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Usage of Body Levers during Yoga Exercises

How do yoga postures utilize levers?

A lever is a manual machine devised by early man to make lifting of heavy objects, such as large stones and rocks, easier. It is usually a bar, which is placed under the object. When we use a lever, we can lift or move heavy objects by applying only minor force.

Yoga postures too, make use of the system of levers in their various postures. Different parts of the body – the elbows, knees, palms or ankles are used as levers in order to support the weight of the body and perform the exercises.

There are three kinds of forces or ‘levers’ that help us to move our muscles:

• It could be an external lever such as a wall, or floor or any other object.
• It could also be a body-on-body lever. In this case one specific part of your body helps to move another part.
• It could be an internal lever. In this, we use our muscles to lever ourselves and do not use any external aid.

The easiest to use are the external levers, while the most difficult to learn are the internal levers. But we must learn to use them, because it is essential to know how to move ourselves from the inside. In yoga, sometimes we use external levers, but it is sometimes possible to injure ourselves in the process, since we are applying outside force to the body, and may possibly apply too much force. Sometimes, we use body-on-body levers to exert external force; this lets us feel more sensitive to feedback from muscles within the body. But it’s best to use internal levers because it prevents us from injuring ourselves, since we cannot push ourselves beyond our limits from the inside of the body.

Using our internal levers also allows us to make the most effective use of our lines of energy and see that they work properly, giving us optimum balance and strength in performing the yoga postures.

For example, let us take the Butterfly Pose (Pooran Titli Asana) and see how yoga makes use of levers in the body poses. In this pose, we sit straight with our feet stretched out in front. We then wrap our fingers around our toes, and slowly pull in our heels towards the groin. Now, while keeping our back straight, we lean forward, as far as possible from the waist. We now use our elbows as levers to help us push down on our inner thighs and calves.

Similarly, other yoga poses too make use of either external, body-on-body or internal levers for their performance.

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