You remember, like, a month ago when I last talked about the hip anatomy series, right? Right? Well, erm, if you need a minute to refresh your memory, I cannot say that I blame you. It’s been a while.
Part of that is because I’ve been consumed by real life stuff and endo blogging, yes. But part of that is because finding poses that focus on rotator muscles is tricky business — at least when it comes to poses I haven’t already discussed in the hip series. And part is because my rotator muscles are among the more persnicketty ones when it comes to interacting with endo pain, which means that experimenting with such poses is often not the most delightful task.
All of which is a meandering explanation for why I haven’t written in so long and why I’m about to detail what looks like a fairly simple pose — and is in fact a pose I have covered before. However, while I looked at internal thigh rotation as it helps contribute to spinal alignment then, I didn’t look at what the internal rotation was doing in the hips themselves.
[Cathie Ryder instructing for Expert Village. Video via YouTube.]
For me, I know now that examining this hip rotation is something worth doing because it’s something that I do easily a dozen or more times, not just during the course of an asana practice, but also during the course of my regular day. From what I’ve seen from other yogis, that whole “pull the butt cheek flesh away from the floor” thing is a pretty common component of most seated poses, though I’m not sure it’s always done with attention to hip rotation.
In staff pose, the gluteus maximus — you know, the big butt muscle — is lengthening, along with the rotation-specific piriformis, obturator internus, and gemelli muscles.
I’m not sure how many people will actually feel stretching action here. Even as someone who has trouble with internal rotation — perhaps suggesting that some of the muscles involved in external rotation might be tight — staff pose is a pretty gentle stretch for me. On a regular day, at least; after a tough run, however, that may be a different story. Interestingly, the stretch increases the more I prop under my hips. I expect this has something to do with the tilt of my pelvis giving my rotator muscles more room to stretch, but I’d have to get back to you on that.