Your Upper Body, Your Yoga

PRAISE FOR Your Upper Body, Your Yoga

The concepts Bernie presents will someday be standard in yoga teaching programs: tension, compression, skeletal variation, passive and active ranges of motion, asymmetry and proportion. Bernie’s magnum opus clearly illustrates the practical impact of these ideas for all yoga teachers and students.

— Paul Grilley, author of Yin Yoga: Outline of a Quiet Practice

Having been a tremendous fan of Bernie Clark’s two previous books (Your Body, Your Yoga and Your Spine, Your Yoga), I was ready to dive into this third book. I could not put it down. The unifying theme across these works is that each person is an individual. Posture and movement technique migrates stress from one body part or tissue to the next. Stress is essential to stimulate optimal health, but it must be in the right amount. Too little allows a weak system, but too much stress creates cumulative micro-damage and, eventually, pain and injury. The key to health is to manage this tipping point. Bernie shows the differences in people, and how to modify each exercise for each area of the body to stimulate robustness rather than pain. His guidance on self-assessment allows the reader to converge on what is best for them. After all, yoga is not a competition but was intended to provide a path to optimal health. Your Upper Body, Your Yoga completes the trilogy guiding the yoga practitioner to resilience with wisdom.

— Stuart McGill, PhD, Professor Emeritus and author of Back Mechanic

Another great book from Bernie Clark, full of detail and insight not found in other yoga books. The perfect completion to an outstanding trilogy.

— Stu Girling, author of Illustrated Yoga Anatomy

Bernie Clark has done it again! Like its predecessors (Your Body, Your Yoga and Your Spine, Your Yoga) Your Upper Body, Your Yoga is an invaluable resource for yoga teachers of all styles, and an empowering reference for practitioners who are interested in learning more about their bodies and how to make yoga work for them. It’s chock-full of anatomical insights and well rooted in evidence-based research but written in Clark’s usual affable tone. It’s not at all overly academic, and the user-friendly way it’s organized makes it far from overwhelming. As a long-time yoga practitioner who is not a natural backbender, who has often recoiled from upper body-focused yoga classes, and who struggles with arm-binding postures, reading this ignited a fresh interest in exploring poses that I’d previously neglected in fresh ways that honor my unique anatomy. If your practice or teaching is feeling frustrating or stale, this (and Clark’s other books) might be just what you need to get excited about yoga again. I know I’m inspired!

— Kat (Heagberg) Rebar, author of Yoga Where You Are and editor of Yoga International

Be warned: If you learned dogmatic rules of universal alignment in a training or class, you will soon encounter the evidence and logic for why those axiomatic rules just aren’t so. But fear not, Bernie communicates the Gospel of Human Variation with the patience, intelligence and clarity of your favorite professor. Read and integrate everything this man has written. Your body and your students’ bodies will thank you.

— Josh Summers, co-author of The Power of Mindfulness and host of the podcast Everyday Sublime

Reading Bernie’s books, and in this instance, the third instalment of his magnificent Your Body, Your Yoga trilogy, is an exercise in vigorous head nodding. By this I mean, I find myself in such excited agreement and approval that my head is constantly bobbing up and down as I read! I have become a bobble-head for Bernie.

This attention to one’s own individuality, and the call for teachers to attend to the individuals before them, is the crux of the message, explored with expansive detail and practically applied to yoga practice. And although this is explicitly a book for yogis, its contents cover a great scope of information that is universally applicable to the general use and functioning of the human form, useful to anyone who cares to understand and enhance their movement. Congratulations again, Bernie, on another compendium of shared information and applied wisdom. We are truly in your debt for providing us with this deep resource.

— Gil Hedley, PhD, Director Integral Anatomy Productions, LLC

Bernie has a nimble way of clarifying the functional anatomy of the upper body in a way that reads like a novel. I was fascinated and inspired with the useful tools and was reminded why we continue to work and learn from the body. The inclusive and clear illustrations are enormously helpful to new and seasoned students alike. I often felt compelled to move and test-pilot the clever tests and movement suggestions and could see students enjoying themselves in learning to practice safely and become more aware and adaptable teachers.

— Beth Spindler, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, yoga therapist, teacher, writer and author of Yoga Therapy for Fear

Bernie Clark is an anatomy medicine man expertly weaving together the often undervalued links between bones, muscles, fascia, neurodynamics and meridians into a compassionate look at how each person’s alignment must be made personal when practicing postures. No yoga or functional anatomy library should be without Your Upper Body, Your Yoga. It is another essential text for yoga teachers and practitioners of any and all influences.

— Sarah Powers, author of Insight Yoga and Lit from Within

This book is a must-read for any kinaesthetic professional! Bernie has managed to streamline a very complex subject to one that is accessible to anyone, regardless of their knowledge of anatomy. Your Upper Body, Your Yoga is supported by an incredible amount of research and showcases a treasure trove of scientific and statistical data in a way that is easy to understand and digest. This book is a true gift to millions of yoga and movement practitioners seeking to study human anatomy and variations.

— Jo Phee, Senior Yoga Teacher Trainer

Bernie Clark’s Your Upper Body, Your Yoga completes an epic masterpiece in the world of yogasana and places him among the modern greats of this ancient practice. Clark upended my understanding of yoga when I came across his first volume about five years ago. He showed me that many of the cues that I and others parroted from generations of teachers before us were unnecessary, simply wrong or downright dangerous! He has been a major inspiration in my teaching and helped prompt my own humbler work on a related subject.

— Rob Walker, Director of the Alberta Yoga College, and author of The New Yoga: From Cult and Dogma to Science and Sanity

To my family, friends and teachers. For what is life without the support of loved ones? Even those who are no longer with us still inspire and move us through their presence in our memories. Even when our memories of them fail, their influence shaped us into who we are. We are but the continuation of all who have touched us.

