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LAUREL BEVERSDORF

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Alignment Beyond Aesthetics

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For many in the yoga world, alignment really means aesthetics.

In other words, whether or not your knee is over your ankle in Warrior 2, or your shin is parallel to the front of your mat in Pigeon, are your arms and legs are straight in Downward Facing Dog—all of these details are universally more about how a pose looks. This is because whether or not these would be useful beyond aesthetics depends on what the individual who is practicing needs more or less of.

For me, contorting my body to make shapes in ways that were preferred by schools of yoga or individual teachers wasn’t a useful practice for me long term, which is why I let go of an aesthetics-only approach to alignment. 

That said, I didn’t throw the whole idea of alignment out the door. Instead of an end itself, I made it a means to an end.

I reframed my practice and teaching to embrace a variety of alignments needed for a variety of goals, in movement and in life.

In truth, alignment is just a point along a spectrum of possible positions.

And each position will have different value to a different person depending on their unique structure, their history of loading, their load sensitivity, and their interests. Does this mean that there are no universally applicable reasons to teach alignment? Not at all. It just means that there are no universally safe, correct, or useful alignments for every body.

Alignment can certainly matter in yoga.

For example, we pay attention to alignment in yoga poses because even just holding up our own body weight, our position will affect how our muscles are working, and how we challenge our joints.

Alignment definitely matters in strength-training.

In strength-training, arguably, alignment matters even more than it does in the yoga asana practice. This is because when we add in external load there’s more stress on the joints. To help distribute the stress optimally, our alignment can help us direct the bulk of the work to muscles that have better leverage to be able to manage the load. This is because certain muscles have better leverage to work harder at certain joint angles than others, depending on where they attach to our bones. And since our nervous system usually recruits the best muscles for the job, joint angles affect which muscles we recruit.

For example, notice the difference in the two relatively similar movements in the video below. The first is a hinge, where the glutes and hamstrings are prime muscles. In the squat variation, the quadriceps are prime. You can see this clearly because of the way I’m holding the broomstick in front of my body—each move makes a different angle of my torso relative to my hips, hips relative to knees, etc.

Joint angles matter, hence alignment matters!

However, alignment matters well beyond solely determining which muscles you are targeting for strength.

Alignment affects the following capacities, too:

  • Proprioception – how your body senses your position (which guides your ability to perceive it and make specific movement choices.)
  • Mobility – which tissues are targeted for stretch.
  • Coordination – how you position your body in space determines how all your muscles work together in a pattern of support or movement. The specific coordination you practice most is the one your body will know best.
  • Variability – by changing your alignment (especially away from your habit or default alignment) you can load your body in novel ways and feed it new load input. This new load input will potentially change how your body adapts (or changes) in response to those loads.
  • Pain avoidance or relief – sometimes changing alignment can help to reduce any pain experiences you might be having in a particular posture or movement. Finding an alignment that doesn’t cause pain—or even better, one that helps you feel good in a particular position!—is an especially important reason alignment matters.

Alignment is one tool among many that we have to work with in our toolkit as teachers. It matters. But it’s important to realize and remember that there is no universally safe or correct alignment for everyone. And typically, when that is what is being communicated—that there is one right way to align—the goal is probably aesthetics in disguise. When this is the case, as students, we should ask ourselves if aesthetics is our top priority for our movement practice. If it’s not, then we should instead investigate the implications of different alignment choices when seeking to facilitate the actual goals that we (or our students) might have, whether they are about strength, mobility, skill-development, or pain relief. We can explore alignment beyond aesthetics, and in doing so, alignment might become a far more transformative and useful tool in our toolkit!

