How many of us remember our mom yelling: “stand up straight”? The good news is that having a good posture is possible, even without your mother yelling at you.
However, it will not be enough to stand up straight every time you realize you are hunched over. To have good posture, we need to know our bodies and exercise regularly. Yoga offers benefits to correct body posture. It is a discipline that takes into account each and every part of our body to balance it.
Yoga Anatomy for Body Posture
Most of you are not conscious of having a proper posture in the shoulder area.
Sometimes you probably slump over. Other times, you go to the other extreme. Adopting a rigid, military-style posture, and pushing the chest forward, while squeezing the shoulder blades back toward the spine.
But, it’s also true that we have all experienced times when our shoulder blade alignment is natural and relaxed. When none of our muscles are contracted, tense, overstretched or weak, we feel great. The challenge, of course, is about finding and maintaining that posture.
While maintaining a proper posture, the shoulder blades (Scapula) act as the foundation for your arms. The stability and mobility of your shoulder blades depend almost entirely on the muscles that are attached to them. Fifteen muscles attach to each shoulder blade, and their actions are multiple.
There are two muscle groups that are crucial to both proper posture and full shoulder function:
1) The adductor group, which pulls your shoulder blades toward your spine.
2) The abductor group, which draw them away from it.
Yoga Anatomy: Rhomboids & Trapezius
So, if you usually stand up straight like a military man, you need to re-educate the muscles that adduct your scapulas (the trapezium and the rhomboids), so they can relax and soften.
The trapezius muscles lie just under the skin and run from the base of the skull and the spine out to the shoulder blades, covering most of your middle and upper back.
The middle trapezius muscles, whose fibers run horizontally from the upper/middle-back vertebrae to the inner edge of the scapula, does most of the work of pulling the shoulder blades toward the spine.
It gets help from the upper and lower parts of the trapezius: Along with pulling the shoulder blade toward the spine, the upper trapezius lifts it, while lower trapezius, pulls it down. But those actions usually cancel each other out, so when the whole muscle contracts, it pushes the shoulder blade toward the spine.
Immediately beneath the trapezius lies the rhomboids, running between the upper-back vertebrae and the inner edge of the scapula. These muscles are intended to keep the scapula and arm rigid. When the scapula retracts, they pull it towards the spine and exert potent adduction.
Yoga Asanas to Improve Body Posture
If you spend a lot of time looking like a Marine, you will notice the tension in the muscles between your shoulder blades. That can make it tough to raise your arms above your head, whether you are looking for that box on the top shelf or pressing back in downward-facing dog pose.
On the other hand, when you tend to slump over, you will find challenging doing backbends, and you will notice a limited range of motion in your shoulders.
One way to get over this is by stretching and strengthening the muscles around and between your shoulder blades. Yoga has several poses that can help you to accomplish this.
For example, if you assume the cat pose (Marjaryasana) or the child pose (Balasana), you can take deep breaths to relax and lengthen your shoulder blades.
With the eagle pose (Garudasana), you will feel both shoulder blades pull away from the spine, especially when you lift your elbows and your breastbone. After you unwind your arms, envision opening a space for your heart and lungs, not just from the expansion of your chest, but also by widening the area between your shoulder blades.
Other asanas you can do to improve your posture:
-Bhujangasana or cobra posture.
-Adhomukha or downward-facing dog pose.
-Tadasana or mountain pose.
-Vriksasana or tree pose.
-Surya Namaskar or sun salutation pose.
You can see in detail how to do some of these yoga asanas on this website.
If we want to improve our body posture, we must become aware of our bodies and adopt positive changes in our lifestyle.
It is worth all the effort. You look better when you are standing up straight. Also, you will experience fewer aches and pains in your neck and back region. You will also be able to practice yoga asana more easily!