All rights reserved. Copyright © 2022 by Bernie Clark. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to:

Wild Strawberry Productions

2488 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

V6K 1Y7

First edition: 2022

Editor: Dania Sheldon. Cover and interior design by Alex Hennig.

Front cover photo by PixieMe from Adobe Stock, file #218718670

Back cover photo by Rh2010 from Adobe Stock, file #252564539

Illustrations by Morgan Jeske, unless otherwise indicated. Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN 978-1777687304 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1777687311 (e-book)

Medical disclaimer

The contents of this book are intended for general information only and not as specific medical advice. Please check with your health-care provider before following any suggestions found herein. The guidance given in this book is not meant to replace medical advice and should be used only as a supplement if you are under the care of a health-care professional. When you are not sure of any aspect of the practice, or feel unwell, seek medical advice.

Gratitude

Paul Grilley’s DVD Anatomy for Yoga was released in late 2003. I remember Shakti Mhi, the owner of the Prana Yoga and Zen Centre, where I was teaching, telling all the teachers that we had to watch it. It was groundbreaking—a pivotal shift in the paradigm of teaching yoga. Within a year, I had met Paul and Suzee Grilley, thanks to first meeting Sarah Powers and resolving to study with both her and Paul. In 2009, Paul and I discussed a collaborative writing project centering around a book documenting human variations and their importance for both yoga students and their teachers. While Paul thought the idea had merit, he already had many plans in place to explain human variations within a paradigm of 14 archetypal yoga postures. His preferred vehicles for these explorations were videos, owing to how well that format could show variations between students. The idea of a book faded away, but the thought still remained buried in my unconscious mind.

During the years 2010 to 2013, I brought two other books into being: The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, which was an updated and shorter version of the 2007 YinSights, and From the Gita to the Grail (since renamed Shiva Dancing at King Arthur’s Court), a look into the psychological aspects of yoga and meditation throughout the ages. With the completion of these projects, the old idea of writing a detailed investigation of human variation and its importance for yoga practice resurfaced.

In September of 2013, another opportunity arose to study with Paul and Suzee: a 15-day retreat held at the Land of Medicine Buddha, in California. This was the chance to map out a new project, one that would ultimately take eight years and a thousand pages. Had I known then what I was undertaking, I probably would not have started this journey, but with the encouragement of Paul, Suzee and Sarah, along with all the participants at the retreat, I took the first steps towards what would become the Your Body, Your Yoga trilogy. The students at the retreat graciously allowed me to document their variations, sometimes via photographs and at other times through descriptions of their own experiences. My thanks go to all who attended and helped me get started: Anna Aalten, Leslie Anthony, Jen Ball, Helga Baumgartner, Amanda Dawn Blackley, Muriel Burellier, Laura Burke, Stephanie Calhoun, Rich Clarke, Perry Cohen, Devi Daly, Cynthia Davis, Leigh Drake, Emilie Fabre, Amos Feakes, Julian Hall, Danielle Hoogenboom, Douglas Johnson, Tina Lanzoni, Maheshwara (Manfred) Lehner, Dace Osleja, Sebastian Pucelle, Barbara Samorajczyk, Karin Michelle Sang, Debby Sereda, Johanna Sundqvist, Donna Wiggins and Karma Wilner.

Eight years is a long time to devote to one project, but now that it is done, I am happy that I took the time to do this. One of the best ways to learn something is to try to teach it. One of the best ways to study a topic is to try to write about it. I have learned a lot over the years, more than can be put down on paper. I have also learned that there is still so much more to learn about the human form and the practice of yoga. It is truly a journey without end.

Inspiration and encouragement over the years was vital for staying the course. My thanks go to all those who gave me feedback and willed me onward, such as Joe Barnet, Diana Batts, Norman Blair, Dan Clements, Nathalie Keiller, Jo Phee, Katrina Sovio and Josh Summers, to name just a few. Technical guidance and new knowledge are also essential when attempting to describe such a vast field as anatomy, with its continual advancements. My thanks go to all those who kept me informed and challenged me to learn more and look deeper, such as Gil Hedley, Leslie Kaminoff, Timothy McCall, Stuart McGill and Robert Schleip.

Writing and self-publishing a book is never easy, and this trilogy was far from simple. My thanks go to the team who supported me over the years: Tania Cheffins, Jessica Clark-Bojin, Alex Hennig, Morgan Jeske, Jules Mitchell, Dania Sheldon, Katrina Sovio (again!) and Pilar Wyman.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the readers of the early books of the trilogy for your support, encouragement and feedback, and to all the students who sat through my presentations of the ideas found in the trilogy. It was an honor to be able to share these concepts with you and watch you experiment with the ideas in the laboratory of your own bodies. It was priceless to see the expressions on the faces of all the students who awoke to the realization that the struggles they have experienced with various postures were not their fault. To all of you who accompanied me and encouraged me on this journey, I offer my deepest gratitude. Thank you.

How to read this book

You are holding in your hands the final book of the Your Body, Your Yoga trilogy, which contains Volumes 4 and 5. Volume 1, What Stops Me? Sources of Tension and Compression, and Volume 2, The Lower Body, are found in the first book. The second book contains the third volume, Your Spine, Your Yoga. This book includes Volume 4, The Upper Body, and Volume 5, Asymmetries and Proportions. The overall format of each book is broadly similar, but there are a few differences between them.

In Volume 4, I am continuing the approach of separating the body into discrete segments. This is purely for pedagogical purposes (which is a fancy way of saying it makes it easy to teach), but of course, our bodies are not made of LEGO blocks that simply snap together. The body is a continuous whole, and any reductionist view of it will naturally miss the big picture. We must keep that in mind whenever we are investigating one part of the body in isolation from the rest. A living body is far more than the sum of its parts, more than simply a collection of levers, struts, ropes and cables. And we are far from fully understanding it. A biomechanical view of the human form is useful and even fascinating at times, but it is certainly not the whole story or the last word. As you read the contents of this series, please keep in mind that the biomechanical information offered will, I hope, help you understand your own body better, but there are many gaps in our knowledge. Fortunately, as time passes, we continue to learn.

