Side Plank Pose

Hi, welcome to Yoga & You, I am Sanjana Prasad. Today we are going to be practicing a few techniques to build up into Vasiṣṭhāsana, or side plank. Vasiṣṭhāsana is a very strong posture and it involves the deep core muscles, your shoulder and wrist strength. So we are going to be addressing all of this so that you can get into Vasiṣṭhāsana in a safe and comfortable manner.

It's Sthira and Sukham in your asana practice always. So you have to make sure that you're safe, comfortable and, most importantly, you can breathe comfortably in the posture. So let's get on to the mat and get started.

We are going to start in a tabletop position on all fours. Knees are hip-width apart in line with your hips, and wrists are shoulder-width apart, wrists in line with the shoulder. Now we are going to start off by warming up your palms and wrists first. This is very important because you are going to use that to kind of push into the mat in the posture. So we are going to start by taking small rotations.

Move the body forward, a little ahead of the wrist, to the side and back and to the left side. Let's continue, two. You feel that slight pinchy sensation in the wrist, which is good — it is just activating the wrist, three, four and five. Let's reverse this now, going in the opposite direction. One, two, three, four and five. Super.

You are going to come back, walk your knees forward just a little bit, turn your fingertips all the way towards the knees. Be gentle when you do this — respect how your body is feeling right now. You can tuck the toes if you need to. And as you exhale, you are going to slowly sit back towards your heels and move forward. One, sit back. Now the only thing you have to be mindful of is not to let your palms peel off the mat. Keep the palms rooted to the floor and sit back and move forward. Exhale, sitting back and forward, two more. Exhale, sit back and forward. Last one. Exhale, sit back. Lift the chest up and hold it here. One, two, three.

Moving forward to counter this, you are going to flip your hands the other way, so the back of your hands are going to rest on the mat, fingertips pointing towards each other. Your knees can go back to the original position and you are going to round your back. Release the forearms. One, two, three, four, and five. Relax. Place your palms back.

Now you bring awareness to the fingers, the base of the fingers, right, and the base of your palm. You have to try and create like a suction, so you are going to press into the mat and make sure your knuckle area below your fingers is really gripping into the mat. So, without pushing the shoulders or rounding your back, keep the spine neutral and just focus on the energy in your palms, fully supporting the weight of your hands. Hold it there. One, two — almost like if someone is pulling you back, they can't pull you back because the grip when your hand is so strong. Three, four, hasta bandha, and five. You can sit back in Vajrasana. Just release your wrist. Shake your hands out. Relax.

Now we are going to load the hands a little bit, increase the weight that you are giving into your wrists. So from tabletop position, again create that suction, press into the palms into the floor. Tuck your toes and lift the knees an inch off the mat. See how this feels for you. If you are okay here, start to move the body forward — weight ahead of the wrist and back. Move forward and back. Move forward and back. Last one. Move forward. Hold — one, two, three. Come back. Place the knees down.

We are going to try one more thing here — we are going to try to lift one foot off. In Vasiṣṭhāsana you are going to be balancing on one palm, so just allowing the palms to get used to the weight of the body. So lift the knees off and see if you can keep the core engaged. Draw the navel in and lift one foot off and hold. One, two, three. Relax. Other leg. One, two, three. Foot down. Knees down. Once again, sit back. Take time between every drill to release. Relax.

The next thing you are going to do — you are going to work in plank position, so a little bit more advanced from tabletop. Place your palms down from here, step back into plank. Make sure the weight is on the toes and you are not sending your weight into your heels this way. Again you are going to try to tip the weight forward. Come onto your tiptoes and back. Come onto the tiptoes and back. Onto the tiptoes and back. Last one. Tiptoes, hold — one, two, three. Knees down. Let's take a child's pose here. Relax. Relax your shoulders. Release. Just rotate the wrist gently — very gently. You are going to roll up.

Now you can stay in Vajrasana. If this is not a very comfortable posture for you, you can do Sukhasana, come into a comfortable cross-legged posture. You are going to lift your arms up to the sides and take Gomukhasana arms. So your right arm is going to come up, left arm is going to go from underneath, and you are going to try and grip the fingers. Now, if this does not work for you, you can always use a strap to do this posture, Gomukhasana arms. If you don't have a strap, simply hold onto your T-shirt — your right palm is holding the T-shirt, left palm is holding the T-shirt. If you are very comfortable, interlock the fingers. Lift the chest up, just opening up the shoulders a bit for one, two and three. Release.

Bring your arms to shoulder level and you are going to switch to the other side. So your left arm is going to go up, right arm — you are going to swing it back, turn it around and take it up on the back. The arm above is going to go down onto your back. Interlock the fingers. Stay here. Breathe. Find that shoulder opening, one, two and three. Inhale. Release the hands. Exhale.

Coming back into your tabletop. As you inhale, you are going to lift your right arm up, open up the chest. Exhale, slide it between your left palm and the knee. Get the shoulder on the floor, head on the floor, stretch your opposite arm forward. Take three breaths here. Release the shoulder, neck. Walk your left palm back and slowly lift back into tabletop.

