practice at medicaltherapeuticyoga.com.
Free registration, free video.
I'd like to thank you for joining me on YogaBank to get this introduction into hip preservation.
It's my hope that everyone would not need my services in physical therapy for hip preservation.
If you do, if you have hip pain, pelvic pain, back pain, SI joint pain, then following these
principles will help you to manage your pain, to improve alignment, to develop strength,
endurance, and the equanimity that goes along with being on the yoga mat and practicing.
So that as you step off the mat, you can take all of those things with you through the day
and be able to do the things that you want to in life.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact me at gingergarner.com or on Facebook
at Dr. Ginger Garner.
Have a wonderful day.