With this understanding, it is still useful to look at discrete segments of our upper body. The most complicated area is the shoulder. Indeed, so complicated is this region that it is referred to as the shoulder complex. This includes the glenohumeral joint, often referred to as the shoulder joint, as well as the joining of the scapula to the clavicle, the clavicle to the ribcage, and the scapula to the thorax. From the shoulder complex, the investigation moves outward, through the upper and lower arm to the wrist and hand.

For each segment or complex, we investigate the form of the segment, including its architecture, bones, joint capsules, ligaments, fascia and muscles. Also presented are the ranges of variations in the tissues comprising the joints, as well as some of the most important or interesting variations. Many yoga students, however, may choose to skip the form section and move straight to the second section, where we look at the function of the segment and the implications of this functionality for our yoga practice. This second part of each volume examines the sources of tension and compression that can limit movement, and how human variations can affect what movements are possible and what individuals’ ultimate ranges of motion may be.

Volume 5 is quite different from the previous volumes, as it discusses variations in asymmetry and proportions. The left side of your body is not a mirror image of your right side, and we all have varying degrees of asymmetry that can affect our yoga practice. Similarly, the proportions of our upper body to lower body and the torso to the limbs are quite variable and unique. We investigate how these variations may affect our asanas or sports, or even daily living.

Many readers of this book will not have read the previous volumes, and it is not necessary to have done so. For those who have not, a summary of its key concepts is presented before we delve into the upper body segments. I highly recommend that the reader spend some time becoming familiar with the concepts in this synopsis, as they will be referred to often. Following the summary, an overview of the upper body is presented, which includes summaries of the fascia, nerves and movements of the upper body. Having this overview up front saves us from having to repeat the common elements in each chapter.

Sidebars and appendices. Throughout Your Upper Body, Your Yoga, several topics are separated into sidebars. For the student who loves lots of details, sidebars called It’s Complicated dive into more depth on selected topics. Most students can safely skip any of these sidebars. For yoga teachers, there are sidebars titled Note to Teachers, which may also prove useful for students who are often their own teacher and practice alone. And for all readers, there are sidebars called It’s Important, which underscore and clarify key points and observations.

An apology to the purists

One of the overarching intentions of this book is to help educate yoga students and teachers on the reality of human variation and its impact on range of motion. There is no attempt to offer any original research or to address an academic audience. Where practical, citations for studies, claims and statistics are provided in the endnotes. In the process of illustrating complex topics, some liberties have been taken with strict academic diligence. Except where specifically noted, the most extreme examples of human variations are rarely cited; rather, we look at the range of variations most likely to show up in 95% of the students attending a yoga class. Where simplicity has been chosen over thoroughness, it has not been at the expense of accuracy or truthfulness.

Preface

The Your Body, Your Yoga trilogy raises the question: What stops me? This is a key question to ask whenever an obstacle arises that prevents us from achieving our intention. In our yoga practice, the question pertains to how we can achieve our intention to optimize health, and this implies a functional approach to yoga. Each yoga pose has a reason for being done—an intention. The alternative is an aesthetic approach, which focuses on how students look in their postures. An aesthetic approach may be appropriate for some students, those looking for elegance and beauty in other activities in their lives, such as dancing or gymnastics, but for most students, an aesthetic approach is not functional and will not lead to regaining or maintaining health.

If your intention in doing yoga is to exercise or to stress a particular area of your body, heart or mind, and you are not perceiving such stress, ask, What stops me? To answer that, we must learn how to pay attention; thus, we combine attention with intention. One of the great gifts of yoga is the ability to attend—to notice what is happening, right now, right here, in your body, in your heart and in your mind. By paying attention and comparing what is arising with what you intend to arise, you can make a skillful, conscious choice to either accept what is or change it, based on whether or not what is arising is helping you achieve your intention.

Often, yoga asana practice is taught with an emphasis on how a posture should look: generalized alignment cues are offered with the goal of having everyone look the same way in the postures. Feet and fingers, hands and hips, limbs and torso are moved and tucked, prodded and pulled to achieve a specific shape sought by the teacher. Some teachers who have more experience and knowledge may offer alternatives and modifications for students who have trouble achieving the aesthetic look of the pose, but many teachers persist in trying to make the student fit the pose, rather than fitting the pose to the student. By adopting the functional approach to your yoga practice, beginning with clearly knowing what your intentions are for each posture and for the whole practice, you will be able to map out a more certain path toward optimized wholeness and health.

With intention clear and attention developed, we return to the What stops me? question. Answers can fall into several categories, as the resistance to progress may be psychological, emotional, spiritual or purely physical. This trilogy takes us through the last realm. We look for the answers to our question in the physical tissues of the body, but we do so with the clear understanding that this is only one part of the whole experience of yoga and only one possible area where resistance may arise. Nonetheless, the physical is worth understanding clearly.

Our body has ultimate physical restrictions; everyone has limits beyond which they cannot go. You cannot kiss your own elbow. I don’t know why you would want to, as there is no known health benefit for being able to do so and no known spiritual growth if you could. But you can’t do it. Why? Because your body’s shape prevents that movement. Our shape dictates what we can and cannot do physically. There is nothing surprising about this. However, while we can easily acknowledge that shape constrains us, we often forget that my shape is different than yours, and yours is different than your teacher’s. You are unique.

This is the second key teaching of the series: you are unlike anybody else in this world. What your body—and in this book, specifically your upper body—can do is also unique. Some of the things you can do are similar to what others can do, but you can’t do every posture in yoga. No one can. There may be many postures that are easy for you, some that are more challenging and some that are frankly dangerous to even attempt. By paying attention and understanding what sensations are arising in your body, you can channel your effort and practice toward achieving your intention.

