Awakening The Spine
I created another free Yoga practice for you & whilst I'm by no means committing to doing this every week, it just felt right this week to share our in-person practice because I had such great feedback form my students & I wanted more of you to practice with me!
In the spine we have 5 distinct sections:
Cervical Vertebrae x 7
Thoracic Vertebrae x 12
Lumbar Vertebrae x 5
Sacrum x 5 fused
Coccyx x 4 fused
The key function of the spine is to keep us upright so we're not flailing around all over the place. Can you even imagine what we would look like WITHOUT a SPINE??? Weird AF, that's what!!!
The sections of the spine are made up of many intervertebral disks that move only a few degrees individually. Collectively however, this creates a lot of movement in the entirety of the spine. The Cervical spine & Lumbar spine are the two most mobile, with the Thoracic spine being the least mobile since it's connected to the ribs & helps to forms the ribcage.
What are the movements of the spine?
To answer this question we must first understand the front & back of the spine. The front of the spine being the portion closest to our organs, is called the "Anterior" spine & the back of the spine being the portion closest to our back, is called the "Posterior" spine. Thus when we think about how the spine moves, typically we think of the Anterior spine, NOT the Posterior, which you'd be forgiven for thinking would be the other way round.
The movements of the spine are:
Flexion - to bend forward
Extension - to bend backward
Lateral flexion - to bend sideways
Rotation - to twist
Circumduction - A combination of all of these movements
Let's awaken our spines together in this 30 minute practice & once you're done let me know in the comments below what you noticed & what came up for you. If you love this type of content then please head on over to my YouTube channel, hit the like & subscribe buttons as well as the notifications bell so you always know when my latest video goes live.