I recently completed an eight-week yoga program called “The Work-in Workout: Strength Training with a Yogic Twist.” Deftly taught by Leslie Ellis, my longtime yoga teacher, the program deepened my appreciation of yoga, and yoga-like exercises, as a mindful way of building strength. What became clear in the course is that I could become stronger by honoring my natural movement and energy patterns. There was no need to resort to the kind of tightening, gripping, and squeezing actions that I associated with “no pain, no gain” gym workouts.
After the program concluded, I followed up with Leslie in a private lesson to explore further one of the exercises we did: the Warrior II Pop-Up. This exercise is shown in the photo above, except that what the reader can’t see, because the photo is a static shot, is that I’m slightly raising and lowering my pelvis in a piston-like action while keeping my knees relatively stable. (The block on the stool provided a palpable reference point against which I could sense my pelvic lift-off and descent.) Apart from the movement of my pelvis, the Warrior II Pop-Up is the same pose as the standard Warrior II, in which the pelvis is stationary.
Not long after my discussion with Leslie, five principles emerged for me that have deepened my understanding of what makes strength building in yoga different from many standard strength training programs. I wanted to share those principles with other yoga practitioners who are considering ways to gain more strength through their practice. Though I’m going to refer to the Work-in Workout program as a whole, I'll be focusing particular attention on the Warrior II Pop-Up as a mini-case study of how the principles can apply.
I’d note that the essay contains quite a few references to deep core muscles. Although I offer a plain-language description of these muscles and include an appendix showing pictures of them, readers who are familiar with the basic anatomy involved in commonly practiced poses may feel more at home with the essay than those for whom yoga anatomy is a brand new topic.
Less is More
This is the first principle that came to me. It’s one that I’ve long appreciated but never until the Work-in Workout thought to apply to yoga. To indulge in a brief recollection about my background with the principle, I’ll mention that over the course of three decades, I worked on curriculum development projects with talented and dedicated teachers in Oregon’s mid-Willamette Valley, and the maxim of Less is More was one of the conceptual cornerstones of our work. In a nutshell, it meant to us that we wanted to move away from the dominant curriculum pattern in public schools, which was to make a curriculum a mile wide and an inch deep. In this conventional approach, superficial coverage of a large amount of content was prioritized over students’ in-depth learning of fewer but more powerful ideas and skills. We aimed in our work for less content coverage and more student mastery.
While there is no direct parallel between a curriculum and a person’s body, what struck me in the Work-in Workout program is that some standard strength-building regimens emphasize, like the curriculum of a survey course, an exposure to a wide array of exercise machines without necessarily focusing in on a smaller but more workable number of muscle groups that stand in clear relation to everyday functions. Such wide-exposure workouts may also emphasize muscles that are relatively easy to see and feel, like the quads, hamstrings, six-pack abs, and chest muscles at the expense of other, deeper muscles that may play a greater role in stabilizing the body but a lesser role in moving it. Such programs also may encourage doing as many reps of the exercises as is possible without becoming utterly exhausted and to load as much weight onto the exercises as can be endured without injury. I sense that designers of such standard strength-building programs believe that more is more.
In contrast, the Work-in Workout program embodied the Less is More principle. It zeroed in on a more manageable number of muscle groups in any two-week period (the program was organized around four, two-week units each of which concentrated on a central theme) and was designed to foster our awareness of muscles that were essential for everyday functioning, including some that were deep and hidden from view and did not bulk up to prove their strength. We also had options to use or not use light weights when weight bearing was called for and to do the number of reps that we felt appropriately challenged our muscles without straining them.
For example, in the Warrior II Pop-Up, the small act of raising my pelvis about an inch off the block summoned me to engage several muscles deep within my core that might have been neglected in typical fitness programs. I’m going to focus particular attention on these muscles because, beyond the Pop-Up, they seem fundamentally important to good posture, easeful breathing, steady balance, and confident mobility. The three muscles of special interest are:
my pelvic floor muscles, the muscles that form the sinewy basin of the abdominal cavity, support the abdominal organs, like the bladder and bowel, and help to stabilize the pelvis and the spine,
my transversus abdominis, the deepest belly muscle, which wraps around the whole abdominal region, back to front, like an organic blanket and serves to hold the spine in place and steady the pelvis (this muscle co-contracts with the pelvic floor muscles), and
my psoas, which joins the upper body to the lower and consists of long, supple, and draping fibers that reach down from their origins along the lumbar (low-back) spine and the bottom of the thoracic (mid-back) spine, flow along under the abdominal organs, stretch over the hip joint, and insert themselves on the inner thigh bone (the lesser trochanter of the femur).
Please see the appendix for pictures of these muscles.
The importance of these muscles for the Pop-Up became clear to me when I tried to raise my pelvis without moving my knees. It would have been easy to achieve pelvic lift-off by straightening my knees, but that would have defeated the purpose of the Pop-Up, which was to recruit and rely on deep core muscles for power. The relatively nuanced actions I needed to take with these muscles, like hugging in the borders of my pelvic floor and zipping up my transversus abdominis, appeared to me as firm building blocks of greater strength. Lifting my pelvis an inch off the block three or four times in the Pop-Up was a much less dramatic action than lifting a 20 pound dumbbell ten times in a biceps curl, but the Pop-Up action proved to be more interesting and generative for me.