We can summarize all of this succinctly:

Have an intention. Pay attention.

Understand that you are unique.

Answer What stops me?

Based on the answer, take the skillful path to achieving your intention. It is your body; it deserves your yoga.

Bernie Clark

Vancouver

September 2021

Foreword

Within these pages you’ll discover an adventurous journey through the upper body, encompassing the full spectrum of anatomy essentials. You’ll find enormous detail, intuitive organization, key facts, significant discussions, and small doses of perfectly placed humor and wit. While most textbooks don’t read easily from cover to cover, this one is a unique exception.

Teaching anatomy to yoga teachers is a complicated endeavor. Unlike anatomy students at university, where the process is mostly memorization, yoga teachers like context and purpose. College students study anatomy as a requisite for greater, more encompassing fields of study. Yoga teachers tend to only be exposed to short bursts of anatomy lessons and are often left wondering why it’s relevant and how it applies. Bernie Clark elevates the importance of anatomy and entices his readers to care.

Your Upper Body, Your Yoga (YUBYY) uniquely teaches anatomy through the lens of yoga. This creates an opportunity for the reader to engage in the lessons in an interesting and useful way, opening the doors for curiosity and questions within a familiar framework. Resources that, conversely, teach yoga through the lens of anatomy tend to be more effective for those who already have a strong anatomy education from a previous career or course of study. Bernie’s approach makes no assumptions and encourages teachers with any background to appreciate just one more piece of anatomy knowledge.

In my years of teaching biomechanics to yoga teachers, I have seen and read a lot of anatomy books. In most, you’ll find that common terms are defined one way, while biomechanists often define them differently. YUBYY is a resource that gently toes the line between these two fields of study, minimizing confusion for readers who are exposed to contradictory messages. It is well balanced and packed with solid information about what we know, what we don’t know, and which debates actually matter. YUBYY pulls from both disciplines as needed to guide yoga teachers to normalize human variation and avoid universal rules, while offering practical tips for teaching multiple students with differing anatomical presentations.

Special recognition goes to Bernie for emphasizing and respecting biological complexity. He cautiously explores emerging perspectives within the biotensegrity model. He shares non-catastrophizing views around the poses and how we teach them. He thoroughly explains range of motion and its limitations without romanticizing its importance. He is impeccably detailed at every level yet manages to successfully avoid detail overload. Lastly, readers of YUBYY will sense Bernie’s patient and supportive character, which nurtures the experience of learning this rich and difficult subject.

Jules Mitchell MS, LMT, RYT

Yoga Educator

Research & Adjunct Faculty at Arizona State University

Author of Yoga Biomechanics: Stretching Redefined

www.JulesMitchell.com

Table of Contents

Gratitude

How to read this book

Preface

Foreword

Summary of key concepts

VOLUME 4: The Upper Body

Chapter 1: Overview of the upper body

Bones of the upper body

Muscles of the upper body

Fascia of the upper body

Nerves and neurodynamics

Movements of the upper body

Overview summary

Chapter 2: The shoulder complex

Form

Landmarks of the shoulder complex

The architecture of the shoulder complex

Bones and cartilage

The clavicle

Joints and ligaments

Muscles of the shoulder complex

A biotensegrity view of the shoulder complex

Function: Application in yoga postures

Movements within the shoulder complex

Normal ranges of motion of the whole shoulder complex

Skeletal variations’ effect on poses and postures

The shoulder complex in yoga postures

Shoulder pain and pathologies

The shoulder complex summary

Chapter 3: The elbow and forearm

Form

The architecture of the elbow and forearm

Bones and cartilage

Joints and ligaments

Muscles of the elbow and forearm

Function: Application in yoga postures

Normal ranges of motion

The elbow and forearm in yoga postures

Elbow pain and pathologies

The elbow and forearm summary

Chapter 4: The wrist and hand

Form

The architecture of the wrist and hand

The bones of the wrist and hand

Joints and ligaments

Muscles and tendons

Function: Application in yoga postures

Normal ranges of motion

The wrist and hand in yoga postures

Wrist and hand pain and pathologies

The wrist and hand summary

Volume 4: Summary

Appendix: Myofascial meridians of the upper body

Endnotes

Volume 5: Asymmetries and Proportions

The power of symmetry

The allure of perfect proportions

Aesthetics versus function

Chapter 1: Asymmetries

Categorizing the types of asymmetries

Asymmetry of the legs

Asymmetry of the pelvis

Asymmetry of the spine

Asymmetry of the shoulders

Asymmetry of the arms

Summary: The myths and misunderstandings about symmetry

Chapter 2: Proportions

Torso to legs proportions (the Cormic index)

Intra-limb ratio for the leg

Arm-to-torso proportions

Humerus-to-head/neck proportions

Intra-limb ratio for the arm

Arm span to height proportions

Summary: The importance of proportions

Volume 5: Summary

Endnotes

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Foreword

Body Matter

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface

Index

Table of Contents

Sidebars

It’s Important

The flaw of averages

Stability and the close-packed position of the joints

Our internal rotator muscles are much stronger than our external rotator muscles

Allow your palms to face in the direction your arms are moving

Allow the arms to abduct in the scapular plane

Active versus passive ranges of motion

Are you a member of the 180° club?

Your carrying angle will affect your hand positions

When bearing weight in the hands, pronate!

Teaching children how to differentiate clockwise from counter-clockwise

Pronate to push; supinate to pull

Reviewing pronation and supination

There are three ways to turn the hands outward

Notice when alignment cues are inconsistent in their logic

Reconsidering symmetry

It is okay to work your right and left sides differently

For golfers: A personal story of asymmetry

Babies and children are not miniature adults!

It’s Complicated

Statistics

Deep fascia of the upper body

Scapular movements are complex!

