How Studying Functional Anatomy Can Inform Your Yoga Teaching
How Studying Functional Anatomy Can Inform Your Yoga Teaching
Studying functional anatomy can help inform your yoga teaching to create safer, more inclusive sequences and classes.
Merging functional anatomy with yoga will allow you to view your practice from a new perspective, and is beneficial for you as a yoga teacher and for your students.
The Fundamentals of Functional Anatomy
To better understand how functional anatomy can inform you as a yoga teacher, let’s start by taking a look at some of the fundamentals of functional anatomy.
Traditional methods of studying anatomy focus on what happens to the skeleton during muscle contractions. Functional anatomy brings another dimension to muscle movement. As the human form carries out routine actions, like walking, lifting, and sitting, functional anatomy examines all muscles and their relationship – a truly yogic perspective.
How does one muscle work with the surrounding bones and joints during flexion and extension? Functional anatomy has the answers!
The elbow joint is a great example. Anatomy tells us that the bicep contracts and shortens, flexing the elbow and bringing the forearm closer to the body. It's a straightforward analysis. When viewed through functional anatomy, the bicep contraction flexes the elbow, and the tricep becomes longer as it engages. This action of the tricep slows down the flexing of the elbow as it interacts with the bicep.
As the elbow extends and opens, the tricep engages and shortens to straighten the arm. The bicep balances this action with dynamic elongation.
You may also hear terms such as “concentric” in the fitness realm, which is a contraction that shortens the muscle. Eccentric contractions create elongation in partnership with the concentric action. Isometric contractions increase the force of a muscle without changing its length.
When learning about functional anatomy, you learn how to adjust your guidance for all body types, experiences, injuries, and emotions that your students experience. Advanced trainings can focus on the biodiversity of human anatomy – to ultimately create a more inclusive wellness space in your yoga classes.
Merging Yoga and Functional Anatomy
Modern, transnational yoga can too often about the poses, not the people. Sequencing, flowing, and cues involve where to point feet, where to gaze, and how to deepen into a shape. The focus can unfortunately shift to how the human form looks, not feels.
When a yoga teacher uses functional anatomy to guide a yoga student into a posture, the student's experience and awareness become the focus. The quest for the textbook version of a pose is gone, and how a pose feels takes priority.
Functional anatomy is more than just allowing a student to individualize their practice by adjusting shapes according to personal anatomy and range of motion. It serves to strengthen and stabilize the body for daily movements.
For example, many people sit at desks for their jobs, which often results in a muscular imbalance between the front and back of the body. The mere act of sitting and rising from a desk may also strengthen the quadriceps over time, leaving the hamstrings unbalanced. A traditional yoga cueing for chair pose may be to sink lower, further strengthening the front body. Functional yoga seeks the position to stabilize the entire body and build strength and awareness where there may be gaps in perception. In the case of chair pose, this might mean lifting upwards to better feel engaged.
The Benefits of Functional Anatomy for Yoga Students
Teaching yoga with the understanding of functional anatomy benefits your students by encouraging svadyaya – or self-study.
When the yoga student does not feel obliged to fit their bodies into a certain shape, but rather to feel through interoception what their body needs, they gain confidence. It's human nature to compare our bodies and watch the mirrors to see what others are doing. These ingrained habits vanish as the student can move with feeling and according to their physical and emotional structure.
Yoga teaching infused with functional anatomy may also be safer. For one, students can learn to connect with themselves in a safe emotional space, strengthening the bond between student and teacher. Yoga-related injuries may also be reduced as the focus shifts from flexibility alone towards practicality. And even existing injuries and stiff joints may benefit from this holistic approach to movement.
With functional anatomy knowledge, teachers and students alike discover that the differences that make us unique will not exclude us from any part of a meaningful and beneficial yoga practice.
Interested in Studying Functional Anatomy As Part of Advanced Yoga Teacher Training?
If this article has piqued your interest in functional anatomy, we’d love to invite you to Prema Yoga Institute’s Functional Anatomy Training.
The Functional Anatomy Training is now available online and teaches how to:
Develop your confidence teaching to all different types of bodies
Think critically about biases that often go overlooked in anatomy and movement science
Gain support and education to skillfully move away from a "one size fits all" type of teaching
Learn to better see and "Read" bodies in order to better meet your student's varying needs
Interface more effectively with doctors and health care professionals
Advance your teaching towards a Yoga Therapy Certification
And more (click here for details)
Additionally, The Functional Anatomy Training counts as 50 CE Credits with Yoga Alliance OR towards your RYT500 at Prema Yoga Institute.
Visit Prema Yoga Institute to learn more about our training, which is now available online with interactive trainings through 2022!
PYI is an accredited program based in New York city, teaching students around the globe through online classes. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you advance your yoga practice and teaching!
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