arms behind the calf muscles

Hello Edge!

I know I am taking this right back to basics when I ask you this, but I do have to be sure:

When you straighten and lock your legs, is your chest still sandwiched tightly and squashed against your knees and legs?

My initial reaction is to tell you NOT to lock your legs. Keep them bent and get more wrapping happening of the arms as far around the back as you can. Then, rather than TRYING to straighten the legs, think of your hips moving up to the ceiling as you release and relax the muscles in your hips and back and hamstrings.

This pose really is so much about the pull (and dare I say, less about the straight legs!). And the pull has to come from the biceps muscles. My worry is that if you can’t bend or wrap them as well as you could (say, with bent legs) then the pull starts to emanate from the shoulders which introduces risk to your back. The more you pull with your shoulders the more the arms straighten out, the more you round your back and hey presto we don’t have Hands to Feet pose anymore.

So even if you can’t get the elbows around the back of the legs, at least set it up so that when you pull you completely isolate the shoulders OUT of the equation. The further your arms are out to the side, the more the shoulders are involved and cause strain and stress in the neck, shoulders and back. So what you have to do is always pull with the biceps muscles and try to shift the shoulders up and back behind you, away from the ears.

Please get back to me and let me know any further distinctions. And together we can confirm your best plan of action…

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Gabrielle, I have a similar question to this one about the elbows.

I too have had trouble getting them behind the calves. What I noticed one day when I did a different type of yoga class was that, if I did not try to go all the way to putting my fingers underneath my heels and instead just grasped the back of my heels near the ankle, I could do a much better job of getting the elbows behind the legs. It was almost shocking to me! And I also felt able to pull a lot more strongly through the arms when doing it this way.

But of course, the bikram instruction is to put your hands underneath your heels. I have felt like I am cheating somehow if I do not do this, or maybe like I should do it and just wait to eventually be able to get my elbows back there. I haven’t specifically tried keeping my knees bent as Gabrielle suggested above, but I could see about that next time I go to class. OR, I thought, maybe I should build strength by doing it the way I described above until I can eventually put my hands underneath my heels while still keeping the elbows back.

I often wondered if this was because I am tall (5′-9.5″) or have long legs… 🙂

Any thoughts on this variation of the problem?

Thank you!!
Jen

Hi Gabrielle,

For a couple classes now I have been paying attention to this and I would say that yes I do have the stomach against the legs consistently.

I have to squat very very low to be able to get my fingers underneath my heels from as far behind as I can. Then when I necessarily straighten up somewhat (still keeping the knees bent) they tend to edge out from the outsides of my heels. If I don’t squat that low in the first place, I can’t really get the fingers underneath the heels at all.

What I have been doing is to keep my knees bent and try to feel that any pulling is coming from the biceps. I’m not sure I have isolated the shoulders out though, because my forearms are still more next to my calves than they are behind them. I had the thought that perhaps I should try thinking of squeezing the elbows together at the same time I am pulling? I haven’t tried that yet.

What do you think? Just keep doing what I am doing and be patient? 🙂 I know I am pretty darn inflexible in various ways.

Also, I am not sure how to incorporate the idea of “shoulders away from the ears” here… this is always a tricky one for me to feel in Rabbit too, actually. Any tips on how to get a better feel for that?

Thank you so much!
Jen

I have trouble with this pose as well…can’t get my darn hands under my heels. BUT THEN, one day I was finally able to get one hand under a heel (and attached arm behind the calf!!). My problem now is that I can only do one hand under one heel at any given time. Doesn’t matter which side, although the left is usually a little more difficult (and my left side is usually my more “bendy” side..and I’m right handed, that confuses me-LOL). I end up wobbling through the whole pose since I’m trying to get hands under heels; therefore, there is no stretching going on. Any tips?? Should I continue to try to get both hands under both heels and forget about the stretch until I can reach?? Thanks!

Hi Andrea and Connie

Here is one little technique that you should both first try (before I give you the other one!).

Introduce a little space between your feet. It may have to only be half an inch and it may need to be 6 inches. Keep your feet exactly parallel.

A word of warning. Teachers may present some opposition to this. But I am telling you that if you can’t get the pull to create the traction then you are not going to get the benefit. This pose works expressly to open up the back side of the body and engages ‘reciprocal inhibition’ to do so. This reflex will relax and open your body because you get the pull with your arms (biceps). So when you come out of backbend, move your right foot out a few inches and then descend. Remember to bring them back together after coming back up so you finish your pose with feet together.

Once you know ‘your’ distance you will automatically step out to where you need to go!

This works for most people who can’t grab feet. One of the sweet things about this technique is that you will find a way to get a symmetrical pull and FINALLY feel what everyone else is raving about. :cheese: As I said there is one other fix. Let me know how this one works for you first.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

They haven’t come back to let us know if it worked or not since their last post in September ….

I am going to try to sneak in that little space between the feet, because I always find that my knees want to separate just a bit, and I’ve always wondered if that was good or bad, but supposed it was because I must be tight somewhere and that is some sort of compensation for that. And I WILL come back and post whether it worked or not!

Hi BonMar – if you send me the original photo, I’ll fix it up for you. Can’t have you looking all squished can we!

Send it to [email protected]

Thanks!

Robert

Hi Brenda

I am not sure it’s about arm strength. I think it’s possibly about being able to seat your shoulders in that nice relaxed position (away from the ears) and then focusing the energy to come from fingers and biceps. As you arms come around you are by default involving your shoulders. So what you can do for a while to help you is just try bending down and pulling as you lift only to the extent you can keep the arms behind. You can also try a little space between your feet. It may only be a tiny space. And the other thing to do is let your head hang rather than trying to get your face on your legs. Let gravity take your chin.

Please try that and let me know what happens

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Aha Brenda

There’s your problem… pulling with your arms out sideways. Make sure that at EVERY moment your arms are neatly tucked in by your legs. 😉

What you’ve been doing is going beyond where your body is at because of some elusive artificial goal of ‘getting somewhere’.

I won’t address the other comment about the ‘Bikram school of thought’ except to say that the aims of the pose and the yoga are being lost in holding to the exact words of the script. If you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing and no one has caught that then that speaks volumes to me.

Keep your arms in, and stay in tune with what’s going on and you’ll progress far more quickly! It’s a really satisfying pose!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Elsa

I am not so sure it’s a big problem! It seems (if I understand your words correctly) that the angle is not a huge way off the correct orientation. It seems surprising that your heels lift off the ground when you bend your knees given that on occasion you are able to straighten out your legs.

As a result I do wonder if maybe you are well endowed! That can often place an … ahem … obstacle in the path of the ‘perfect’ alignment if one could coin such a phrase. 😉

It is possible for you to try not bringing the entire length of fingers under the heels for a while and see if you are able to preserve the angle when the heels contact the floor again.

Let me know what you think or if there’s more to add and I can add more suggestions (as there is still more to go with this, I am sure)

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Elsa

Well the other thing you may not have tried is placing your feet a little apart. You can start with them about 30cm or a foot apart. Do it and see whether that gives the stability, then see if that will give you the leverage on your stretching. And then little by little you reduce the distance apart.

Let me know if that works for you

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

PS: You’re welcome 😉