Another oft-mentioned problem for many who want to hike or do yoga is pain in the knees. Many people complain that their knees hurt when hiking, and there can be many reasons for this. The way in which we are moving can dramatically affect how our joints experience our weight. Environmental variables exacerbate these tendencies. The slope or grade that one faces when going up or down hill can be hard on the knees, especially if our legs are not strong enough or if the knee is traveling too far forward over our toes in its bent or flexed position. This way of moving is not inherently bad, but it might increase the load experienced by our knee joints. This can also occur when climbing up or down stairs. The load is not our weight, per se, but how our various tissues experience our weight. If we can learn to keep our shin bones a bit more perpendicular as we are going uphill, for example, we can better utilize the muscles of our buttocks and hamstrings. This, along with the action of our back leg and foot, can help save our knees from unnecessary wear and tear. This is not unlike the way we move from Virabhadrsana I to Virabhadrasana III or from Trikonasana to Ardha Chandrasana.
people are not sufficiently conditioned to handle the loads created by this activity. Our ability to utilize the support of the muscles in our pelvic region can help our body move much more efficiently. Here, as in yoga, we are learning to distribute the work in such a way that we do not unnecessarily tax one particular region while neglecting another. We become more efficient because we are inviting the entire orchestra to participate in the symphony.
If we are in the habit of tucking our pelvis under excessively, we might experience pain in our knees when we are going downhill. When we move this way, our quadriceps tend to fatigue more quickly because they need to work hard to help decelerate the mass of our body as we go downhill. Many
Carrie Owerko is certified at the Senior Intermediate 2 Level, is a Laban Movement Analyst, and lives in New York City when not traveling the world to share her love of Iyengar Yoga.
Now back to the hike in Squaw Valley … As my friend and I began our descent after finally making it to the elusive lake, we came across an older (much older) couple. They did not look as if they could have made it up those rocks, yet here they were remarking to each other about the genus of a particular mountain flower that one of them had stumbled upon. We said hello and sheepishly asked how they had managed that rock face and the climb up from the valley. The woman, looking up from the flower said laughingly, “We move in botanical time.” They move in botanical time! Another wonderful way to get off of the beaten path.
LUNG HEALTH, DISEASE, AND IYENGAR YOGA
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ony Hirsch has been a registered respiratory therapist for 34 years. He has worked with all age groups in the areas of intensive care, emergency medicine, and home care. His own health history has involved two sternotomies over the past two decades with subsequent open-heart surgeries to replace defective aortic valves. He also has neuropathy in his right arm from spondylosis in his cervical spine, which he has essentially solved through Iyengar Yoga. His yoga teacher, Kelly Sobanski, says having Tony in class has taught her a lot about lung anatomy and disease, and how Iyengar Yoga can be used to improve lung health for everyone. She is now more motivated to focus on the lungs in her classes. Here’s a conversation between Kelly and Tony about all things lung.
Kelly Sobanski: Please explain how the lungs are affected by respiratory ailments. Tony Hirsch: The quality of our breathing is affected through lung impairments that result from diseases of the lung caused by factors such as smoking, air pollution, exposure to toxic particles, fumes and gases, genetic disorders, heart disease, and obesity. Many people have difficulty breathing these days because lung disease ailments and processes produce Yoga Samachar Spring / Summer 2017
changes in the muscles and physiologic structures of the lungs, both of which are important for gas exchange. This directly affects our ability to regulate the vacuum of inspiration and the relaxation of expired breath. When we push air completely out, we exhale down to a residual volume of air. All of us exhale down to a certain pressure called our functional residual capacity. It takes a certain amount of remaining residual volume of air in the lungs to create the vacuum that pulls outside air into the lungs. 19
