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Spinal Trap

Weak, tight hips can throw your spine out of line. By balancing the muscles that flex
and extend your hips, yoga promotes a healthy spine and efficient movementand
prevents back pain and injury.

By Julie Gudmestad

Antagonist. When most people hear the word, they think of an opponent or adversary.
But when anatomists, medical professionals, or scientists talk about antagonist
muscles, they are referring to a much more complicated relationship.

Although muscles that are antagonists do control opposite actions, they often
cooperate to support a joint or body part. Consider the muscles that flex the wrist and
those that extend it: When you do Handstand, both groups contract to help stabilize
your wrist. The antagonist muscle groups around the ankle similarly stabilize that joint
in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and other standing poses.

This teamwork by antagonist muscles, called co-contraction, is also important in

supporting the spine, especially when you're in an upright posture. Ideally, the muscles
of the torso are in balance, so they sustain the normal curves of the spine. But if one
set of muscles overwhelms the other, postural problems and pain can result. For
example, if the abdominal muscles (which flex the spine into a forward-bending
position) overpower their antagonists, the erector spinae (the long, parallel muscle
groups along either side of the vertebrae that extend the spine into backbends), the
abs will pull the spine into a slumped position and the normal curve of the lower back
will be flattened. On the other hand, if the erector spinae overpower the abdominals,
the lower back curve becomes excessive. Either of these imbalances can contribute to
strain on other muscles, pressure on the spinal disks, and many other problems.

Prime Movers

Another important set of antagonists, the hip flexors and the hip extensors, also plays
an important role in spinal alignment. These muscles help control the tilt of the pelvis,
which forms the foundation for the spinal curves. In turn, these curves affect the
position of other parts of the skeleton and the balance of muscular actions used in
performing many movements.

When the top front part of your pelvis drops down and forward as the sitting bones and
tailbone lift up, the pelvis moves into an anterior tilt. When the top front part of your
pelvis lifts up and back and the tailbone drops down and moves forward, the pelvis
moves into a posterior tilt. Fortunately, your pelvis includes handy reference points that
help you understand which way it is tilting. These reference points are called the
anterior superior iliac spines (ASISs). To find them, put your right and left index fingers
at your navel, then draw them out to the sides of your abdomen and down about two

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inches. If you are sitting on the front edge of a chair, you can feel the ASISs drop
forward toward the fronts of your thighs as you move into an anterior tilt. If you then
use your fingers to lift the ASISs and roll back onto your tailbone, you will move into a
posterior tilt. You may also notice that when you tilt to the front, the curve of the lower
back increases, and when you tilt to the back, that curve tends to flatten.

The hip flexors and extensors help control the tilt of the pelvis by rotating it over the hip
joints. The hip extensors attach to the posterior pelvis and help the hip move from
flexion, in which the thigh and abdomen fold toward each other, to a position in which
the thigh is in line with the torso. The hip extensors also help tilt the pelvis back. The
major players in this movement are the hamstrings, which originate on the ischial
tuberosities (often called the sitting bones, the tuberosities form the bottom back part
of the pelvis), and the gluteus maximus, which originates on the back of the pelvis and
the sacrum. The gluteus maximus attaches on the outer upper thighbone, and the
hamstrings attach on the lower leg bones just below the knee; both muscles use these
anchors to pull down on the pelvis.

The prime movers in hip flexion are the psoas, which originates on the lumbar
vertebrae and inserts on the inner upper femur (thighbone), and the iliacus, which
originates on the inner bowl of the pelvis and attaches on the upper femur. (These
muscles are often grouped together and referred to as the iliopsoas, because they
perform the same action and converge to attach to the thighbone via the same tendon.)
The psoas and iliacus are assisted in hip flexion by several other muscles, most
notably the rectus femoris. Part of the quadriceps, the large muscle group on the front
of the thigh, the rectus femoris originates on the pelvis near the ASIS and attaches with
the other three parts of the quadriceps just below the knee.

The hip flexors fold the thigh and torso closer together. They are in a shortened
position when you're seated, and they will shrink and tighten if they're never stretched
out to counteract long hours of daily sitting. If your hip flexors have become short and
tight, your iliopsoas and rectus femoris will continue to pull forward and down on the
front pelvis and lumbar (lower) spine even when you are standing. This pull creates an
anterior pelvic tilt, which in turn contributes to an increased curve in the lower back.

