When we practice yoga, we move the spine in many different directions. When we are stiff from sitting all day, sometimes our spine doesn’t want to move the way we want it to. Forward bending and twisting are healthy spinal movements. When you have a young, healthy spine, you can “get away” with all sorts
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Yoga is a wonderful way to cross train and strength train as we age. We can build and maintain muscle mass, bone density, and work on stabilizing our balance. Standing yoga poses strengthen our legs, core, glutes, back, and shoulders, while increasing our ability to balance in different orientations to the floor. While in some
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As we age, our bodies become less tolerant of inefficient movement. As humans we are master compensators, and will “perform” movements, even in daily life, in ways that work, but are not always ideal for how our body should move. One example of that is walking. We can walk through our day and never once
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Instagram may show otherwise, but yoga is not just for skinny white women in their 20s, yoga is for everyone, of any age, with any type of body. Yoga is a millenia old practice for stretching and strengthening the body, while calming the mind. There are so many mental, emotional, and physical reasons to practice
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Going to a yoga class for the first time can be intimidating, even when the class is online! We create all sorts of stories in our head about why we can’t go, or what might happen when we get there: “I will be the worst one there!” “I don’t have the right (clothes, mat, props,
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Lower back pain is common in adults as we age. A quick Google search shows that anywhere from 39-84% of adults experience lower back pain at some point in their life. Yoga and core strengthening practices can give us the strength and mobility that we need to support our lower back, both preventing pain, and
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If you are a woman “of a certain age,” you may know how important it is to have a strong Pelvic Floor. If you have ever given birth vaginally, you may understand the effects of gravity on our internal organs and our ability to hold liquids there. Sometimes it can feel like we are bottoming
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Many of us are familiar with the sensation of “tightness,” but do you really know what to do about it? It might seem straightforward: when your body feels tight, you stretch. In a practical sense, however, that is not always the case. In this post I will discuss the different types of “tight,” what it
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There are many causes of lower back pain as we age, and tight hips are one of them. “Hips” is a combination term that includes the hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris, and tensor fascia latae) and the buttocks (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, piriformis, and deeper hip rotators). Imbalances in these muscles can lead
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When I was 39, I suddenly started having some weird lower back pain. I was very active with yoga and swimming and didn’t want my back to hold me back. I wasn’t even 40! Why was this happening?! I went to see one of the physical therapists that I worked with (I am also an
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