Oh Stuart McGill,  the most intelligent man who has ever bought me lunch... how do I get more of your time? Some say he is quite a cocky fellow, and sometimes maybe a bit inappropriate with his jokes, but if you asked me I'd say he is for good reason (About the cockiness, not the jokes). A fire drill went off in one of our buildings on campus during class and as groups of us were lingering outside, waiting for the okay to go back inside. It was then, and to my great excitement, where I spotted Stu's oh so respectable mustache. Before smacking myself in the head because I had taken a grand total of five minutes to make myself presentable to the public world that morning, I hunted him down for the kill - and was successful! Although I had to wait half a school term, I lured him to go on a date with me. Ah yes. I was pretty happy with myself that day.

If you don't know Stu, he is a professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in {spine biomechanics research}. He has also been a trainer for UFC fighters (GSP anyone?), various Olympic athletes, and apparently at one point, the second fastest woman alive. He's worked with the most elite of the elite. Sometimes I dream about being stranded on an island with him with a notebook and pen so he has nothing else available to him but to feed me his brains. Unfortunately this situation didn't occur, but I am here to tell you about my (awesome) hour and a half with him at Tim Horton's.

My primary intent was to have him pin point specific yoga postures and their relative safety level to our often overlooked, low backs. Now for starters, let it be known that the full Ashtanga primary series has us forward fold in 24 different postures (this is NOT including Surya A and B). When we hunch forward at our backs, this is called spinal flexion. Repetitive spinal flexion, especially under tension from external loads, can lead to extreme low back pain, and if it gets bad enough - a disk bulge.  

Now spinal flexion in moderation is not a problem. However, Stu had me look around at everyone's postures inside Timmie's that rainy afternoon. Flexed spines, everywhere. Not one person had even a reasonably-okay posture. This might have not been a problem for Vamana Rishi centuries ago, however, NOWadays, where our 9 - 5's and horrible chairs do crap-all for our backs, and where low back pain is experienced by most of the population by the time we reach 50, flexing our spines even more than we do already at yoga class is probably not in our best interest. So how do we get around this? Its very simple. But this is when you'll have to disobey most of your traditional Ashtanga yoga teachers.

Rules:

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Standing Forward Folds:








NO!  >>> YES!
 

SAD BACK >>> HAPPY BACK

Bend your knees and lay your belly onto your thighs. Do not lose this contact. Work on straightening out your legs on your exhales for your hamstring stretch - fix.

Seated forward folds:

                         

BAD! + lack of uddiyana bandha... >>> GOOD >>> GOOD

NO >>> YES!!

Draw your belly towards your spine and roll your shoulders back. Keeping your heart shining forward, your belly button leads and attempts to touch the floor in front of you. Don't worry if you feel like you can't move forward at all. Remember: We don't care if you can touch your toes!

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Following these rules will keep your core stable and back protected. Easy enough, right?

Best of luck!
Kim

P.S. Great postures to release low back tension: cat-cow, spinal twists, crescent moon, supta baddha konasana with block or boulster (droool).