Week 2 Alignment Series: Twists

Let’s revisit some of the key actions in twists, which we learned last week in Alignment class. 🤩

Twist

👉 releases tension in our back, side body, and outer hips

👉The rotation movement takes us out of the familiar plane of our body to create better awareness and reset our spine.

TWIST stretches the back and fosters spinal alignment.

Here are the key actions in Twists:

1. Ground the legs and stabilize the hips – The first action in a twist is to ground our legs and stabilize the hips as this action provides the anchor for the spine to lift and lengthen away from.

2. Lift your lower back and lengthen your spine – When we lift the lumbar, it supports the natural curve of our spine so that it can rotate without compressing the discs on the lower back.

3. Lift your lower abdomen “in and up”- Lift the lower abdomen in and up and rotate to the direction the twist help facilitate the stability and rotation.

It helps release tension in our abdominal organs and helps with digestion.

4. Broaden the back body and initiate the twist from the side you are twisting away from – This is a game-changer in twists.

Broadening the back body at the thoracic area helps to facilitate and release the deep-seated tension in the back muscles.

This will lead to a deeper twist and relief in our mid/upper back.

5. Rotate your spine evenly- The neck has the greatest potential to rotate, while the thoracic spine has only a little ability to turn due to the rib cage.

The lower back has mobility, but it has very little twisting capacity.

We want to work towards twisting our body more so that each vertebra is rotating congruously and working together to create a more balanced and harmonious feeling in the back from the base to the neck. 🙌

I used to think TWISTS is just something we put in a sequence as supporting poses, which is TRUE because they are so versatile.

But when we start to study the details and spend some time in LONGER AND DEEPER TWISTS, they have MAGICAL EFFECTS in wringing out the tension in our body and resetting our spine. ✨

Let’s revisit some of the key actions in twists, which we learned last week in Alignment class.