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laurelbeversdorf

Initial gains in strength in split lunge likely in Initial gains in strength in split lunge likely involve improvements in balance and coordination.Improvements in balance and coordination are not only outcomes of getting stronger, they are strategies for getting stronger.Since strength is specific, how we strengthen matters for what kind of strength we build.It makes sense we’d want to practice the shape that’s gonna be the most optimal to load (depending on our goal) because that shape then supports increasing load over time.Floppy lunge might be okay in Vinyasa flow, but it’s not balanced or coordinated for heavy weights.When we focus first on form and tension within that form, we make progress in our strength sooner. We build a strong foundation to load later.This does not mean our body position needs to be *perfect* before we load it—what does that even mean?In fact our body position likely won’t be the same (and shouldn’t be) in bodyweight versus loaded positions, just like we don’t look the same when we jog versus sprint.Form checks, like where the back knee goes in a yoga versus split lunge and proprioceptive cues to find more global tension can simply be a good way to prepare before loading.Try these 3 tips to de-floppify your split lunge.1️⃣ perch one tush on a stool and line your back knee up somewhere under its hip. Lift off, hold, then step forward and backward. Aim your butt to the seat, and your knee under your hip.2️⃣ squeeze a bolster to generate global tension and balance your trunk better between your feet.3️⃣ add a heavier thing to squeeze like a med ball.If all goes well, in time, add back that kettlebell! And then another. 😉 💪Pssst! I’ve created a new program.It’s called Kettlebell Progressive Program: Strength, Power, Plyometrics. 15 weeks, 3 training blocks.Classes + recordings start Aug. 16.This is one of many strength & conditioning programs, 100s of yoga, yoga with bands, self-massage, and somatics practices.Right now I’m running a discount on annual membership. Pay $360/year—all access. Offer ends 9/14. I won’t be offering an annual membership discount again in 2022.Link in bio 👀
Listen to the latest episode on the Movement Logic Listen to the latest episode on the Movement Logic Podcast about the best (not body-building!) exercises for strength, delivered to you by yours truly, Laurel, a non-bruh yoga teacher and strength coach.Short on time? Here are the 5 tips I name for *how to think about* strength exercises when making your choices:#1 — train movements not muscles, namely the squat/lunge, hinge, upper body push & upper body pull.#2 — decide how many exercises you can do in a session. Be realistic about how much time it takes for the sets (and rest in between). Typically for me, realistically, 1 set takes about about 3-4 minutes on average.#3 — based on your answer for #2, prioritize selecting multi-joint exercises over single joint exercises because they train more muscle mass and are a better use of your time (especially if time is limited.)#4 — train full body and hit all the “macronutrients for strength” (those movement categories I named in tip #1) rather than doing a split routine like leg day, back and chest day, biceps and triceps day. Split routines are a body-building thing, ya know? The benefit of full body is every session you train strength in the major movements and because of that, every week, you’ll hit those movements more frequently (every workout) which is key for building strength if you don’t have 4-5 days a week to workout.#5 — order your exercises strategically so that it’s logical in terms of the exercise demands, but also so you’re putting your individual strength priorities first (sorta like triage.)Listen to the whole episode via the link in my bio. 👀
Constraints are cues you give yourself.Constrain Constraints are cues you give yourself.Constrain a joint’s movement to move from another joint more. This is a key that unlocks deep understanding for movement in yoga, but also strength training! 🔑 🧠 💡Temporarily working with an incline (or negative heel) can make squatty deadlifts more hip hingey. This can help you work and feel more hip and hamstring effort (and less quad effort.)But let’s remember that a deadlift can work all of these muscle groups including the quads and it’s not wrong to have a squatty deadlift.After all, the deadlift is only an abstract concept like a yoga pose.You can’t hug a deadlift.Meanwhile, your body is not abstract. It’s huggable.There are many ways to deadlift depending on what you want your body to experience and what change you want to make. The deadlift can help depending on how you apply the concept. Squatty and hingey will each give you different results.Lots of yoga people want to strengthen their glutes and hamstrings. They want to feel those groups working more for strength.Here I’m showing how you can bias more hips and less knees by limiting ankle dorsiflexion and (then also) knee flexion. This constraint create more opportunity for your glutes and hammies.Try it and feel it in your body (booty!) 🍑Pssst! I’ve created a new program in my Virtual Studio. It’s called Kettlebell Progressive Program: Strength, Power, Plyometrics. Classes + recordings start Aug. 16.This fresh program is one of many programs and 100s of yoga, yoga with bands, self-massage, and somatics-based practices.Right now I’m running a discount on annual membership to my Virtual Studio. Pay $360/year (or $1 day) for all access. This offer ends Sep. 14 and I won’t be offering a discount on annual membership again this year.Link in bio 👀
Sort of funny sounding but one of the ways I pract Sort of funny sounding but one of the ways I practice self-care is that every year I get the interior of my car detailed.The person comes to my house and cleans every little nook and cranny inside my car. It is 100% worth the cost.As the mother of a toddler, this service creates significant, happiness-making enhancement to the interior look, smell, and feel of my car. It is absolutely wonderful.This year, before getting our car detailed Eli and I also cleaned the outside of the car together.It was easy—dish soap—effective, and also satisfying.I highly recommend this activity as a way to get your young children to work! 💪
