4 Ways To Prepare Your Body For Pigeon Pose
Lately a lot of my physical yoga practice has been focused on working on areas of the body that feel tight, restricted or weak. I’ve been working a lot with poses that help with strength and make space in the hips. I think we’re a nation of sitters, and even more so during lockdown, we sit a lot and this isn’t great for our hip strength!
So why do I like working with variations of pigeon pose? While I do enjoy the more standard version of the pose I am interested in building hip flexibility and strength and I find that these variations give my body a bit more variety and chance to get better at the parts of the pose that feel hard. When I find a pose hard i like to deconstruct it, figure out which bit is hard and then practice that thing in different ways.
It’s a pose that requires quite a bit of external rotation in the front hip and extension in the back hip so some of the poses I’m suggesting are focusing on getting strong in that position. If like me you find external rotation tricky in your hips you might enjoy trying some of these active stretches to help improve your hip strength which will give you greater flexibility.
You could try these poses as a way to prepare for pigeon pose or you could do them on their own as an alternative to pigeon.
‘Figure 4’ stretch. Firmly press the left knee away from you and flex the left foot. This should require a bit of effort so if it feels easy engage that leg a bit more.
Keep the left leg where it is and straighten the right leg on the floor. This is a very active version of pigeon. Stay here for a few breaths and focus on keeping that same shape with the left leg as you had in your figure 4 pose.
90/90 lunge. Do a low lunge with both legs in 90 degrees. Draw your tail bone down to the floor and push your left shin in to the floor.
90/90 pigeon. Bring a bend into both knees and keep your spine long. Option to fold over the front leg.
Do you want to learn more about your hips? How to tailor your practice to suit your unique anatomy? Join me for Happy Hips a workshop I am teaching on 15th August 10am - 12 noon. If you can’t make it on the day let me know and I will send you a recording. Book your space today.