If the hip flexors and extensors are balanced in terms of both strength and flexibility,
they will support the pelvis in a neutral position, which helps maintain the normal spinal
curves and keeps the weight of the upper body centered over the hips when you sit
and over the legs when you're on your feet. If the hamstrings are comparatively short
and the hip flexors comparatively long, the pelvis will be pulled into a posterior tilt and
the lower back curve will be flattened, which can contribute to back strain and, more
seriously, disk injuries. On the other hand, if the hip flexors are comparatively short and
the hamstrings comparatively long, the anterior tilt contributes to an overarched,
compressed lower back. This compression can cause not only short-term discomfort
but also a wearing down of the cartilage of the facet joints along the back of the lumbar
vertebrae, contributing to arthritis of the lower spine.

Undoing Bad Habits

Any imbalance between your hip flexors and hip extensors can negatively affect your
yoga poses in many ways. Fortunately, conscious practice of pelvic and lumbar

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alignment during your practice can improve the balance between your hip flexors and
hip extensors.

Tadasana is a good pose for increasing your pelvic awareness and balance. If you have
tight hamstrings, a posterior pelvic tilt, and a tendency toward a flat lower back, you
need to release any gripping in the hamstrings and buttocks in Tadasana; this will
allow your tailbone to lift up and move back slightly. Moving your inner upper thighs
backward will also help release the hip extensors' downward pull on the sitting bones.
Also soften any gripping in your abdominal muscles and allow your breath to move
gently in the belly. All of these actions and releases will help reestablish the normal
lumbar curve.

If you tend toward a posterior tilt, you must move slowly and consciously to avoid
reinforcing this bad habit and creating further problems when you practice poses that
stretch the hamstrings deeply or require a lot of hamstring flexibility. In seated forward
bends, for example, tight hamstrings will pull the sitting bones toward the knees,
placing the pelvis in a posterior tilt. If you then reach forward to grab your toes, the
movement will come from the lumbar spine, which shifts into a reverse of its normal
curve. If you come into this position forcefully or repetitively or hold it for prolonged
periods, you can strain or damage the muscles, ligaments, and disks in your lower
back.

To avoid injury in these poses, I recommend that most of your hamstring stretching be
in poses that make it easier to maintain a normal lumbar curve. These include Supta
Padangusthasana (Reclining Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose) and a variation of Utthita Hasta
Padangusthasana (Extended Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose) in which you place your foot on a
chair, a ledge, or some other support. In both poses, position your stretching leg so
you can keep a mild anterior pelvic tilt and a normal lumbar curve. That means not
putting your foot up so high in the standing version that the pelvis moves into posterior
rotation. Most students with tight hamstrings should start with their foot no higher than
the seat of a chair. In the reclining version, keep your buttocks on the floor and use a
small rolled towel under the back of your waist to support the normal curve of your
lower back. Whether you are lying down or standing, rotate the tailbone and sitting
bones toward the back of your body while keeping the knees straight.

With daily work in these poses, your hamstrings will gradually become more flexible,
and you'll be able to work on seated forward bends without risking injury to your lower
back.

If you have the opposite imbalanceflexible hamstrings and tight hip flexorsmake
sure you regularly integrate hip flexor stretches into your practice. Such poses include
lunges, Virabhadrasana I (Warrior Pose I), and quadriceps stretches. Make sure that
you emphasize a posterior tilt, lifting up your ASISs and lengthening the lumbar spine
to decompress the vertebrae. Take this same posterior tilt awareness into Tadasana: Lift
the ASISs and feel the hamstrings pull down on the ischial tuberosities, but don't grip
the buttocks or push the pelvis in front of the line between your shoulder and ankles.
Then lift your rib cage away from your waist (especially the back of your waist) and,
without gripping your abdominals or restricting your breathing, move your navel toward
your spine.

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If your hamstrings are really flexible, they may be weak as well, and Setu Bandha
Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose) is good for strengthening and teaching them to engage.
Make sure to stretch the hip flexors, strongly lifting the tailbone while drawing the
knees and ASISs in opposite directions. Maintaining these actions, lift one foot just a
few inches off the floor; when you do this, the hamstrings in the standing leg will have
to engage to help lift the pelvis and tailbone.

By focusing on the right poses, you can correct muscular imbalances between your hip
flexors and extensors, and thus help prevent future back injuries. And with a little
mindfulness as you learn to balance the antagonist muscles in your hips, you might
also learn a lot about moving from adversarial relationships, in which the strong
overpower the weak, to teamwork, in which all parties work together for the good of the
whole.

A licensed physical therapist and certified Iyengar Yoga teacher, Julie Gudmestad
runs a private physical therapy practice and yoga studio in Portland, Oregon. She
regrets that she cannot respond to correspondence or calls requesting personal
health advice.

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