5 Fundamental Movements of the Body

In a yoga class there are many complex and interesting postures to put the body in. They challenge our strength, flexibility, balance, concentration and coordination. It is easy to get lost in fascination with this complexity and lose track of the simplest, most fundamental things our body should be able to do: squatting; sitting up and its opposite; pushing up with the arms; and pulling up.

SQUATTING
​Aside from walking, squatting down is one of the simplest and most valuable movements of the body. It involves bending the knees and hips and lowering the butt toward the floor, then reversing all of that and standing back up. 

In the version pictured to the right, the heels are off the ground, but the squatting motion can also be done to great effect with the heels down. It is also worth keeping in mind that the knees and hips don't have to bend ALL THE WAY to get benefit. For older, injured or beginning practitioners, squatting down a little bit is useful.

One way to squat, bending the knees and hips, lowering the body toward the floor before standing back up.

A version of a sit-up. Be sure to pull the ribs toward the pelvis.

SIT-UP & BACK SIT-UP (COBRA)
Because it is the central structure of our bodies, the spine needs to be healthy and supported. The two main groups of muscles that do this are the abdominal muscles in the front and the spinal erectors in the back. The abs bend the spine forward and the erectors bend the spine backward.

We strengthen the abdominal muscles by doing a "sit-up" motion with the ribs pulling down toward the pelvis. Doing sit-ups with a straight back isn't nearly as beneficial for the abdominal muscles.

The opposite of a sit-up is also important. You may call it a back sit-up, back extension or Cobra Posture as it is often named in yoga (pictured at the top of this article). Either way, it involves lying on your abdomen and using your back muscles to bend your spine backward. The combination of these two motions---sit-up and back sit-up (cobra)---will strengthen and stabilize the spine.

PUSH-UP & PULL-UP
​The shoulders and arms are more versatile than the legs, with greater range of motion and coordination. They are capable of two drastically different actions, namely pushing and pulling. We should do both to maintain the function of our upper extremities.

​Push-Ups are simple to do and a version of them is done in many yoga classes. You put weight into the arms, then bend the elbows and shoulders to lower the chest toward the floor. Then straighten the arms to push the body back up. If it is impossible to do it with the legs straight and the knees off the floor, simply bend the knees and place them on the floor. This will still build strength.

Last but not least is an important movement that is impossible to do in yoga class. A pull-up requires a bar from which to hang. By holding onto the bar and lifting our bodies' weight, we train the opposite muscles in the shoulders and arms from a push-up. This balances the function of the shoulders, chest and even neck.

The top of a push-up.

Pull-up

These are 5 simple and important movements that every healthy body should be able to do to some degree. If we lose our ability to do these basic movements but still cultivate more complex ones, we are increasingly likely to develop imbalance and injury. Since the physical practices of yoga are about balancing the body more than anything else, it is always worth visiting and revisiting these movements. Without a balanced body, a balanced mind is almost impossible.