Other variations of the scapula

Parameters of the humeral head

Bursae and articular discs

Variations in the muscles of the shoulder complex

Closed-chain versus open-chain exercises

A different paradigm for ligaments and tendons. The collateral ligament complexes and annular ligaments may not exist

A larger olecranon increases the triceps brachii moment arm

The axis of rotation for pronation and supination

Closed-chain hands on the floor change everything!

Variations in the distal ulna

Leonardo da Vinci’s perfect proportions

The many definitions of asymmetry

It is not easy to determine leg length differences

Variations in the Cormic index

Note to Teachers

Helping your students determine their ranges of external and internal rotation of the arms

It is okay to let the shoulders rise during arm elevation

Don’t over-focus on where the hands are

Where the eye of the elbow faces is only relatively important

What to say to a student whose arm is not straight

Cueing the hands in Down Dog (Adhomukhasvanasana)

How to estimate your students’ leg length difference

It is okay to ask students to play around with their asymmetries

Allow the arms to be wider to increase arm flexion

Summary of key concepts

Volumes 1, 2 and 3 of the Your Body, Your Yoga series introduced several key ideas that helped shape a functional approach to a personalized yoga practice. These concepts are repeated briefly here so that this volume can flow without having to backtrack and cover ideas already discussed.

You are unique! (And no one is average.)

Meet Norma, an average American girl. In fact, Norma is the average American girl. Norma is normal in nine important and measurable ways, which is why she was given her name. The statue of Norma shown in figure 4.01 was created in the 1940s: notice how comfortably she stands in Mountain Pose (Tadasana) and her calm demeanor, as if to foretell yoga would one day become a natural path for the average woman. She is the embodiment of grace, power, beauty and presence. And ... she is not real.

FIGURE 4.01 Norma—the average American woman. 1

Norma was sculpted in 1942 by Abram Belskie to meet specifications set by his friend and collaborator Dr. Robert L. Dickinson, an obstetrician, educator, artist and researcher who gathered data on 15,000 American women to arrive at the specifications for the average American woman. 2 This average is somewhat suspect in that the data included only white women from the narrow band of 18 to 20 years of age, but still, there are lots of white American women in that age range. So—how many look like Norma?

None! Not one. Nada. Zilch.

The statue of ideal Norma, with her 33¼-inch bust, 29-inch waist and 39-inch hips, was on display at the Cleveland Health Museum, along with her brother, Normman, who was sculpted to fit the average white American 20-year-old male. In 1945, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, with help from the museum and other local health and medical organizations, ran a contest to find out who in Cleveland exactly matched Norma’s measurements. The winner and runners-up were to receive war bonds and war stamps. The paper finally had to report that no one matched Norma’s mathematical average. 3 Expecting that it would be easy to find women close enough to Norma in nine specific measurements, the judges were surprised to find that out of 3,864 contestants, fewer than 40 women were close to the average in five categories, and no one was average in all nine. 4 No one is average! (Finally, the judges fudged the results and selected one woman deemed close enough to whom they could award the first prize.)

There are two ways to react to what Norma and Normman revealed: blame individuals for not living up to the normal ideal, or scale the ideal to individual realities. If we compare individuals—whether school children, parents, teachers, citizens or yoga students—to several norms, we will find the individuals are always lacking. However, if we focus on understanding each person in their individual nature and uniqueness, we can more accurately understand their limitations and opportunities. The sidebar It’s Important: The flaw of averages shows that the US air force chose the latter reaction: they realized that the failure of pilots to fit the norm was not a failing on the part of the pilots but a flaw in the designers’ logic. By not blaming pilots, the air force was able to develop easily customizable cockpits that each pilot could adjust to suit his own uniqueness. Unlike the US air force, however, doctors, scientists, high school teachers and civic leaders decried the state of modern women when it turned out none were like Norma. They saw it as a sign of moral laxness: American women were unhealthy and out of shape. 5 These leaders of society chose to blame the person rather than the false ideal of a perfect norm.

You are unique. This should not be newsworthy, but it is. The question is: What are you going to do with this realization? Your uniqueness means there are some things in the wide vocabulary of yoga postures that you will not now or ever be able to do. You can choose, as a yoga student, one of two reactions: blame yourself or find another way to achieve the intention of the posture. As a yoga teacher, you have the same options: Do you blame the student for not following your directions, or do you modify your directions to fit her uniqueness?

Not everyone can do every pose in yoga, and each pose will be difficult or impossible for some students. This is not a problem to be solved! It is a reality to be recognized. If we consider the intention behind yoga postures, we can work with individual students to find another way to achieve the intention that works for that student.

It’s Important: The flaw of averages

The United States air force had a pressing problem: How could they squeeze better performance from their pilots? 6 Over the first few decades of aircraft production in the 1900s, the US air force tried to make the cockpit a more efficient and effective compartment within which their pilots could fly with maximum attention and performance. It wasn’t working; pilots continually crashed their planes and blamed the aircraft, while the aircraft designers blamed the pilots. The problem continued until, in the 1950s, the air force commissioned a study to determine the perfect size and shape of a cockpit that would allow all pilots to fly comfortably. They measured 4,063 pilots using 140 specific attributes, arriving at the specifications of the perfectly average airman, for whom they developed a perfectly average cockpit. Unfortunately, this average cockpit did not solve the problem, because as the US air force was to discover, there is no such thing as an average pilot.

The measurement of human bodies is called anthropometry, from the ancient Greek words anthropos (human) and meter (measure). One person given the anthropometric task of measuring pilots was a young researcher named Gilbert Daniels, who decided to ask a radical question: How many pilots fit the average? He decided to concentrate on only the 10 most important parameters of size and shape, allowing a generous range of 30%, which meant that although the average pilot’s height was 5’9, if the pilot was between 5’7 and 5’11, he was considered average. To everyone’s surprise except his, the answer to the question of how many pilots are average was none"! Even more puzzling, when Daniels limited his evaluation to just three categories instead of 10, only 3.5% of pilots were in the average ranges: 96.5% of pilots were still not average.

