Dandasana
While the muscles of your core – everything that’s not your arms and your legs – always engage to keep you stable in balance and standing poses, Plank Pose goes right to the fundamentals of core strength.
Off the Mat, Into Your Life: Strong core muscles are needed to your support posture. When the core muscles tire, you wind up slouching.
Athletes: Core strength and stability are critical for success in training and racing and for injury prevention.
Benefits:
- Strengthens the arms, wrists, legs and spine
- Tones the abdomen
Instructions:
- From the Lunge position, place your hands on the floor beneath your shoulders and step the left foot back into a Plank position.
- Position your shoulders to be slightly forward over the wrists. Fingers are spread broadly to diffuse the weight of your body.
- Check to make sure that your hands and feet are shoulder width apart.
- Keep your shoulder blades in a neutral position and the back of the neck long as you gaze at the floor, slightly forward.
- Engage all of your core muscles, including your thighs. Pull your belly button to your spine, and lift your front thighs up toward the ceiling as you lengthen the tailbone toward your heels.
- Gently rotate the eye of the elbow toward the front of the room in the same direction as your gaze. This helps engage the shoulder blades and brings your arms into the correct position for Chaturanga push up when flowing through a Vinyasa.
- Imagine yourself as one straight line from crown of the head to heels, without any slouching or sagging areas.
Modification: If you feel the least bit unstable or if any part of your front body feels like it is sagging towards the floor, place both knees on the floor.
