The Science of yoga talk by Timothy McCall was interesting. The auditorimum was full, most of the people there practiced yoga. I did not know there are so many yoga practitioners at NIH. Well, NIH is a rather large organization. Anyway, the talk. He told stories about Swami Rama and the scientific research he subjected himself to (without mentioning the controversy surrounding Swami Rama, or course). He also said the yoga completely changed his own life in a way that he actually dedicated his life to bring yoga and science together. His major point was that it is very hard to "measure" the effectiveness of yoga as therapy using the conventional methods of evidence-based medicine, such as randomized clinical trials. Yoga did very well in the majority of these trials. It is in fact, surprising, according to the speaker, because these trials required a standard scheme, by which all of the patients are treated, while yoga by nature is very custom-made (not Ashtanga, though - a.). It is also impossible to have a decent placebo group, which would think they do yoga, while in fact they don't. His appeal to the NIH audience was that we should probably re-think whether we should apply the same standards of evindentiary support for yoga and pharmaceutical drugs, which makes a lot of sense to me. In the end he made the audience hum in pranayama and explore the effects of raising and lowering the eyebrows with fingers.
Today was a typical Thursday-low-energy practice, which felt good afterwards nevertheless. David made me do an interesting thing today, when I was doing my UD stand-ups from the bench. He made me lower down into laghu vajrasana, only without the help of hands and my head down to the bench instead of the floor. It was a rather tight pose, with hips close to vertical position. And then I was supposed to lift up from it. OMG! My calves seized immediately, but I kind of realised where my major weakness was. I either have weak hip flexors or I do not use them properly in my stand-ups. Very interesting! This pose is easy to practice at home, so I will explore it further. I have the feeling that David nailed the reason for my inability to stand up. He is good! :)
Today was a typical Thursday-low-energy practice, which felt good afterwards nevertheless. David made me do an interesting thing today, when I was doing my UD stand-ups from the bench. He made me lower down into laghu vajrasana, only without the help of hands and my head down to the bench instead of the floor. It was a rather tight pose, with hips close to vertical position. And then I was supposed to lift up from it. OMG! My calves seized immediately, but I kind of realised where my major weakness was. I either have weak hip flexors or I do not use them properly in my stand-ups. Very interesting! This pose is easy to practice at home, so I will explore it further. I have the feeling that David nailed the reason for my inability to stand up. He is good! :)
24 comments:
I'd think the quads would be doing most of the work. I could well be wrong though.
Hi, Linda:
Aren't quads hip flexors? I thought they were... I definitely felt it in the quads.
I THOUGHT the hip flexors were the tendony bits at the top and that the quads were the meaty bits on top of the thighs. I could well be wrong though. My grasp of anatomy is fleeting. I'll learn stuff when injured & remember it as long as the issue lasts.
I checked it - a part of the quads (rectus femoris muscele) is considered to be a hip flexor. I felt it today! :D
Hip flexors are muscles - they flex hips. They are meaty all right! According to wiki, the hip flexors include:
Collectively known as the Iliopsoas:
Psoas major muscle
Psoas minor muscle
Iliacus muscle
Part of the Quadriceps:
Rectus femoris muscle
Anterior compartment of thigh
Sartorius muscle
Medial compartment of thigh
Pectineus muscle
Adductor longus muscle
Adductor brevis muscle
Tensor fasciae latae
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_flexors"
but...
just had a talk with an iyengar friend who says that once you refine the action of standing up, it is actually the hamstrings that should be doing a bit more of the work. So you're thinking about opening the back of the knee...
Not that I am going to remember them :D
aha!
Hi, Elise:
I have trouble picturing the involvement of the hamstrings in this action. Especially in the laghu vajrasana variation that I did today. My body awareness has a lot of room to improve.
Thank you for the comment, though. More things to think about :D
hamstrings as in biceps femoris or as in semimembranosis and semitendonosis? i can buy the two latter but not BF. you feel semim and semit if you are pressing into your bigtoes and NOT gripping the glutes.
iliopsoas tends to be a tight but weak muscle group in most people. you can really feel them in utthita hasta pad. and in navasana.
Hi, Tova! Do not get me even started on iliopsoas. These give me so much grief!