Daniels’ findings were confounding, as pilots had been selected because they seemed average and thus would easily fit in the cockpits. Other researchers expected a large number of pilots to be in the average range, but Daniels’ study showed not a single pilot was. The cockpits designed to fit an average pilot turned out to fit no pilot at all, and it was no wonder that pilot errors were so high, given the contortions the pilots had to perform under stress, very quickly, and while sitting in a cockpit uniquely unsuited to their bodies. Daniels summarized his findings as follows: It is virtually impossible to find an average airman not because of any unique traits in this group but because of the great variability of bodily dimensions which is characteristic of all men. 7

To their credit, the US air force did not dismiss Daniels’ evidence and instead pressured the aircraft manufacturers to solve the problem through design changes. At first, the manufacturers were reluctant to absorb such a large expense, but they eventually came up with a very simple and effective solution: adjustable seats and controls. We have inherited these simple enhancements in our cars: adjustable seats and adjustable steering wheels. The cockpit of the modern car is easily tailored to the uniqueness of the driver because the other way around does not work.

Relating this experience to the yoga world, the challenge facing teachers is how to tailor their yoga classes to accommodate the wide range of bodies facing them. Do not expect all students to be able to fit your standard alignment cues; rather, adjust your alignment cues to fit the unique individual standing in front of you!

It’s Complicated: Statistics

The flaw of averages arises because of the belief that the average person is a normal person. This may be understandable if we were all being evaluated in only one category—say, height or weight. But once two or more uncorrelated criteria are used to evaluate people, the idea that there is an average that most people meet falls apart. If no single person fits the average mold, how can anyone be considered normal?

Several terms will be used repeatedly in this book. Range usually refers to the total variation arising in a studied population, or what 100% of people have been known to do. Range can be cited as the lowest and highest values or as a single number representing the difference between the highest and lowest number. Median is often confused with average, but they are not the same thing. Median is the value in relation to which half of the population is above and the other half is below. Average, also called mean, is the total of all measurement values, divided by the number of measurements taken. Sometimes, a median value is the average value, but not always. For example: if we have a group of 3 people aged 9, 10 and 11, the average age is (9+10+11)/3 = 10 years old. The median is also 10. However, if we add to the group a fourth person who is 100 years old, the average age now is (9+10+11+100)/4 = 32.5 years. But the median is only 10.5 (halfway between the two middle values). When a group has a normal distribution, the median is the average. But at other times, it is quite different.

The term normal has a very specific definition in statistics. It refers to anyone (or anything) falling within a range of values defined by two standard deviations (denoted by the Greek letter sigma, or σ), as shown in figure 4.02. This is a very arbitrary definition. Scientists could have chosen to say, Normal is anyone within three standard deviations or even just one, but they chose two. This means that about 95% of the population will be found within the range of 2σ if the graph has a normal distribution, and only when we are evaluating one variable. By the time we look at four uncorrelated variables, instead of 95% of people being normal less than 2% of the population will fit the norm. 8 When we look at nine or more variables, no one fits the norm.

FIGURE 4.02 A normal curve (often called a bell curve) graphically depicts a normal distribution; people within 2σ (two standard deviations) are considered normal.

People fall within a range; they do not fit an average. Throughout this book, we will often cite ranges for how far people can move. We will generally stick to the 2σ norm, which means about 95% of people will fall into this range. But this means about 5%, or one person out of 20, will be outside this range. These are the people scientists call abnormal. This is not meant in a derogatory or judgmental way but simply to indicate that these people have a range of motion that is quite different than most people’s. It is not bad to be outside the norm, to be abnormal. Differences are not deficits! 9 One person out of 20 is not a rarity! It is very likely that in a yoga class of 20 people or more, at least one person will be trying to move as requested but unable to do so. It works in the other direction as well: there may be an abnormal person who has a far greater range of motion than a normal person, and that is okay too.

Functional yoga

Rather than maximizing performance and flexibility, why not optimize health and mobility?

There are two main reasons to do a yoga practice: to become healthier or to master postures. If your goal is the former, you will be more successful if you adopt a functional approach to your practice, which means focusing on the intention of the postures rather than their appearance. If your intention is to look good—perhaps you are a dancer or a gymnast, and looking good is essential to your profession—an aesthetic intention may be appropriate. However, if your intention is to regain or maintain optimal health, then adopt a functional approach by following three keys for your yoga practice:

Know the targeted area you are trying to affect.

Notice what you are experiencing in the targeted area while you are in the posture.

If you are not feeling a stress in the targeted area, change what you are doing and find a position that creates the intended sensations.

Often in a yoga class, a focus on the posture creeps into the teacher’s cues. This is understandable because the postures are the tools we use, but the intention behind any posture should be to generate an effect in the body, not simply to perform the posture or look good doing so. This is the main difference between a functional approach to yoga and an aesthetic approach. When a teacher, or the student herself, starts to judge the pose by what it looks like rather than what it feels like, then the intention of optimizing health is lost. How you look in a pose is irrelevant; what is important are the sensations you are creating through the posture.

We don’t use the body to get into a pose—we use the pose to get into the body. 10

Realizing this simple fact can free us from dogma and images of perfection, allowing us to deal with the body we have. We can focus on what we are really trying to accomplish in our yoga practice. Not everyone can do every pose, and that’s fine. Focusing on a functional approach to your yoga practice will ensure you are achieving your desired benefits without being concerned about how you appear.

