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Your Spine, Your Yoga: Developing stability and mobility for your spine
Your Spine, Your Yoga is arguably the first book that looks at the spine from both the Western anatomical/biomechanical point of view and the modern yoga perspective. It is filled with detail, discussion, illustrations, and practical advice for spines of all types. This emphasis on variety is welcome and no two spines are exactly alike, and no two people have the same biology and biography. What your spine is able to do may be vastly different from what other yoga students’ or teachers’ spines can do.
The human spine is unique in its structure and function. Primarily, it provides stability through the core of our body, allowing forces to be transmitted from the upper body (arms and shoulders) to the lower body (pelvis and legs) and vice versa. Secondarily, the spine allows tremendous range of movement. Unfortunately, in modern yoga practice we find the primacy of these two functions reversed, with flexibility prized over stability. This focus on spinal mobility comes at a grave cost to many students. Stability is lost, and when that happens, dysfunction and pain often follow.
Just as all tissues and areas of the body need a healthy amount of stress to regain and maintain optimal health, so too our spine needs the appropriate levels of stress to remain functional throughout our lives. How we choose to exercise the spine makes a difference, though. Knowing the way the spine is built, specifically, how your spine is built, will allow you to tailor your exercises wisely to match your goals.
Your Spine, Your Yoga is the second book in the Your Body, Your Yoga series and focuses on the axial body―the core, from the sacral complex, which includes the pelvis, sacrum, and sacroiliac joint, through the lumbar and thoracic segments of the spine, to the cervical complex, which includes the neck and head. The structural components of each segment are from the bones, to the joints, ligaments, fascia, tendons, muscles, and even the neurological and blood systems. The range and implications of human variations are presented, as well as the ways these variations may affect individual yoga practices. The sources of restrictions to movement are investigated through answering the question “What Stops Me?” The answers presented run through a spectrum, beginning with various types of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive resistance.
Whether the reader is a novice to yoga, anatomy, or both, or a seasoned practitioner with an in-depth knowledge in these fields, this book will be valuable. For the novice, there are easily understood illustrations and photographs, as well as sidebars highlighting the most important topics. For the anatomy geek, other sidebars focus on the complexity of the topic, with hundreds of references provided for further investigation. For the yoga teacher, sidebars suggest how to bring this knowledge into the classroom. Your Spine, Your Yoga can be used as a resource when specific questions arise, as a textbook to be studied in detail, or as a fascinating coffee-table book to be browsed at leisure for topics of current interest.
The human spine is unique in its structure and function. Primarily, it provides stability through the core of our body, allowing forces to be transmitted from the upper body (arms and shoulders) to the lower body (pelvis and legs) and vice versa. Secondarily, the spine allows tremendous range of movement. Unfortunately, in modern yoga practice we find the primacy of these two functions reversed, with flexibility prized over stability. This focus on spinal mobility comes at a grave cost to many students. Stability is lost, and when that happens, dysfunction and pain often follow.
Just as all tissues and areas of the body need a healthy amount of stress to regain and maintain optimal health, so too our spine needs the appropriate levels of stress to remain functional throughout our lives. How we choose to exercise the spine makes a difference, though. Knowing the way the spine is built, specifically, how your spine is built, will allow you to tailor your exercises wisely to match your goals.
Your Spine, Your Yoga is the second book in the Your Body, Your Yoga series and focuses on the axial body―the core, from the sacral complex, which includes the pelvis, sacrum, and sacroiliac joint, through the lumbar and thoracic segments of the spine, to the cervical complex, which includes the neck and head. The structural components of each segment are from the bones, to the joints, ligaments, fascia, tendons, muscles, and even the neurological and blood systems. The range and implications of human variations are presented, as well as the ways these variations may affect individual yoga practices. The sources of restrictions to movement are investigated through answering the question “What Stops Me?” The answers presented run through a spectrum, beginning with various types of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive resistance.
Whether the reader is a novice to yoga, anatomy, or both, or a seasoned practitioner with an in-depth knowledge in these fields, this book will be valuable. For the novice, there are easily understood illustrations and photographs, as well as sidebars highlighting the most important topics. For the anatomy geek, other sidebars focus on the complexity of the topic, with hundreds of references provided for further investigation. For the yoga teacher, sidebars suggest how to bring this knowledge into the classroom. Your Spine, Your Yoga can be used as a resource when specific questions arise, as a textbook to be studied in detail, or as a fascinating coffee-table book to be browsed at leisure for topics of current interest.
321 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2018
90 people are currently reading
504 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 4, 2020
This was a tougher read than I anticipated, especially given how much I enjoyed Your Body, Your Yoga.
Overall, I felt there was way too much anatomy and repetition of the same content, versus applying our newfound anatomy understanding to yoga. There would be tens of pages on the bones / muscles / tendons / etc. and then a quick note on a couple of yoga poses, and then the next chapter. In particular, I don't understand why so much time was spent on the sacral complex / SI joint. Was it just because it's a hot topic in yoga?
I am sure I will come back to reference this book in the future, but it was tough to get through.
Overall, I felt there was way too much anatomy and repetition of the same content, versus applying our newfound anatomy understanding to yoga. There would be tens of pages on the bones / muscles / tendons / etc. and then a quick note on a couple of yoga poses, and then the next chapter. In particular, I don't understand why so much time was spent on the sacral complex / SI joint. Was it just because it's a hot topic in yoga?
I am sure I will come back to reference this book in the future, but it was tough to get through.
March 13, 2021
Easy to understand with clear explanations and lots of references.
Really expanded my understanding of functional anatomy and made me look more carefully into exercise program design. I especially enjoyed explanations on condtradictionary topics such as mobilizations of SI joints and high risk/low reward poses that just look cool but doesn't have any health benefits.
I think this is going to be a book that I will read more than once.
Really expanded my understanding of functional anatomy and made me look more carefully into exercise program design. I especially enjoyed explanations on condtradictionary topics such as mobilizations of SI joints and high risk/low reward poses that just look cool but doesn't have any health benefits.
I think this is going to be a book that I will read more than once.
February 27, 2022
Once again, Bernie Clark delivers the goods, in this case pretty much everything you want to know about the spine (or didn't know you wanted to know), especially as this knowledge relates to yoga. This is another of the great resource books since he not only provides narrative thoroughly grounded in science, but also sidebars with different names ("It's Complicated!", "It's Important", and "Notes to Teachers") that develop specific details.
September 19, 2023
This book is very intense. It is very anatomy heavy. I thought it’d be basic but it’s not. It’s very boring to read and takes too long explaining something. It’s also difficult to understand and always says “it’s complicated” for most things.
I really wanted to like this book but it’s too hard to get through. I did not finish this book.
I really wanted to like this book but it’s too hard to get through. I did not finish this book.
April 2, 2019
This book was a Best of the Best for the month of April, 2019, as selected by Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet. http://forums.delphiforums.com/stevo1.... Search for me on Google for many more reviews and recommendations
February 7, 2021
Really useful reference book for yoga teachers
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews