Functional yoga and CARs

#goodMorningSunshine ?
#morningsAreBeautiful ?
#rituals of #theBeautifulJourney

Lately, while gardening, I’ve noticed I try to do various tasks while assuming a yoga position and was wondering why I’ve never seen a ‘functional yoga’ video. I haven’t looked for one, but figured I would have come across it by now. Regardless, I must say that some chores feel better through a yoga inspired pose.
(I’m also waiting for yoga inspired emoticons.)

Well, as I’ve been spending the past few weeks with this idea in the back of my head, I came across a Functional Yoga course with Jim Bennitt on Yoga International. It didn’t have the take I was expecting as he wasn’t talking about gardening , but definitely functional as in how to efficiently do certain movements. It covered breathing exercises, learning how to jump, roll, get up without using your hands and many other little details. In this course I’ve learned a useful cue that helped me fold more into the seated forward bend (Paschimottanasana) and also how to get up into a push up from lying on your belly.

Then I moved on to a course by Nam Chanterrwyn that covered Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs) and a range of yoga flows contributing to increasing mobility. The exercises were tough and fun.

Whilst yoga might be commonly known for improving flexibility, practicing it long enough reveals the need for mobility and mobility is what we’d use to define functional movement as well.

Flexibility + Strength = Mobility

On the topic of CARs, Physioinq says:

Flexibility is simply the amount of range of motion of our joints – i.e how far we can stretch our joints, with no thought to whether we have control in that range of motion or whether the body will actually allow us to access that range of motion during a functional movement.

Mobility refers to the amount of usable motion that one possesses across a particular joint. The key word here is “usable.”

Hence, although I am more flexible since doing yoga, what I enjoy noticing is how my posture improved, how my gait changed, how I can do certain movements with control and not just momentum.

The evenings continue as usual, a mix of cardio, dance and muscle isolation workouts.

This has been week #11 of exercise started during lockdown.
#theBeautifulJourneyWithiuliana

Until next time … mobilize yourself!