In this article I want to talk to you about a yoga pose that you should be including at least two or three times a week into your practice or into your strength and balance and drill work however you may train or practice mobility and flexibility. This is a must, it has huge benefits! 

This article is all about a yoga pose called Dancer Pose or Lord of the Dance whatever you want to call it, I don’t worry too much about the names. 

“(Dancer Pose or Lord of the Dance Pose) is a deep backbend that requires patience, focus, and persistence.” (Yoga Journal)

“It’s a balance of effort and ease that requires all of your attention.” - Tracy Middleton, Yoga Journal‘s brand director

I love what Tracey Middleton says,  ‘it's a balance of effort and ease that requires all of your attention’ . I think that sums up life, that sums up walking, running. I think it sums up the way we go about our day all day long, it sums up the way that we work with a lack of balance and too much effort. That quote sums it up perfectly. 

The Dancer pose details...

Let’s get into the details of the pose. Before we start there are some modifications that you can use depending on your mobility. You can make it more comfortable by using a chair or you can use a hand on the wall for support. I love this pose, it’s really cool and everyone should be doing it no matter where you are at with it.

Where’s your head at?

This shape encourages you to be tall through the neck and look forward to the horizon. Much like good running. If you need to you can look down with your eyes.

It's a deep backbend, you get a lovely extension through the spine. We could all do with a little more extension through our spine as our habits of sitting tend to keep us in a hunched over position. The healthy back extension you get with this pose helps create a bow shape with the chest. From the navel to the neck along the centre line of the body. The Running coach Shane Benzies talks about the ‘Bow in the chest’ in his book called ‘The Lost Art of Running.’ It’s a very interesting read although I don’t agree with everything that he talks about in this book, I’ll save that for another article or book review post. 

In the book Shane Benzies talks about having a bow in the torso from the navel through the chest up to the neck through the centre line of the body. This enhances that length in the chest which helps keep the fascia within your body stretched and elastic so that we can utilise its recoil energy. The connective tissue enhances springiness and elasticity in our movement and this is going to be maximized when you are tall by keeping a bow in the chest. 

Extend the hips.

Great hip extension is another feature of this shape. Hip extension is the act of pulling your leg backwards behind your hip, your hip extends. This creates the stretch on the front and top of the hip where your pocket area is. We need good hip extension for fluid running. Tight hips can cause many issues with our running gait and usually brings pain out in the body, particularly through the lower back. To increase the hip extension you can pull the foot further back and higher into the air, you will notice the intensity increase.

Some people suffer from hip mobility issues and find getting into this shape a struggle. Tight hip flexors can cause some people to have to stay a little bit taller doing more of a standing quadriceps stretch. 

Another very useful running related element to this shape is that you've got shoulder mobility work. It also stretches into the pectoral muscles which opens up the shoulders and counteracts the sitting and hunching forward we do all day.

One shoulder rotating backwards in Dancer pose to kind of hold the foot and get the other one in that contralateral movement pattern again that's kind of coming forward which is very similar again to how we run with slight forwards and backwards shoulder rotation from left and right sides. One goes forward the other goes back. 

A huge benefit to this shape is the single leg balance element. Everybody needs to do more balance work, it’s so important for your brain and your body awareness/connection or proprioception for the more science-based terminology.

Find a balance.

Standing with a softened knee will load the quadriceps muscles which will strengthen around the knee, the thighs and also you can work into the glute muscles (bum muscles) so they can strengthen. This keeps the legs strong and equally balanced which helps prevent injuries and imbalances. 

Performing this shape on a hard surface like we do tend to practice yoga creates strong, healthy toes, arches of the feet through to the ankles up into the shin muscles. Really nice natural healthy strengthening of the metatarsals and the feet. This is essential to keep your arches and the muscles of the toes healthy and functioning well. Especially if you wear modern footwear from one of the main brands that have toe springs, heel raises and narrow toe boxes that all compromise the function of the foot. 

Sense your body better, connect to it!

Sensing your body parts in time and space is known as proprioception. Feeling those subtle differences in the pressure of the skin, fascia, muscles and bones. This is enhanced by practicing single leg balance exercises like this one. You feel and sense your body better and can make corrections much easier. Working on your body sensing connection is going to benefit you in everyday life, not just when you’re out running. Yoga is one amazing way to develop your body sensing. 

Noticing those slight little movements and you constantly correcting is enhancing internally the connection between the body parts and nervous system. The nervous system is the feedback system of all of those signals and all the communications and puts them into the main coordinator of the central nervous system which is your brain. This strengthens those connections to your brain and enhances your ability to move better.

Noticing that balance between when you forcing into putting too much energy and effort into it and not enough. Falling all over is a good indicator to listen to, whats happening? Why do you keep falling? Learn about your body.

That's why I love this shape because you've got to find the balance and when you find the balance you drop into it's like a flow state kind of ‘in the zone’ feeling. Again, it replicates very much how great and beautiful running should be. In that flow state of just the right amount of effort and ease.

All of those benefits and all those nourishments of your joints, muscles and work in your nervous system and brain that you are gonna get from practicing this one simple yoga pose. That’s why you have to start including this regularly in your training whatever you do: your strength work or balance work or mobility work just not including that for 45 seconds to a minute on each leg and you just do that three times a week you will see some huge benefits to the work you put in.

Conclusion

So, although this shape doesn’t look anything like running. It’s a static shape for starters and running is very dynamic. There are huge similarities and transferables to running that can help improve how you run. By placing this in to your weekly routine you will see some huge benefits that will make you move better and ultimately help you feel better when running and in everyday life. Why wouldn’t you want to do this pose regularly?