Practice the 5 movements of the spine to upgrade your flexibility and movement skills

Do you know how to move the spine in all 5 ways its designed to move? (and think of a yoga pose for each?) Scan through the 5 pics below to see! Which ones do you do most regularly?

A well balanced yoga practice provides fantastic opportunity to move the spine in all the 5 ways it is designed to move. This will immediately make you feel more flexible and freer, and, guess what, develop your core strength! Spine moving all the ways = moving your trunk and all the core muscles in all the ways.

Let’s take a look at all 5 movements of the spine and how we apply them effectively in yoga poses.

Please note: if you have any problems or discomfort with your spine, it is best to work one-on-one with an experienced yoga teacher or a physiotherapist. If in doubt, please consult your doctor or a physiotherapist before taking on any of these movements.

1. Axial Extension

Axial extension is lengthening the spine along its axis. It decompresses the spine, makes space for the discs, more length and breathing space in the trunk overall. The spine only lengthens up a little bit, but attempting to create axial extension gives you lots of stretch along the small spinal muscles, throughout all the long back and trunk muscles and through the ribs. It also requires muscular firming in the core, (trunk) and legs. All good stuff.

Practice Tip

Try this: squeeze a yoga block along your inner thighs, and hold another yoga block firmly lengthways in your hands, with straight arms. Then, root through your feet, squeeze your thighs into the block and inhaling, extend your block/arms upwards,  lengthening along the spine and sides of the trunk. Aim to ‘stack’ your ribcage and pelvis- watch out for your front ribs lifting forwards and out as you reach up, as this will arch (extend) your spine, rather than the elongation and decompression we are aiming for. You might need to soften the front ribs down and find some length through your tailbone.

Examples of Axial Extension in Yoga poses:

You can find length from the crown of the head down to the tailbone also in Downward Dog, Plank pose, High and Low Lunge, any posture where the spine is lengthening along its axis, relatively neutral in its S-shaped curves, with the spheres of the head, ribcage and pelvis stacked.  

2. Flexion

Flexion is the movement of rounding the spine, usually dropping the head to chest, hollowing into the chest and belly, which concurrently stretches the back.

Practice Tip

You can flex the spine in a more passive position, like in Child’s pose or a standing forward bend. For more active flexion such as rounding up in Cat pose, pause each time you exhale and firm the front body muscles towards your spine to gradually press the spine up towards the ceiling. 

Examples of spinal flexion in yoga:

Child's pose, Standing Forward Bend + Rolling up and down, seated forward bends, Crow pose ( Bakasana)

3. Extension

Spinal extension is a movement that arches spine, known in yoga as backbend poses. Spinal extension strengthens the whole back body musculature, and creates a sense of space, stretch and broadening across the chest and front of the body. It develops more length and movement in the often less mobile thoracic spine.

Practice Tip

One of the challenges of backbending is to make the spinal extension as even as possible. Different segments of the spine have different extension capacity.

1) Start by practising lengthening and flexing the thoracic and the lumbar spine independently.

2)For a full spinal backbend pose, we need to resist backbending with the lumbar to drive length through the thoracic. Otherwise, the easy-to-extend lumbar spine or lower back can end up doing all the extension work, acting like a hinge point causing compression and discomfort. So it's important to create length and stability (via the effort of a posterior pelvic tilt) in the lumbar before initiating the movement of spinal extension. 

Examples of spinal extension in yoga:

Looking forward portion of Cat-Cow, Locust pose (salabhasana), Cobra pose ( bhujangasana) Camel pose (Ustrasana) , Bridge pose (Setu Bandhasana) Upward Bow/Wheel pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana)

4. Lateral Flexion

Lateral flexion is a movement that bends the trunk sideways to the right or left. It helps to create more length along the side-body, can strengthen the obliques and other trunk muscles, and adds to the overall flexibility of the spine. Lateral flexion also stretches and strengthens all the muscles of the ribcage, intercostal muscles between the ribs, facilitating more expansion space for the lungs supporting deeper breathing. It primes all the muscles to coordinate for core strength. Strong muscles are ones which can lengthen and shorten through a good range of motion.

Practice Tip

As with spinal extension, there is potential to compress the lower back when moving into lateral flexion, because it's easy to sway the hips forward,  slightly lean back and collapse weight into the lumbar spine. Instead, when bending to the side, it’s helpful to centre the hips back over the heels, (or ribcage over pelvis), feel muscular engagement along the front as well as side body and almost feel like a slight forward lean might happen. This can create more length and lift out of the lumbar.

Examples of lateral flexion in yoga:

Standing Side Bend, Gate pose (Parighasana), Low Lunge Side tip, Triangle Pose (Utthita Trikonasana) Revolving Head to Knee pose (Parivrtta Janu Sirsanana).

5. Axial Rotation

Axial rotation is a movement that revolves the spine, called twist poses in yoga. Spinal twists in yoga keep the chains of small muscles along the spine supple and builds good range of motion along the vertebral joints and through the ribcage.

Practice Tip

In twisting postures, The goal is to drive movement to your thoracic spine. Make use of your segmenting practice. Create a sense of length first (not popping the front ribs out or rounding the back). Notice how the different parts of your spine are rotating. Does your neck (which has loads of rotation) lead the way and turn to the max first? Are you in the habit of pulling in your belly and tensing the muscles to try and rotate in the lumbar?  (the unhelpful cue of ‘navel to spine’ can be a culprit here), Or do you tend to flare the ribs up and forwards and put the spine into more extension rather than the axial extension (length) which you need to drive rotation to your ribcage and thoracic spine? Expand your inhale into your back ribs to stretch from the inside, one side more than the other.

Examples of axial rotation in yoga:

Revolving Side Angle Pose (Parivrtta Parsvakonasana), Lunge side turn, Revolved Child’s Pose, Revolved Chair pose, Revolved Triangle, seated twists.

Spinal Movements in Everyday Life

When we move in a yoga practice and in life, of course movement of the spine isn't delineated into only one of these 5 ways, we are shifting into different shapes all the time.

Still, some awareness of what your spine is doing, with an understanding of axial extension, flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation, can improve your control and coordination in movement. It can also increase your core strength. Your core is only as strong as your spine is mobile. Moving the trunk in all the ways gets all the muscles lengthening and contracting!

Also, hopefully this awareness, coupled with awareness of how the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine can move independently, will help you find more balance and evenness in movement of the spine in positions where hinging in one pinchpoint of the spine is likely. Instead, build the control to have your body sharing the load of movement via a strong and flexible trunk (yes, that’s your core!).

The spine is literally central to how well we move and breathe. It provides structure and support, fluidity, grace and versatility of movement. Optimal spinal movement is involved in:

• Supporting good posture

• Relieving and avoiding low back pain, 

• Relieving neck pain, upper back stiffness, discomfort and over-rounding (hyperkyphosis)

• Accessing core strength and engagement 

• Supporting easeful healthy breathing, 

• Allowing fluid movement in everyday activities

  
  If you’d like to work more on your spine as a core foundation for good movement and core strength, sign up to my self-guided 6 week online Yoga for Spine Health & Strong Core course. Register for the waitlist below.

  You’ll be guided through understanding your own current capacity for spinal movement, have progressive moves to practice, and a range of yoga poses to take it further.