I personally don't think laghu vajrasana has much to do with standing up from back bends. I can stand up from back bends but I am no where near getting up from laghu. My
experience was that working on walking my hands closer to my feet was the key. The closer the hands got-the less muscular effort it took to stand up.
Hi, Natalie!
I guess it is different for different people. The depth of the backbend is not a problem for me in UD, I can bring my hands very close to my feet. And yet I can't stand up. It is driving me mad...
:)
Thank you for stopping by!
interesting about the talk. earlier this week a guy from MD anderson spoke (he also showed awesome photos of his grandmother doing some bendy things) and he focused a bit more on traditional epi studies (specifically cohort studies). in some ways i think these kinds of studies have more value than a RCT b/c we're trying to measure effectiveness rather than efficacy. unless in an intervention trial, few may adhere to a consistent, standardized practice (point well made in your post). that said, the best control group i can think of for a trial might be one in which the people simply stretch.
ha! arguably, this is exactly what i do every morning. (^_^)
anyway, i totally agree - the same scientific rigor should be applied to yoga as an exposure/intervention. but i'll leave that up to the experts to determine just how to "measure" yoga. oh, that reminds me of your inflammation question - i think the studies (still ongoing, not published) were measuring cytokine levels, but i could not grasp what the hypothesized biochemical or cellular processes were (if any).
and i digress again... we used to have a woman at AYC who had breast cancer a while back. she said while she was going through chemo and didn't have the physical energy to practice, she would visualize herself practicing every day. when she finally had the energy to get on the mat, her practice had not changed much from pre-diagnosis. which is pretty profound and seems to confirm the power of visualization as discussed in your last post. (^_^)
ah, back to work for me....
Rayn, thank you so much! I will look for the study with cytokine levels. Very interesting for me.
Regarding the rigor of the studies, the dude was actually making an opposite point. He thinks (and I agree) that we should not use the same standards. Because of the limitations of the standartized studies, he thinks NIH should cut some slack (and give more money- a.) to the groups that study yoga for therapy. I agree because I believe yoga is beneficial to everyone, and the more patients get it, the better.
oh, i see. i completely misread the post. yes, i suppose i could see it both ways. from a biostatistical standpoint, it's good to have "standardized" groups (but perhaps more than just 2) so you have "cleaner" contrasts. without some kind of standardization, groups tend to be more similar. this was one criticism of the nurses' health study that showed low fat diets don't reduce the risk of breast cancer - turns out the intervention (low fat diet) group couldn't adhere to the diet, while the control group (simply by way of being in the trial) improved their diet. in effect, the two groups became similar that the comparison became null.
but i *totally* agree that as far as grants are concerned, yes, the NIH should be a little bit more understanding of the particular kinds of studies that can be funded. i think more fundamentally, scientists should be open to yoga as a valid therapeutic tool. i do believe it can benefit everyone, and while you, or i, or everyone else who reads your blog probably knows first-hand its wonderful benefits, clinicians need to see the "evidence" before they'll pass it on to their patients.
updated to say: the whole problem regarding an adequate control group is precisely why i think traditional (observational) epi studies are better suited to studying this problem rather than experimental ones (clinical trials).
I agree, Rayna. In fact, your last comment was also McCall's point - observational methods for yoga therapy studies are best suited for the nature of healing properties of yoga.
:)
oh oh, i forgot to ask if you got a goody bag? they were handing them out earlier and i've been enjoying the tea samples. (^_^)
No tea in mine :(
A yoga Alliance calendar, a chapstick and a bunch af ads for local yoga studios. It made me happy anyway, cause I am a sucker for freebies. :D
Hi Alfia,
I have been reading for a while now. I do self practice mostly and reading about practicing with a teacher/group is very inspiring. I don't know if this is appropriate but I would like to tell Rayna that I was really disappointed that she changed her blog to "invited readers only" It is my dream to go to India and I was looking forward to hearing about her trip. I would like to suggest she start a new blog for the public (a censored version of her private blog).
Natalie, I am sure Rayna will hear you!
Do you have a blog? Your profile was not available for viewing, so I did not find it.
:)
Hi, Natialie:
If you send me an e-mail on alfiamyst at gmail dot com, I will pass it to Rayna, and she will invite you. :)
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