Visualization Helps
For me to benefit fully from the Work-in Workout program, it was necessary to be able to see in my mind’s eye what I was asking my body to do. When I first tried to lift my pelvis off the block in the Pop-Up, for example, nothing seemed to happen; I couldn’t figure out how to move my pelvis without moving my knees. Leslie offered valuable instructional cues, but until I could mentally represent in my own terms the actions needed in my core to bring about the desired end, I struggled.
For this reason, several times I consulted my yoga anatomy books and resources, in addition to the anatomy resources Leslie provided, to become clearer about what it really meant in my body to carry out actions like engaging my pelvic floor and transversus abdominis and releasing and lengthening my psoas. The pictures I included in the appendix, for example, are photos I found as a personal resource to help me do the Pop-Up and experience it with more awareness and fullness.
Metaphoric imagery was particularly helpful to me in developing an understanding of muscular actions. For example, imagining the pelvic floor as a hammock of muscles offered me a simple way to remember what this floor of muscles looked and felt like. Imagining the transversus abdominis as a corset of muscle that wrapped around my belly and closed up in the front also was helpful.
It struck me that at times I benefited from having two or three images for a muscle to represent different aspects, for example, what it looked like compared with how the energy of its contraction felt. As an illustration of this, I found myself envisioning the pelvic floor as a kite that caught the breeze of my exhalation and glided up through the front line of my transversus abdominis, with the zip-like closing of the two sides of this muscle happening in the kite’s wake. It’s not that the kite was a better image than a hammock. It’s just that the kite metaphor allowed me to bring a bit of my own imagination to the visualization and to emphasize that contracting these muscles involved a gentle, breezy lift from the pit of my abdominal cavity to its upper ceiling.
Still is not Static
I’ve often heard people say that yoga is a static form of exercise. Usually when they say this, they are giving a reason why they prefer a more active form of movement, like walking, dancing, or swimming (which I also happen to enjoy).
While it’s undeniable that yoga involves less sustained external movement than the typical alternatives noted, I think it’s misleading to think of yoga as static. When it comes to strengthening in yoga, there is a lot of muscular activity under the surface designed to create a stable structure within the body. To hold the structure requires subtle actions that aren’t apparent to the outside eye but are nonetheless a form of vitality. I prefer to think of strengthening in yoga as still or quiet rather than static.
For example, in the Warrior II Pop-Up, I was building strength in the muscles of my pelvic floor and transversus abdominis to help stabilize my pelvis and lumbar spine. When I engaged my pelvic floor muscles, I focused my attention on drawing my pubis down toward my tailbone and my right and left sit bones closer toward each other. These actions were isometric; my attention was activating a contraction of my muscles, but I wasn’t actually moving my pubis or my sit bones. I was toning the muscles without moving any bones.
In a similar way, when I zipped up the right and left halves of my transversus abdominis, I was firming the abdominal container that this muscle supported without actually moving the container itself. These joining and firming actions were illustrations of hugging in, which I wrote about in a previous essay.
When my muscles awakened and went to work, I felt a spark of energy. I may not have been moving my position in space, but I felt the inner action nonetheless.
Strength and Freedom Are Partners
More than any other fitness or sports program I’ve participated in, yoga in general and the Work-in Workout program in particular have fostered my awareness of the close relationship between strong, stable structures, like the pelvis and the shoulder girdle, and freedom of movement of the legs, arms, spine, head, and other mobile parts of the body. I’ve learned that if I can strengthen the stabilizing muscles, including (but certainly not limited to) the pelvic floor and transversus abdominis, they will support the joints in providing an open, cushioned space and a clear pathway for my limbs and spine to move.
In the Warrior II Pop-Up, I sensed that the relationship between strong stabilizing muscles and freedom of movement was demonstrated most clearly in the relationship between the pelvic floor and transversus abdominis, on the one hand, and the psoas, on the other.
Let me first describe the action of the psoas. I needed to lengthen this muscle on both the right and left sides to realize a pelvic lift-off. If I imagined the psoas as a bridge that spans the space between the upper and lower body, then it seemed to me that I had to lengthen this bridge, that is, increase the space between my lower and upper body, even if only slightly. To realize this objective, I brought attention to where the bottom of both my right and left psoas inserted on my inner thigh bones. With my imagination, I lengthened my psoas down toward my feet and poured the energy this muscle carried into the earth. Nurtured by Earth, I streamed energy back up through my legs and hips and lengthened and widened my psoas on each side from the inner thigh bones up to their origins where the lumbar spine met the thoracic spine. As I carried out these actions, my whole torso seemed to slowly lift–not at all high but enough to grow the distance between the block and my pelvis.
