"You're probably familiar with the aching feeling of stiff neck muscles. Whether you chalk it up to accumulated stress or hours of leaning forward over your devices, you probably assume your yoga practice is an obvious way to remedy that situation. And it is. But there's a chance you're making your muscles even crankier by falling into some common mistakes related to your neck in your yoga practice."
"Your neck is easily the most mobile part of your spine. But it has a neutral position that it considers home base-namely, your head stacked over the center of your ribcage and pelvis with a slight backbend in your neck. Returning to this as your default posture means the considerable weight of your head is supported, in part, by the structure of your upper body, which creates less work for the muscles of the neck."
Neck tension often stems from common yoga habits that overuse or underuse specific neck actions. The neutral neck aligns the head over the ribcage and pelvis with a slight cervical extension, allowing upper body structure to support head weight and reducing muscular effort. Prolonged forward head posture from screen use shifts perceived neutral, increasing strain when transferred into poses that load the neck, such as Plank and Warrior 3. Subtle corrective cues and increased somatic awareness can rebalance overactive and underactive patterns, preventing further irritation and promoting safer, more sustainable neck mechanics during yoga practice.
Read at Yoga Journal
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]