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Something’s going on with the hip flexors. What, exactly? I have no idea. It all started when I read something I’m sure I’ve read before, and did something I’m sure I’ve done before — but finally it all came together and the sum yielded more than the parts. In other words, I moved the stress of urdhva dhanurasana to the right part of my hamstrings. Specifically, I finally keyed in on the semimembranosus and the semitendinosus. I’m a geek, I know: my body doesn’t work until I figure out what muscle to move, how to spell it, where it’s located, and how it functions in relation to the other muscles.

The rocking part about the semimembranosus and semitendinosus, though, is that they help rotate the knee in, whereas using the butt and biceps femoris to push into the pose makes your knees splay out.

I blame all of this inclination to use the biceps femoris on decades of weight-lifting. Of course you can’t totally isolate muscles, so it’s not like I only used the biceps femoris (to the exclusion of the semimembranosus and semitendinosus) for all those years, but if you think about doing, say, a prone hamstring curl, it’s easy to see that you can spend the bulk of your time working the belly of the muscle. And that’s the whole point, really, from a bodybuilding perspective — because you want to focus on the bigger muscles, not the smaller, in order to get more bang for the buck. Weightlifting machines tend to isolate specific muscles, which is why I always tried to default to free-weight exercises that required supporting muscles to kick in, but even as I think back to stiff-legged deadlifts, I know I tended to toe out a little, which is very effective for pushing all of the stress into the biceps femoris.

Okay, enough of the nerdiness. Suffice it to say that if you move the stress of urdhva d from the hamstring belly to the inner heads of the hamstring, you get a hell of a lot more lift.

We had a visitor the past couple of days at Mysore practice: Suzie Columbus, of the ezBoard, came and practiced with us. It is such a trip to practice with online people. She won’t be here over the weekend, which is a drag, ’cause it would have been great to go out for lunch after led practice on Saturday. Maybe next time.

Meanwhile, back on ezBoard, I’ve been asking about peoples’ experiences with the 6 day practice. I guess I am harkening back to my gym days, because I have been wondering about the physical effects of the same practice six days in a row, week after week. I know it brings “progress” (i.e., “getting” poses), and I know it has a very calming effect on the mind. But I am curious about its specific effects on the body. Vanessa said: “by practicing before ingesting food, and practicing daily, the muscles stay small-ish (I think it is due to a process called gluconeogenesis, but I hesitate to write more because I really am not an expert) and the body fat stays low.” I think this is a really interesting idea. I’ve always done practices where the idea is to break down the muscle with intense practice, then rest it so it can rebuild and be stronger. Vanessa’s theory posits a whole different purpose for the physical practice.

Just something I’ve been thinking about. Jason S also had some interesting things to say on the subject. I’m happy to see him back on ezBoard.