Greetings, fellow runners. Do you like yoga? No, of course you don’t. No one does. Yoga blows. It presents itself as this soothing, spiritual activity, but when you get to a class, it’s more like having Sloth Fratelli use you as a shoehorn. It’s awful, it sucks, and unfortunately, it’s one of the best things you can do as a runner.
Photography & Video: Ben Murphy
When you run, you gradually turn yourself into a machine that is terrific at traveling in one direction. But if all you do is run, you condition your body to ONLY go in one direction, and you wind up developing rigidities that throw your body off balance. This makes it easier for you to get injured. Imagine your body is a toy car that can roll forwards and backwards. Now imagine pressing down and forcing that car to go sideways. Within moments, the wheels buckle and break away from the axle. Ouch. However, if that toy car—which is you—were attending a yoga class once a week, the wheels would be able to swivel and go with the flow. Admittedly, this analogy is nowhere near as good as the ‘Spaghetti Scarecrow’ from issue 57, but I think you know what I’m saying: yoga will stop your wheels from coming off.
The good news is you don’t have to dip yourself in the Lululemon bucket or get a ‘Namaste’ tramp-stamp to become a yoga practitioner. In fact, you don’t even have to attend classes: you can just do it at home. There are advantages to attending a class, like the presence of a teacher who will help you execute the various poses correctly, but if you’re only doing basic stuff at home, you’ll still receive the benefits. That said, you may as well sign up for some classes, right? Yoga classes are fun, and you might make some new yoga friends. If you’re lucky, your teacher might even be a passive-aggressive who ends every class with the ‘Om Shanti Shanti’ yoga song, accompanied by a tortured harmonium.
Disclaimer: If you choose to never go to a yoga class to learn the correct way to perform the following poses, and then one of the discs in your spine slips out and goes down your leg, that’s totally on you, Siddhartha.
Downward Dog, or Downfacing Dog, or अधोमुखश्वानासन, is a brilliant way to stretch your hamstrings, Achilles, spine, hips, bottoms of your feet, your back... I’m not sure what part of your body this doesn’t hit—it’s a doozy.
Downward Dog
Downward Dog, or Downfacing Dog, or अधोमुखश्वानासन, is a brilliant way to stretch your hamstrings, Achilles, spine, hips, bottoms of your feet, your back... I’m not sure what part of your body this doesn’t hit—it’s a doozy. And it’s worth including in your post-run stretch routine or, better yet, making it the first thing you do when you wake each day. Get on all fours, roll your toes under your feet so your toe pads are touching the mat (you’ll need a mat for this one), push your butt back until it rests on your heels, and stretch your hands out as far as you can. This will place your hands and feet the correct distance apart when you rise up.
Now, with arms straight and shoulder-width apart and feet shoulder-width apart, inhale, and as you exhale, push your hips back and up and straighten your knees to send your butt skyward. Straight arms, straight legs (a little bend in the knees is okay, especially if it helps keep your back unrounded), and careful not to bunch your shoulders. Stare back at your feet and engage your core. Focus on drawing your heels toward the floor and your tailbone toward the ceiling. Breathe through the discomfort by making your inhalations and exhalations that sound like the coming and going of waves on the shore (read up on Pranayama breathing, that’s the shit).
Lizard Pose
Lizard Pose provides a terrific stretch for the legs, especially the inner thighs, groin, and quads. I hope you like having some flexibility in your hips because Lizard Pose will bust those suckers open and let the sunshine in. Get yourself down on all fours like you’re going to knock out a Downward Dog, then go ahead and knock out a Downward Dog. Breathe there for a moment, and when you’re ready, step your right foot and place it on the outside of your right hand. Feel that? That’s your groin opening for the first time in years. If that feels okay and you think you can handle a deeper stretch, bring your elbows and forearms down to the floor and clasp your hands together, interlacing the fingers.
Now, all you do is remain in that position for ten to fifteen steady breaths, more if it feels good. Gently come back up onto your hands, return your right foot, and resume the Downward Dog pose for a few breaths before dropping into child’s pose (the best yoga pose after Shavasana. Google both). Chill for a moment before hitting the left side. Remember: Gentle movements, gentle breathing, gentle thoughts. Pay no attention to any creaking, cracking, or snapping sounds that your silly skeleton might emit.
Pigeon Pose
I didn’t realize this one comes from yoga; I just thought it was your bog-standard sports stretch, but I guess it’s all spiritual. What you want to do is lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor—you know, like a pigeon... Next, interlace your fingers across your left knee and use that to bring the left knee up to your left armpit, hold, maybe give it a little shake, and then gently place your left ankle across your right knee or just below your right knee; kinda like you’re a cowboy crossing his legs, only you’re lying on your back. Now interlace those fingers again behind your right upper leg near the nape of the knee and bring the whole crossed-leg unit up and towards your face—just like a pigeon would...
Relax your shoulders and keep your back and head flat on the floor. With each exhalation, bring that knee a little closer to your face. If your lower back isn’t touching the floor, focus on bringing it closer by engaging your core. This is a great pose to release tension in the hips and around the sciatic nerve. If you think you have sciatica, read Dr. Sarno. Then check out Charles Baxter's short stories. He’s amazing.
Ragdoll
Believe it or not, this pose is making its third appearance in these pages, but I’ve been referring to it as the ‘Hippy Hinge’ because that’s what the guy behind the dumpster at Sonic Drive-In told me it was called. But it’s more commonly known by the name Steve Tyler gave it: the Ragdoll. Start with your feet hip-width apart, your toes pointing forward, and your arms by your sides. Imagine there’s a string attached to the top of your skull that is pulling upwards and lengthening your spine. Inhale, and as you do, sweep your arms up above your head and take your elbows in your hands. Exhale and begin slowly hinging forward at the hips until you reach a tabletop position.
You can just hinge from your hips without doing the whole arms-over-the-head bit, but I find raising your arms draws your upper body out of your hips and makes the hinge forward deeper. Hold in tabletop for five breaths, then release and hang forward, your arms and hands dangling toward the floor, the weight of your massive skull pulling you down while you push back into your heels. It’s okay to bend the knees a little if that helps you bend forward further. Stay here for maybe ten Pranayama breaths, swinging from side to side if it feels nice, and then slowly come back up, disc by spinal disc, ensuring your head is the final piece to arrive in the upright position. The best part of this one is the satisfying popping sounds that often issue from your spine and pelvic region.
So, there you have it—four super-duper simple yoga poses that you can do in the privacy of your home and in the nude. Again, it’s always better to attend a few yoga classes to help you lock down the basics in the nude, but if you can’t for now, this is a great place to start your yoga journey. In the nude.