In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m j In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m joined by my friend and colleague @TrinaAltman. Together, we discuss Trina’s experience with perimenopause. Trina shares her personal story along with tons of resources for women going through this change of life.
—What is perimenopause?—Doctors have a tendency to minimize women’s suffering—Brain fog and hot flashes—Challenges women face when navigating the medical system—Finding a doctor that spends more time with you AND is evidence-based AND is current on the research—The Women’s Health Initiative and fear they created (through highly questionable handling and interpretation of the data) around estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).—Weight gain and perimenopause—Scope appropriate advice for movement teachers working with perimenopausal and menopausal students
TRINA’S BIO:Trina received her training through STOTT Pilates® and is an E-RYT 500. She created Yoga Deconstructed® and Pilates Deconstructed® to show teachers how to take an interdisciplinary approach to foster an embodied understanding of yoga and Pilates in relation to modern movement science.Link in bio to listen and subscribe to Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held 👀
In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m j In Episode 8 of the Movement Logic podcast I’m joined by my friend and colleague @TrinaAltman. Together, we discuss Trina’s experience with perimenopause.Trina shares her personal story along with tons of resources for women going through this change of life. We discuss:
—What is perimenopause?—Doctors have a tendency to minimize women’s suffering—Brain fog and hot flashes—Challenges women face when navigating the medical system—Finding a doctor that spends more time with you AND is evidence-based AND is current on the research—The Women’s Health Initiative and fear they created (through highly questionable handling and interpretation of the data) around estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).—Weight gain and perimenopause—Scope appropriate advice for movement teachers working with perimenopausal and menopausal students
TRINA’S BIO:Trina received her training through STOTT Pilates® and is an E-RYT 500. She created Yoga Deconstructed® and Pilates Deconstructed® to show teachers how to take an interdisciplinary approach to foster an embodied understanding of yoga and Pilates in relation to modern movement science.Link in bio to listen and subscribe to Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held 👀
I started hurting while practicing yoga asana. I r I started hurting while practicing yoga asana. I realize now, my hurty joints weren't necessarily *from* practicing yoga asana.They were from *not practicing anything else.*After many years of practice, I no longer even broke a sweat during pretty strong Vinyasa flow classes. I’d plateaued in strength. I wasn't loading my body in a wide enough variety of ways. I wasn’t externally loading it. I wasn't doing any pulling, only pushing.The flip side of my issue with overload was my issue of under load. Overload and under load are two sides of the pain coin.Today, I'm practicing the asanas without pain. I didn't have to stop practicing. Instead, I started regularly lifting weights and incorporating resistance bands and weights into my practice.I added movement. I didn't subtract it.When we have pain, of course we want it to go away. To achieve this, we stop doing the things we think cause it. It makes total sense! The thing is, while often necessary in the short-term, this is rarely a long-term solution.The activity we put on pause is often not the root issue. Our body’s capacity to handle the loads of the activity is.And, unlike hobbies, sometimes it's not possible to put something on pause. If I suspect driving my car is causing me pain, I still have to drive to work. If carrying my toddler is causing me pain, I'm probably going to keep carrying my toddler.Instead of eliminating the activity that's causing pain, we can make our bodies more capable of managing the loads of that activity by adding loads that we’re missing progressively over time.Adding resistance bands and weight not only increases the magnitude of load my body is capable of managing, but also how I load my body in the poses—variability!Adding external load changes the practice for sure. You can also have a complimentary practice and that can also be your practice.
This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWI This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWIPE 👈) is called Gentle Hip Unwind.The lumbopelvic region is an “intersection” of our body where our low back & pelvis negotiate, coordinate, initiate, and control movement of our spine and lower extremities (ya know, so only about most of our whole body.)The lumbopelvic region is Grand Central Station for movement and load management!Since it’s such an important and often sore area of our body, sometimes it’s good to gently explore “unwinding”
