Hi My name is Anita Vasudevan and I'm a 4th year medical student here at the University
of Michigan.
I'm also a certified yoga instructor when I was a 1st year student studying musculoskeletal
anatomy I found that using yoga was an intuitive and practical way to engage with the material.
This video series is based on that concept and I hope that you'll find this as engaging
and fun as I did to study.
The whole thing is based around the basic biomechanic concept that as muscles shorten
or concentrically contract they enact movement over a joint.
For example let's take a look at the biceps muscle.
You can go ahead and place your left hand on your right biceps and you'll notice that
as the muscle flexes and gets shorter we have flexion of the forearm at the elbow.
We will also use our skeleton friend and a scarf to depict the same concept placing the
scarf across the attachments of the muscles for example the biceps- as the scarf shortens
showing concentric contraction of the biceps there is flexion of the forearm at the elbow.
I recommend watching these videos in a place where you have room to move wearing comfortable
clothes and getting out a yoga mat if you have one.
I also suggest watching these videos in order since the content continues to build on itself.
As we move through more muscle groups we will continually review material from previous
videos as it relates.
Before we begin let's do a quick review of the basic movements of joints at the lower
and upper extremity that we talk about in these videos.
So let's start at the hip.
The hip is a ball of socket joint and it's responsible for 7 different movements.
So the 1st major movement of the hip is flexion.
This is flexion of the thigh at the hip.
Next is extension coming back to anatomical position and then extending the thigh at the
hip.
Coming back to neutral... abduction with a b. is where the thigh moves away from midline.
Adduction is where the thigh moves back towards midline at the hip.
And finally we have lateral rotation where we have the hip joint turning out.
So this is a rotation of the entire leg at the hip and then we have medial rotation where
the hip rotates inward and as you can see my toes and knees are now pointing towards
midline.
Finally we have circumduction where the hip moves in a circle.
Next we have the knee joint which is a hinge joint.
Hinge joints primarily only have 2 different movements.
At the knee that looks like flexion of the leg at the knee and as you can see my hip
is still steady so the flexion is moving only the lower leg and then we have extension of
the leg at the knee.
And most people's knees come to about 180 degrees not usually past that and so when
we're standing our lower leg is already extended at the knee.
Moving down to the ankle or the talocrural joint we also have a hinge joint.
Here we have dorsiflexion where the toes point in towards the body and then we have plantarflexion
where the toes point down towards the ground you can remember that plantarflexion is like
planting your toes on the ground.
Moving from the lower extremity up to the upper extremity a lot of the joints are analogous.
So at the shoulder we have a ball and socket joint much like the hip.
We can have flexion of the arm at the shoulder.
We can have extension of the arm at the shoulder moving back.
Coming back to midline we have abduction moving the arm away from midline.
We have adduction moving the arm back towards midline.
And we have lateral rotation where keeping the elbow close to the body and turning my
shoulder outwards and we have medial rotation where the shoulder turns inward.
Moving from the shoulder down to the elbow the elbow just like the knee is a hinge joint
but it's a modified hinge joint has a little bit more mobility.
So at the elbow we can have flexion of the arm at the elbow or we can have extension
of the arm at the elbow.
Coming down to the wrist we have a condyloid joint.
The wrist is also known as the radoiocarpal joint.
So starting at anatomical position we can have flexion of the wrist, of the hand at
the wrist.
We can have extension of the hand at the wrist.
We can have abduction moving the hand away from midline or adduction moving the hand
in towards midline.
The wrist can also do circumduction where it can move in a full circular movement.
These movements are easy enough to understand when we're talking about them from anatomical
position but what gets a little bit trickier is understanding which movements are happening
at which joints as we go through different daily movements or through different yoga
poses.
So now I'll have you join me in a downward facing dog and we'll get a sense of what it's
like to dissect the different movements of the pose.
So to get into downward- facing dog you can make your way onto your mat or towel or blanket
wherever you are.
And you'll start off in a tabletop pose, shoulders over the wrist, hips over the knees.
Go ahead and check your toes under and then let the hips lift up towards the sky.
As the hips lift up you can really push the ground away from you with the hands really
thinking about pressing down through the finger tips.
To feel the shoulders pulling back and to feel the neck and the head release you'll
let the gaze go down in between the legs.
If you turn your head from side to side the gaze should be underneath the arms.
And from here in downward facing dog we see that we have the wrists in extension.
We have extension of the forearms at the elbow.
We have flexion of the arm at the shoulder.
We have extension of the leg at the knee.
And we have dorsiflexion of the ankles, especially as the heels reach back further towards the
earth.
If you'd like here you can take a nice full, deep inhale feeling the ground press even
further away from you feeling a nice release in your lower back.
And on the exhale you can let the knees drop back down to the ground and let the hips sink
back onto the heels coming back to a seated position.
As we close out this introduction I'd like to emphasize the point that reviewing anatomy
through yoga needs the participants to be really aware of different nuances of movements
in the body.
In order to begin cultivating this awareness I'd like to start with a short guided meditation.
You can find the seated position that's comfortable for you.
And wherever you are you can place your hands on your knees, palms can be facing down towards
the ground if you'd like to ground into the earth a little more.
And with the palms face up to the sky if you'd like to let yourself open up to what's around
you.
You can start off by just closing the eyes.
And paying attention to the different places that your body is in contact with the earth
right now.
Maybe noticing where that the sit bones are grounding.
Noticing where the soles of the feet are resting.
And from here wherever you are touching the ground, starting to draw length.
Feeling the rise of the length of the low back from the hips.
Maybe even lifting the shoulders up to the ears.
Rolling them around back and down a couple times.
Noticing the chest and the shoulders open up.
And when you feel ready you can guide your attention to the breath.
Noticing the flow of the next inhale.
As it comes in through the nose.
Notice it fill up the belly, open up the chest.
And on the exhale had let it out through the mouth feeling that full collapse.
Release of everything you're holding in.
Another really full inhale deep breath in through the nose.
Just watching this journey you don't have to force its length.
Exhale let it go.
Pressing it out through the mouth.
One more time really full inhale in through the nose.
Lengthening letting it nourish the whole body.
Exhale let it go out through the mouth.
Sealing the lips.
Start to breathe exclusively in and out through the nose.
Just letting yourself be aware of the movement of the breath.
Watching each individual cycle.
Maybe counting for the length of the inhale to 4.
Counting the length of the exhale out to 4.
Noticing the very slight movement that happens through the upper body with each breath.
Noticing what comes in and out with each breath.
It's totally natural to have other thoughts occasionally pop in and when this happens
you can notice them, paying attention to their presence.
Maybe watch them float by let them release the same way they came in.
And gently guide your own attention back to the subtle movement, the presence, the cycle
of each breath.
Continuing for as long as you'd like.
And when you feel ready, start to add in a little movement of your own maybe with the
next inhale.
Lengthening even more letting the shoulders pull back and with the exhale letting the
chin tip down towards the chest.
Just a really gentle neck stretch letting the neck roll around to the right side.
Roll it around and back over to the left and back down.
Gently opening the eyes whenever you're ready with the gaze down at the ground.
And when you're ready you can make your way over to the next video.