Yoga posture - Shalabhasana
Translation: Locust Pose
Lying with the belly, chest and legs on the mat raise the legs and upper body.
Push the legs together to engage the gluts further. Point back through the toes or ballpoints or the toes.
Look forward. (If the neck hurts you can always look down.)
There are many different positions for the hands and arms. They can be interlocked behind the back to increase shoulder flexibility or interlocked behind the head. The hands and arms can also be stretched out in front of you.
If you find this posture too hard to perform try it with just one leg off the mat. It is a very therapeutic pose for building back strength and relieving bulging discs.
Benefits
Deep muscles in the spine are strengthened such as the multifidus,
iliocostal lumborum, longissimus thoracis, iliocostalis thoracisis. longissimus
cervicis, longissimus capitis and the iliocostalis cervicis, spinalis thoracis.
To raise the head up and back the Spinalis capitis and semispinalis capitis are
tightened and strengthened.
This pose is part of a Yoga for Back Pain sequence. |
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