it.There are many ways to go about unwinding this area. This series of short, sped up videos, shows parts of a progressive sequence I taught Tue.I note the general body position in each video (seated, crab, supine, standing). This is akin to “chapters”.The chapters are basic body positions and within them, I bring in and develop key movement relationships + points of awareness.My sequences often go from the ground to standing, but they often deviate too, like starting standing and moving to the ground. It depends. What’s often the case is an element of repetition of the same or similar movement relationships in each stage.If the body positions are like chapters, the movement relationships and repeat points of focus are like dialogue between characters.Because this sequence is relatively passive, I refer to it as ‘gentle.’ You could certainly make this sequence more active by changing some things, and that wouldn’t necessarily make the sequence whatever the opposite of gentle is. ( ;The word gentle is a shared language within communities that practice yoga, and people tend to associate it with more passive or “mellow” work that isn’t just static but mixes dynamic and static work.What do you think of when you think of a “Gentle” practice?If you’d like to try membership to my Virtual Studio, you can pay for one month all-access (sign up and cancel) or recurring subscription (sign up and stay.) $40/mo link in bio 👀
Remember when everyone was so 😱 about people me Remember when everyone was so 😱 about people memeing themselves.That was always confusing to me.Some folks hate the public intimacy of social media. I get it. It’s weird.But  a lot of folks also want to share what they really think on social, but are afraid to, and then get resentful when someone else does it. Hence the “can you believe so-and-so memed themself?”Fear is no fun at all.I’m glad I live in a bubble where I can pop off about shit (AKA meme myself) without too much second guessing.Here I go again!#RepostAs movement teachers, when we suggest certain movements and positions (that human bodies do) are bad, wrong, dangerous, or just less than, we perpetuate fear of movement, or this idea some ways of being in our bodies or not acceptable.Our words are powerful. We are highly influential. When students hear us imply certain positions or movements (things bodies can do/are built to do) are “less than” part of what we communicate is “don’t go there.” “Don’t learn about this part of yourself. Don’t explore it. It’s not safe in your body in this place. And, you need me (the teacher) to help you find the good places and avoid the bad places.”This fosters fear and dependence in our students, not curiosity and agency.The most effective teachers make themselves obsolete. They don’t TEACH students *what* to think, they MODEL for students *how* to think, which means they share their process, doubt, and uncertainty.Instead of pitting movements against each other we can imply BOTH have value and then organize learning the difference between.What if we created space for inquiry for students to explore befriending all of themselves? What if we fostered inquiry around those ways that feel better, worse, more/less interesting, more/less useful and asked students to decide?This is, I feel, movement optimism. It’s fostering inquiry, curiosity, courage, and playfulness in learning about how our bodies move, in addition to fostering acceptance of our bodies and other bodies’ existence, value, and right to be here. It’s teaching choices rather than teaching right v wrong, good v bad.That’s religion.I’d rather learn to move.
Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast i Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast is up! In this solo episode, @sarahcourtdpt tackles the tricky subject of pain, and whether it’s always bad if our clients and students have pain. She discusses the situations in which pain might be acceptable, and gives concrete tools and approaches for you to use with your clients who are having pain.
➡️What’s the difference between acute and chronic pain?➡️When might it be ok - and when would it not be ok - for your students to have pain?➡️How to avoid generating fear for your students around their pain experience➡️How much pain would be acceptable for someone to have?➡️How to tease out different sensations to help your client have greater discernment around what they’re feeling in their body🔗Click the link in bio to watch the episode on our website, or listen and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts!#yogaclassesonline #onlineyogaclasses #mobilityclasses #bodynerd #yogatherapy #movementtherapy #liveonlineyoga #practiceyoga #movementlogic #pilatesinstructor #yogateacherconed #yogateacher #painrelief #movementteacher #physicaltherapist #strengthcoach #mobilitycoach #worksmarternotharder #movementlogicpodcast #laurelbeversdorf #sarahcourt
Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast i Episode 7 of the @movementlogictutorials podcast is up! In this solo episode, @sarahcourtdpt tackles the tricky subject of pain, and whether it’s always bad if our clients and students have pain. She discusses the situations in which pain might be acceptable, and gives concrete tools and approaches for you to use with your clients who are having pain.
➡️What’s the difference between acute and chronic pain?➡️When might it be ok - and when would it not be ok - for your students to have pain?➡️How to avoid generating fear for your students around their pain experience➡️How much pain would be acceptable for someone to have?➡️How to tease out different sensations to help your client have greater discernment around what they’re feeling in their body🔗Click the link in bio to watch the episode on our website, or listen and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts!#yogaclassesonline #onlineyogaclasses #mobilityclasses #bodynerd #yogatherapy #movementtherapy #liveonlineyoga #practiceyoga #movementlogic #pilatesinstructor #yogateacherconed #yogateacher #painrelief #movementteacher #physicaltherapist #strengthcoach #mobilitycoach #worksmarternotharder #movementlogicpodcast #laurelbeversdorf #sarahcourt
Hey, when @sarahcourtdpt tags you and tells you to Hey, when @sarahcourtdpt tags you and tells you to show her your kaftan because @yogawalla told her to show her HER kaftan, you do your best. You find your best kaftan and if you don’t have one, you find your best almost-a-kaftan, and you find a good wall, and you try to match the vibe.I nominate @caitlincasella @greatoakcircle and @nychristiane#movementlogic #showmeyourmumu #showmeyourhousedress #showmeyourkaftan
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