Let's do it to the other side. Inhale. Exhale, and slide your hand, stretch the right arm forward and think about deepening this twist. Three breaths here. Walk your right palm back and slowly come back to tabletop position. You can come back to Vajrasana. Give your hands a break. Take a few seconds.

Swing your arms behind you. Interlock the fingers. Roll your shoulders back. Lift your palms off. Here again, you can use a strap to engage your arms. If you are not able to interlock the fingers, you have an option of keeping the palms open or pressing your palms together. Lift the chest up. Inhale, and as you exhale, fold forward. This posture can be done in cross-legged as well, Sukhasana. Breathe, one. Your intention is to keep sending the arm towards your head, two and three. Inhale, slowly come back up and you are going to release.

Now that we have warmed up the wrists and arms a bit, you are going to come down and lie down on the side. So these drills have to be done on the right side and left side — we are going to practice it on one side now, but make sure you are doing it on both sides. You are going to start off on your elbow.

When you practice Vasiṣṭhāsana, the strength in your obliques is very important, because the common thing that happens is you tend to tip forward this way. So you are going to flex your feet and first squeeze your glutes. Make sure the body is in one straight line and make sure your ear is not collapsing towards your shoulder — push your shoulder away from the ears. Okay, use your other palm behind the head, and now see if you can lift the leg up simultaneously — crunch and come back down.

You feel that slight engagement in your obliques. Crunch and down. You are going to crunch and down. Crunch and down. Let's do two more. When you do this last two, make sure the butt is not wobbling forward and back — stable pelvis, just moving the leg, and down. Last one, up, and try to hold it here. One, two, three. Slowly come back down. Make sure you do this on the other side as well.

The next one you are going to do the top leg. You are going to place it in front of the knee this way. Okay. You have to activate your inner thigh as well, because when you are lifting up into Vasiṣṭhāsana, your thighs have to be squeezing into each other for you to get that lift. So you are going to place your palm on your waist. Make sure your pelvis is neutral. Think about lifting the left leg straight up and down, connect your mind to your inner thigh muscles. Up, down. One, up, down. Two, up, down. Three, up, down. Last one, up. One more, up, and pulse it there. One, two, three, four, five. Slowly bring it back down. You can release, relax.

Lie down on your belly, turn to one side, rest for a few seconds. When you are ready, you are going to come back into that side-lying position on your elbow. Okay, and you are going to bring the foot again in front. This time we are going to practice lifting this hip away from the mat, again engaging your side of the body and your glute to find that lift. So press into the elbow and the edge of the foot. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, down. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, down. Inhale, up. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale, down.

Now we will try side plank on the elbow. Let's see if we can lift up and hold there just for three counts. So again, keep the neck free. Press into the edge of your foot. If this is too challenging for you, you can also place your top foot in front to find a little bit more support. As you inhale, lift up. Stay here. One, two — don't send the butt back, keep it in line with the body — and three. Come back down. Once again, release.

Rotate the shoulders back three times. Let's take it forward, three times. Release the hands. And we are going to go — last two drills before we get into the posture.

This time you are going to come from tabletop position. So from tabletop, you are going to extend your right leg back. Now you start to turn the body towards your right side, bringing the right palm to your waist. So your right foot is resting on the mat. Now make sure this left foot is going backwards in line with the knee. When you do this, it allows your hip to move forward, so it maintains a neutral line from the feet all the way to the shoulder. Again, push into the palm, keep the neck free, other hand on the waist. Now you are going to challenge yourself by lifting this right leg up without sticking your butt back — this is what you are trying to avoid, the tipping forward. So you engage your core muscles and lift up. Lift the leg up. Hold. If this is very, very comfortable, arm goes up. If you are still comfortable, look up. Three, four, five. Slowly release. Come back down. And you can come back into tabletop position.

Now we are going to put everything together — activation of your shoulder, activation of the obliques, your wrist, inner thigh and your glutes — and try to practice Vasiṣṭhāsana. Let's get into plank. So walk the feet back. Now we are going to bring your left palm slightly to the center of the mat, closer to your right hand. Keep looking at the floor. Start to shift your heels towards your left side. Now either you can stack them one on top of the other; if that is too much for you to do now, keep both the edges of your feet on the mat.

Once you are there, keep pushing in — we did the hip-lifting drills, right? So try to push the floor away. Bring your right palm to the waist. Now if this is still comfortable, lift your arm up. Still comfortable, look up. Keep sending the hip forward and up, away from the floor. Slowly, with control, bring your palm down, back to plank. Bring the knees down and you are going to rest in child's pose. Relax. And you can roll up.

The few things that you need to remember while practicing Vasiṣṭhāsana are keeping the core engaged and the shoulder active. So practicing these drills, right side and left side, consistently will help you build that strength. So when you actually get into the posture, you can move into it with stability and confidence — you won't feel like you are going to tip forward or back. I really hope you found these drills helpful. Do practice and let us know how you feel. Thank you for joining me.