My pelvic floor and transversus abdominis muscles worked to stabilize my pelvis and lumbar spine and keep space open but well supported for my psoas to lengthen. The widely respected yoga teacher and author Doug Keller wrote about the relationship between the psoas and the transverse abdominis with lovely imagery. Keller wrote: “If the psoas is like a river flowing through the core, transverse abdominis forms the sturdy riverbanks.”
I think what Keller was expressing is a simple but effective way to convey the relationship between strong stabilizing structures in the body, like the pelvis, rib cage, and shoulder girdle, and more flowing and mobile parts, including the supple psoas, the gently rising and falling diaphragm that enables breathing, the bending, arching, lengthening, and rotating spine, and the swinging legs and arms. If we strengthen the structures that ground and support our movement, our movement will be freer and easier.
Yoga Parallels Everyday Life
The idea of being curious about ways that my yoga practice might spark new thoughts, feelings, or behaviors in life beyond my yoga mat is certainly not new. This has been a feature of my yoga practice for many years. But the Work-in Workout program has caused me to specifically explore implications of strength building for day-to-day living.
One implication is about the meaning of personal strength, and it flows from the less is more idea. To be stronger, It seems to me, is less about gritting my teeth, overcoming hurdles, and pushing to become a bigger and better version of myself. It’s more about a quieter and less outwardly arduous form of effort, the effort of self-acceptance. For me, it takes a kind of strength to be with my whole self, with my vulnerabilities as well as my strengths, my uncertainties as well as my convictions, and my tenderness as well as my toughness. To let myself truly listen to the sensations, images, and emotions held in my deep belly, the home of my pelvic floor and transversus abdominis, is not so easy. I have to summon a sort of bravery to allow fears and doubts to rise up alongside the positive possibilities of joy, love, and awe. Showing others a more whole self is one step harder than showing up for myself. But the sense of heightened aliveness that can come from conscious physical strengthening can also come from being more fully present with myself and in the world.
A second implication of my strength building experience for my everyday life concerns the rather low regard I hold what I call my life management tasks, like taking care of the various mechanical, electrical, and digital systems in our home, being prudent with personal finances, shopping for groceries, keeping up with car maintenance, attending to daily emails, and the like. In a sense, these mundane tasks constitute the stabilizing structures of daily living and perhaps are loosely analogous to the workings of my pelvic floor and transversus abdominis muscles. I witnessed how important these muscles were in the Pop-Up, but I see that I don’t assign value to my life management tasks in the same way I do to my core muscles. But why not? Life management tasks are centrally significant even if they don’t advance the interests of my ego in securing greater recognition and self-validation.
Another implication of the Work-in Workout program relates to the psoas. While there are many muscles that attach between the back and the pelvis and between the abdomen and the pelvis, the psoas is free through the pelvis and the only muscle to connect the spine with the legs. It uniquely bridges the upper and lower body. Thinking about the psoas prompted me to think how I might more seamlessly integrate the earth-grounding and sky-reaching halves of myself. How could I both root down into the fertile soil of my life and rise up to salute the sun of new possibilities?
The five principles I discussed in the article emerged a couple of weeks after the Work-in Workout program was concluded. I feel fortunate to have had the time and opportunity to harvest the principles from the program as well as to realize gains in strength. I plan to keep the principles in mind in my regular yoga practice and, as the fifth principle suggests, to continue to explore the implications of my practice for everyday living.
What would be of great interest to me is to learn how these principles landed for you. Did you find them to be useful? Did they prompt new thinking? Are there different or additional principles that you would suggest? Please consider telling me in the comments.
Acknowledgments. A big round of applause goes to three behind-the-scenes contributors to this piece: my son Keith, for the photo he took of me in the Pop-Up pose, my teacher, Leslie Ellis, for her instruction and inspiration, and my editor, Kasey Stewart, for her insightful suggestions.
Appendix: Pictures of Three Deep Core Muscles
Pelvic Floor Muscles
iStock credit: Kam Oben
Transversus Abdominis
iStock Credit: madigraphics
Psoas (and the Iliacus, which shares a common tendon with the psoas)
iStock Credit: medicalstocks
Just love your curiosity and the way you share your inquiries Glen. So inspiring. As a yoga teacher, I wish more students were interested in taking their practice to this kind of depth!!
Dear Glen,
Thank you for another thought provoking essay!
You are a warrior for truth and your detailed exploration of Yoga and anatomy is always a joy to follow!
You asked readers to share our thoughts, so here goes: As an architect, the phrase “Less is more,” made my heart sink into my stomach. The phrase is generally attributed to the German American Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Mies compulsively worshipped purity in form, and simple, straight lines. He missed out on the vast world of organically and human-centered form. He scared the hell out of our profession, and became a justification and safe path for a huge percentage of architects to embrace banality. The world of built form is still reeling from his toxic influence.
Mies was also known for the phrase “god is in the details.” The phrase is generally thought to be a version of Gustave Flaubert‘s saying "the good God is in the detail.”
Your work is a perfect illustration of Flaubert’s phrase. Our attention economy eschews detail, ignores truth, and splits us apart. Your detailed, personal, and in-depth explorations are filled with truth, and are generative and connective. Your readers are grateful!