One intention of our physical practice is to deliberately create stress in our tissues. Fortunately, if one pose doesn’t generate the stress you desire, there are other poses you can try. Moving away from an aesthetically pleasing alignment is allowed! Feel free to wiggle. Move around to see whether some slight or dramatic adjustment creates the sensations you are after. Remember, it doesn’t matter what you look like—as long as you’re experiencing no pain, who cares what you look like? Another way of saying this is:

If you’re feeling it, you’re doing it!

By adopting a functional approach to your yoga practice, you are much more likely to achieve your intention of optimizing health while minimizing the risk of injuries. The functional approach to yoga also leads directly to another realization: your body needs your yoga. A focus on aesthetics has led the yoga world into a focus on alignment cues instead of functional cues. Since every body is different, how can one set of aesthetic cues work for every body? Unfortunately, it can’t.

Once we know our intention and we practice with attention, we can start to observe where our edges are and to know when it is appropriate to go further and when it is wiser to stop or back off. The wisdom to know what to do can be developed through asking yourself, What is stopping me? Answering that question helps you make the wise choice.

The What stops me? spectrum

There is no single answer to the What stops me? question; rather, there is a spectrum of possible answers. The breadth of this spectrum is illustrated in figure 4.03. In general, we can say that the answer will be related to either tension or compression. These are very different categories that in turn contain a variety of flavors. It has commonly been the belief in yoga practice that what stops us from going deeper into a posture is our muscles being short or tight. This may be true, and for a lot of different reasons, but tight muscles are only one of many possible reasons limiting our mobility. Focusing just on the muscles may cause a student to miss the real opportunity for growth; even more unfortunately, a muscle-only viewpoint may cause the student to push too hard and create an injury, because the limitations had nothing to do with her muscles.

FIGURE 4.03 The What stops me? spectrum.

Physically, we reach our edge when one of two things occurs: we reach either the limit of how far our tissues (not just our muscles) can stretch, or a place where our body is hitting itself. We use the term tension for the first case; tension arises when the body’s tissues can elongate no further. This tension can be found in our fascia, muscles, tendons, ligaments or joint capsules. The amount of water we retain in our extracellular spaces can affect the level of tension in our tissues, or the cause of this tension may be structural and physical, but it also may be more mysterious; our nervous system can create tension in our tissues, as can our immune system and endocrine system. Tension is not always due to physical constraints but can be psychological as well as biological.

The second reason we may be unable to progress further is compression. This occurs when one part of the body comes into contact with another part and further movement in that direction is not possible. There are several kinds and causes of compression. The first we will call soft compression—this occurs when flesh comes into contact with flesh. The second kind we call medium—it arises when our bones compress our flesh. The third kind we call hard—it is the unyielding compression of bone hitting bone.

The stress of tension and compression can be arranged in a spectrum that starts with the weakest form of tensile resistance to movement and moves all the way to the finality of bone-on-bone compression. This is called the What stops me? spectrum, shown in figure 4.03. We can view our yoga practice as moving us from the far left of the WSM? spectrum to the far right, at which point no further movement is possible. For many people, however, the progress is not so linear. Our biography, made up of our life history of injuries, disease, diet, exercise, sports, work and so on, dictates how fast we move along this spectrum, but our biology, made up of our genetic predisposition, anatomical variations and physiological states, may reorder the major stopping points.

Unlike tensions, the points of restriction caused by compression will not change with further practice. When compression arises, you will have reached a fundamental limit to your range of motion—for that posture in that direction. Generally (and there are always rare exceptions), after you have stretched out your tissues as much as you can, you will reach a place of compression that cannot be passed; you will have reached the end of your progress for that posture. Trying to go further may be dangerous, and students who attempt to push through compression often incur injuries.

Alignment is personal, not universal

There are no universal alignment cues—that is, there are no alignment cues that work for every body. This is not to imply that there are no principles of alignment. However, due to the reality of human variation and your particular anatomical uniqueness, the alignment that works well for someone else may not suit you at all. There are individual principles of alignment. Our challenge in yoga is to find the alignment that works best for us: this is functional alignment.

Alignment is important! Functional alignment reduces stress in the joints and protects them from dynamically moving into hypermobility, where injury may occur. Functional alignment may build architectural stability, minimizing muscular effort and allowing a student to safely linger in a posture. It would be very nice if every posture had alignment cues that worked for every body, and it would be very nice if one medicine would cure every body of cancer. But the reality of human variation teaches us that life is not so ideal. We are all different, and what works for one person is not guaranteed to work for another. The key question to ask yourself is, What are the alignment cues that work for me?

Antifragility and the Goldilocks Philosophy

We can do too much of anything. Too much stress can lead to tissue degeneration. But we can do not enough of anything as well: too little stress leads to atrophy, a wasting away. In life, and in our yoga practice, we need to find the Goldilocks position: not too much and not too little. This is shown graphically in figure 4.04. Along the horizontal axis, we have the amount of stress being applied to tissues, and along the vertical axis, we see the tissues’ level of health.

FIGURE 4.04 Stress versus health. To optimize health, we need an appropriate amount of stress—neither too much nor too little. This is the Goldilocks Philosophy.

If we apply too little stress to our tissues, they atrophy, become fragile and easily fail us. All living things require some stress to be healthy! If we apply too much stress, however, tissues degenerate. I call this the Goldilocks Philosophy. Some people do need to go to the far right on this curve, because their sport or occupation requires the maximum performance that their body can give; dancers, gymnasts, athletes and martial artists, for example, all have to maximize performance. But this comes at a cost: the focus on maximum performance can reduce overall health.

While too much stress is definitely unhealthy, some stress is essential. Many effects from stress help our tissues become strong and healthy—from the release of anti-inflammatory cytokines to the reduction of matrix-degrading enzymes. We need to stress our tissues, and that includes our joints! If we refrain from stress, we risk creating fragility in the body.

