Yoga Journal : Practice : Anatomy

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By Julie Gudmestad

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Wrist Rx

If your wrists have become sore from practicing poses in which you bear weight on your hands, you may need to eliminate these poses for a while to allow the inflamed tissues to heal. It will probably take several weeks for the pain and soreness to subside; then you can begin a program of gently stretching the wrists and gradually reintroducing weight bearing.

Before resuming the poses that require 90 degrees of extension—or before embarking on them, if you're a beginning yoga practitioner—it's a good idea to check the range of extension of your wrists. You can do this by coming to your hands and knees with the heels of your hands directly under your shoulders. Your wrists are now at 90 degrees of extension. Are they completely comfortable in this position? If not, you should work to gently and gradually increase your wrist extension.

An easy way to do this is to put your hands together in Namaste (Prayer Position) in front of your chest. Keeping the heels of your hands together and your fingers pointing up, gently press your hands down toward your waist. Don't let the heels of your hands come apart; if you do, you'll lose the wrist stretch. If you regularly hold this stretch for a minute or two as part of your daily routine, you'll gradually be able to move the wrists into deeper extension.

I also recommend that beginning yoga students and anyone with wrist injuries or problems begin weight bearing on their arms slowly. Rather than suddenly launching into dozens of Sun Salutations, start by spending a little time almost every day on your hands and knees. In this position, there is relatively little weight on the hands, so the wrists can become accustomed to weight bearing.

On hands and knees, you can also vary the degree of extension of your wrists. If placing the heels of your hands directly below your shoulders feels too intense, you can move your hands out a little in front of your shoulders, reducing the amount of extension.

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Anatomy

External Rotators of the Hips

Abdominal Wall

Psoas Muscle

Knees

Neck

Pectoralis and Latssimus Dorsi

Arches of the Feet

Hip Flexors

Middle Back and Ribcage

Piriformis Muscle

Lungs and Diaphragm

Feet

Core Abdominal Muscles

Gluteus Maximus

Shoulder Flexion vs. Extension

Scapulae

Upper Back

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