At Sadhana, we’re dedicated to all aspects of yoga
asana
Bringing asana (postures), chanting, meditation, and breath awareness together offers a clear path for enhancing health, well-being, and spiritual growth. Sadhana Yoga Hudson shares the rich history, philosophy, and teachings of the yoga tradition to students and teachers alike.
Focus of the Month
Let’s play with plank pose during this merry month of May! It is an important pose for loading the shoulders and keeping them strong. We’ll take all kinds of approaches, sometimes progressing to more challenging variations, sometimes regressing to easier variations.
One simple version is to do plank pose standing with your hands on the wall. You can progress that to putting your hands on a chair, then on blocks, then onto the ground. This month you’ll learn what it means to put (healthy) tension across the shoulder joint and how to increase or decrease difficulty, always with many options to explore. Eventually, you will build your strength to be able to lower yourself from plank to the ground and then push back up.
Forearm plank is already an intense pose, and adding cow/cat will turn up the heat. Or try shifting side to side, or sliding one hand a few inches forward of the other. Can you lift from forearm plank to forearm side plank? Let’s try it!
Side plank can be done with the hips, knees and one elbow down on the ground, or knees down and lifting the hips, working toward straightening the legs and then the arm. Once the legs are straight, you can lift the top leg a few inches or send it up to the ceiling.
As you see, there are countless variations of plank, so here’s to healthy, happy, and strong shoulders!