I have to admit….I am having problems with backbends. One of them is the Camel Pose.
(Photo courtesy of Yoga Journal - www.yogajournal.com)
I have no problems with forward bends — standing, seated, whatever — as long as it is forward. Give them to me any time! But let me do the Camel or the Pigeon pose and my back just won’t arch!
I looked it up in the Yoga Journal site and one explanation for this difficulty stems from years of doing activities that require one to go forward (picking up stuff, bending down, picking up children, sitting in front of a computer, and so on). Yes, that’s been my life all these years!
But can you think of any activity that requires you to bend BACKWARDS? Uhhhh…unless you do household chores that way, NONE.
Too bad, really, because from what I have read up on, the Camel pose has a lot of benefits. It stretches your entire front (the chest, stomach, hips and thighs). It creates space in the abdomen and chest, which is good for digestion and easier breathing. Also, the Yoga Journal article goes on to state that by yogic tradition, backbends open the heart chakra, one of 7 chakras, which happens to represent LOVE.
At class today, Pio made us do the Camel, which we had not done in quite a while. As I bent backwards, I knew making it all the way to my upturned soles was going to be tough. So if you have the same problem as me, do what I did — I dug my toes into the floor and raised my ankles, making it easier to reach my feet with my hands.
Camel is a back strengthening pose, along with other poses like Locust, the Bow, Cobra and Upward Facing Dog. Needless to say, backbend asanas are the ones I have difficulty with and it means I need more work to strengthen my back. Being hunched over my desk for years in the past and doing the same thing now that I work again is really bad for my back! So I am glad that Pio made us do this asana today. It led me to do more research on the Camel pose and backbends, leading to this post.
Do you also need to strengthen your back to do backbends more easily? Here are some videos I found that could help:
VideoJug: Yoga: Backbends – Part 1
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