There are many respects in which human beings can be said to be antifragile. Antifragile refers to a condition whereby an entity gains from randomness, stress and disorder. 11 We can use the example of our bones. Compared to a beam of wood, which breaks down over time (the wood is fragile), our bones get stronger with repeated stress. Bones are antifragile: up to a point, they gain strength with increasing stress. Something fragile suffers from chaos and change. Machines, such as computers or cars, are fragile—they wear out over time and with accumulated stresses. On the other hand, living organisms, within certain limits, get stronger with stress.

You are not a machine; stress (up to a point) makes you stronger, not weaker. You are antifragile. As stress increases, to a limit indicated by point B in figure 4.05, you continue to gain health. If you go past the limit, you become fragile and lose health. However, staying at point A, where there is no stress, will not lead to a gain in health. Staying at point A may be comfortable, but it is not healthy. Comfort is the opposite of stress. Modern living tends to seek stress-free conditions, where we are comfortable, but this comes at a terrible cost: fragility. 12 Said another way, comfort is fragilizing!

FIGURE 4.05 Antifragility. An antifragile object benefits from stress, up to a certain point. As stress increases, so does the health and strength of an antifragile object. However, once a certain level of stress has been exceeded, i.e., past point B, the object is no longer antifragile and will suffer under greater stress. The object becomes fragile.

It may seem quite counterintuitive to suggest that someone who is injured should deliberately stress the injured area. The seemingly obvious course of action is to rest it, leave the injured area alone and take all stress off the damaged or weakened tissue. While this is comfortable, we pay a price for that comfort: the tissues that are being protected atrophy and become even more unhealthy. We need some stress, but in the presence of injury, the margin between too much stress and not enough stress is very narrow; great care is needed when dealing with injured tissues to ensure we don’t go too far, but we still need to subject the tissue to some stress. The Goldilocks Philosophy applies here. Yes, it is possible to go too far and damage a joint, but this does not mean that the other extreme is healthier. To never stress a joint is to invite atrophy, pathology and fragility. We have to find the middle path of not too much and not too little. A popular saying summarizes the reality of antifragility: Use it or lose it!

Stability

We will see the terms stable, stability and stabilize often—but what do they refer to? Although there are several ways to understand stability, I will use this definition: stable means steady, firm, enduring and resistant to sudden change, but functionally able to adjust to movement. When a joint is stable, it is supported, steady and can resist changes arising from a reasonable amount of force, but it can accommodate excessive forces through dynamic neurological and muscular coordination. When a joint experiences compression, the bones act as if they are bonded together: the joint itself stiffens. Muscles stabilize a joint through co-contraction. Usually, these muscles are activated prior to a stress being applied to the joint: the body anticipates the stress and stabilizes the joint early. (This is distinct from the prime mover role of the muscles, in which they act to move the bones or articulate the joint.) 13

It is important to realize that stability is never static! We seek dynamic stability because we are constantly moving; even when we appear to be standing still, we move, we adjust our posture. Dynamic stability requires neurological control to continually make adjustments due to muscular tensions, connective tissue tensions, gravity and movement. Thus, stability must always be addressed in a functional, dynamic way, not as a simple, static equilibrium.

Stress, stretch, flexibility, mobility and hypermobility

The terms stress, stretch, flexibility, mobility and hypermobility are not synonymous. Often, yoga teachers will use the term stretch in a number of conflicting and inappropriate ways, which confuses students. In many yoga postures, we are not trying to stretch anything—we are trying to stress certain tissues. Stress is the force we apply to our tissues, 14 and stretch is the resulting elongation, if any. Lots of tissues can stretch: our muscles, tendons, fascia, ligaments and joint capsules can all elongate—some only a little, others a lot. For many yoga students, though, the intention is not to stretch but to strengthen; they need more stability in their joints, not less. To build this stability, they still need to stress the tissues, but not necessarily to the point of stretching. Thus, it may be more appropriate for yoga teachers to adopt the verb stress when they habitually use the term stretch.

Stretching is also not the same as mobilizing. When we mobilize our joints, we make them move. Stretching a muscle doesn’t necessarily mobilize a joint; many static stretches don’t result in movement around a joint. We can define mobility as the ability to move fluidly and with ease and coordination. Coordination implies that there is a neurological component to mobility. The strategy we adopt to mobilize the body can also be termed technique. Safe, efficient techniques maximize mobility while minimizing harm.

FIGURE 4.06 (a) The anatomical position, with the three planes of the body; (b) directions.

Close to the idea of mobility is flexibility, but these two concepts are not quite the same. Flexibility can be defined as the pain-free range of motion of a joint or a series of joints. 15 It’s how much we can move, whereas mobility is how well we can move.

If we go too far, we can become hypermobile. Hypermobility can be considered flexibility beyond a normal range of motion (i.e., most people cannot do it), or it can be considered movement beyond a stable configuration of the joints, often due to genetic factors more than to overtraining. There are three general causes of hypermobility:

A connective tissue condition, disorder or disease (for example, Ehlers-Danlos disease)

An injury (for example, someone rolls their ankle and strains the ligaments)

The shape of the bones (for example, someone has a very deep olecranon fossa and can extend their arms past 180° at the elbow)

People who are hypermobile due to a condition, disease or injury have to take care when exercising to ensure they don’t move their joints past their healthy limits. With a lack of restraint, this can easily happen. However, people who have larger ranges of motion due to the unique shapes of their bones still have healthy joints with natural limitations from bone-on-bone contact and soft-tissue restrictions. For these people, moving to their normal end ranges of motion is healthy and should be encouraged. To discourage such full movements invites atrophy and fragility.

The question becomes, What is the intention of this person’s yoga? They are already hypermobile, so do they really need more mobility? Probably not. In most cases, they need to continue to develop stability, but it does not have to come with a reduced range of motion. Many hypermobile people can keep what they have—no need to go for more—and build strength in the joints, whereas other hypermobile people would be well advised to reduce their range of motion. It depends upon the individual, not the diagnosis.

Stress: the force applied to