Yoga for Hips and Thighs:

Muscles and Bones

We're about to take a journey through bones, flesh, and skin in order to explore what it means to have fully open groins and how such a condition is related to upright posture. We'll note how humans have lost the naturally open state of the groins and how we pay for this loss. Finally, we'll see how the Frog Pose series can help to restore our natural state. But before we begin, we need some general background information from anatomy and kinesiology.

It's important to realize that using words to describe the body can never substitute for the direct experience of the body itself. But being able to visualize the muscles, bones, and organ systems helps elevate the body's natural wisdom to a conscious level, allowing its intelligence to grow and evolve. And because Hatha Yoga involves an investigation of the voluntary nervous system, some knowledge of the role of muscles and bones is also useful in giving direction to our practice.

Bones provide the structural support for the body and all its organ systems. The bones' cells, the living part of the bones, make up only 20 percent of the tissue. The bulk of the bone tissue, the supporting matrix, is composed of two quite different materials: collagen and apatite. Collagen is a long-chain protein that forms into fibers lying side by side in many layers that wind in a double helix, or spiral, around a central axis. Fitting snugly between these fibrous bands are crystals of apatite, a mineral composed mostly of calcium phosphate. The bone cells, or osteocytes, are in turn embedded in the layers of the structural matrix.

The bones, being interior to the muscles, can be called the "center" of voluntary consciousness. As such, they play a crucial role in postural integrity. When the bones properly carry the weight of the body, the soft tissues are free of unnecessary stress, and the bones are then said to be "grounded."

Muscles are energy-converters, transforming the chemical energy of phosphate bonds into the mechanical energy of movement. It's obvious that muscles move the body and help to stabilize the bones. Not so obvious, but just as important, is the role muscles play in moving fluids throughout the body--for example, blood and lymph. Indeed, the skeletal muscles, through the "pumping" action produced by their contraction and release, are a key component of the circulatory system. Mastery of yoga asanas results not only in correct postural placement of the bones, but also in the proper circulatory action of the muscles.

In kinesiology, the science of movement, integration of muscle and bone function illustrates an important principle known as joint congruence. According to this principle, a joint is maximally stable when the center of one bone of the joint is exactly in line with the center of the other bone. When bones are thus "centered," the nervous system perceives stability and allows the muscles to release all unnecessary tension in the region of the joint. Then the muscles can move the bones and bodily fluids with maximum efficiency.

A deeper look at the relationship between muscle and bone reveals how muscles organize themselves in order to move both bones and fluids. Since we're investigating the groins, we can look at the thigh and pelvis to highlight some of the important principles of muscle and bone movement.

Kinesiology tells us that bone movements occur in comple toward or away from the pelvis (flexion and extension); (2) move toward or away from the midline of the body (adduction and abduction); or (3) rotate toward or away from the midline of the body (internal and external rotation).

Interestingly enough, individual muscles also, come in pairs of opposites: flexors and extensors, abductors and adductors, internal and external rotators. Each muscle pair, known as an agonist and antagonist pair, is neurologically connected through the spinal column. Through a process known as reciprocal inhibition, these pairs communicate with each other in a way that allows bodily movements to occur without conflict. For example, when the flexor muscles at a joint are activated, the extensors at that joint are inhibited, and vice versa. Reciprocal inhibition is a key concept in understanding the role of the muscles in the practice of asanas.

To create harmonious movement, individual muscles are organized into larger groups that can produce continuous coordinated action. Because all movements of the bones have both rotational and linear components, the larger muscular patterns are circular or spiral.

The elegance of spiral motion can be seen in dance, skating, gymnastics, the martial arts, and various other forms of movement. What's fascinating about natural posture is that even non-movement, or postural stillness, involves the spiral pattern: The muscle fibers themselves follow opposing pairs of spirals that hold the bones in a grounded state of dynamic stillness, and the fluids of the body move along these spiral pathways. Each muscle in the body rapidly and alternately fires and relaxes as the nervous system oscillates between the agonist-antagonist pairs. As each muscle alternately contracts and relaxes, it creates a vibratory or pumping action that maintains a continuous spiraling circulation of the fluids.

Thus the spiral pattern recurs throughout the human body. (Remember its presence in the bone structure.) In fact, this pattern, which also appears on the caduceus, or "staff of Mercury" symbolic of the medical profession, is even present at the cellular level of the body, as the basic form of the DNA molecule. In Hatha Yoga, the double spiral is the symbol of the kundalini, or "serpent power," the latent spiritual energy said to be "coiled" at the base of the spine, in the region of the groins. Our investigation of the groins, then, can be seen as a search for the many spirals we have buried under counter productive habits of posture and thought.
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Next: Structure of the Groin

See also:
~ Awakening the Intelligence of the Body
~ A Practice for Hips and Thighs

Back to:
~ Introduction