whygetfat on Nostr: Dr. Alexis Cowan: "I think the yogis is one that maybe would surprise people. I think ...
Dr. Alexis Cowan: "I think the yogis is one that maybe would surprise people. I think people tend to think that more flexibility is good, but maybe you can just dispel that myth, here and now."
Aleena Kanner: "Yeah, that's a big one. So more flexibility is not good. I always feel like I can talk about this because I was a gymnast growing up. I stretched my whole life. I feel like this is something I'm allowed to talk about and I'm allowed to be ruthless.
"The more you stretch, the more your brain will shut off the signals to those areas. For example, if you can do what we call a forward fold, if you can easily go down and touch your toes and you can easily palm the floor, your hamstring tissue should signal to your brain, 'Hey, like stop! You have an end range here!' Because hamstrings are going to provide integrity to the pelvis. When that is compromised or overstretched, there's no end range. Your brain is not getting the signal, like there's a pull in the back of your leg to stop you from going so far forward.
"And what we see with yogis is that they've just lost all sense of a lot of areas, most areas of their body. There's a lot of ligament laxity, the muscle belly is just overstretched, and it's because they do (in modern day yoga, I'm not talking about yoga from 5,000 years ago, that's a different conversation), modern day, they're doing a lot of different types of exercises in one class, there's a billion different exercises, and then they're just holding different positions for a long static period of time.
"You are essentially telling the brain to decrease the connection to that area. So we're not going to have hamstrings that support the pelvis, we're not going to have hamstrings that know when end range is (and I'm just giving hamstrings as example—we see it in the shoulders, we see it in the neck, big time), and we call that pathology. That pathology, certain people with a lot of extreme pathology on a body that is patterned in extension, for example, their rib cage is very, very lifted up, but they can go down and touch their toes. That doesn't really add up; it should not add up.
"When I see that in somebody, those are the people that a lot of times do need dental and vision, because their body sense is lost. So we have to give them sense from their external environment, essentially."
Aleena Kanner, postural restoration provider and certified athletic trainer, with Dr. Alexis Cowan @ 23:23–25:29 https://youtu.be/ZSaRFltisYY&t=1403
Aleena Kanner: "Yeah, that's a big one. So more flexibility is not good. I always feel like I can talk about this because I was a gymnast growing up. I stretched my whole life. I feel like this is something I'm allowed to talk about and I'm allowed to be ruthless.
"The more you stretch, the more your brain will shut off the signals to those areas. For example, if you can do what we call a forward fold, if you can easily go down and touch your toes and you can easily palm the floor, your hamstring tissue should signal to your brain, 'Hey, like stop! You have an end range here!' Because hamstrings are going to provide integrity to the pelvis. When that is compromised or overstretched, there's no end range. Your brain is not getting the signal, like there's a pull in the back of your leg to stop you from going so far forward.
"And what we see with yogis is that they've just lost all sense of a lot of areas, most areas of their body. There's a lot of ligament laxity, the muscle belly is just overstretched, and it's because they do (in modern day yoga, I'm not talking about yoga from 5,000 years ago, that's a different conversation), modern day, they're doing a lot of different types of exercises in one class, there's a billion different exercises, and then they're just holding different positions for a long static period of time.
"You are essentially telling the brain to decrease the connection to that area. So we're not going to have hamstrings that support the pelvis, we're not going to have hamstrings that know when end range is (and I'm just giving hamstrings as example—we see it in the shoulders, we see it in the neck, big time), and we call that pathology. That pathology, certain people with a lot of extreme pathology on a body that is patterned in extension, for example, their rib cage is very, very lifted up, but they can go down and touch their toes. That doesn't really add up; it should not add up.
"When I see that in somebody, those are the people that a lot of times do need dental and vision, because their body sense is lost. So we have to give them sense from their external environment, essentially."
Aleena Kanner, postural restoration provider and certified athletic trainer, with Dr. Alexis Cowan @ 23:23–25:29 https://youtu.be/ZSaRFltisYY&t=1403