Increase Strength in Asana with Chhavi Sahal

Strength is becoming an essential part of modern yoga, but what does it really mean to be strong in asana? I sit down with functional strength coach Chhavi Sahal to explore trunk stability, core engagement, flexibility versus strength, and practical ways yoga teachers can build stronger, more resilient practitioners.

Episode Highlights:

• Strength gaps in asana
• Trunk stability and load-bearing
• Strength versus flexibility
• Sthira Sukham Asanam
• Push and pull strength
• Strength beyond yoga
• Building trunk and core strength
• Standing versus supine core engagement
• Posterior chain strength
• Balanced hip stability
• Benefits of strength training
• Strength and yogic practice

Prana & Presence: An Immersive Week of Yoga, Stillness & Soulful Study in Southern Italy

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to episode 229 of the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. I'm Arundhati and I'm back with another conversation that will help you build more clarity and confidence in your teaching. On today's show, I have a new guest, and we are going to talk about being strong inside your asana practice and how to build strength within asana. Now, you and I both know that yoga is a lot more than asana and more than the physical body. But in this conversation, we are going to stick to the realm of asana and focus on what it takes to build strength. There is also so much conversation today around strength building, and a lot of people are in fact abandoning asana practice and going to the gym. But I believe as yoga teachers, if we can change our approach a little bit or improve our yoga education in a way where we can spot these strength gaps inside of class, then we can do a lot more meaningful work. So I have a new guest that I will introduce to you in just a moment. But before that, I wanted to remind you about two things. In October, I will be doing a free masterclass that is only for my email newsletter subscribers. So if you are not on that list yet, then please click the links in this podcast description. And I would love to have you join us on our monthly newsletter. My second update is we are literally two months away from meeting for our prana and presence retreat in southern Italy. So if you would like to join me, then all the details are below. It's a week-long retreat and it's happening only this year, and it's not too late to join. So all you need to do is book a flight and show up. And all the details for that are in the podcast description below. It will be a week long of connecting with ourselves, understanding our prana, being more present, and really hitting a giant pause on life for a whole week. Sometimes we don't take the time to do these things for ourselves. I've always said this. I have taught asana and yoga for 13, maybe 14 years, but I never went to a yoga retreat until last year. I've always facilitated them, but I never actually took one as a participant. And it was one of the most beautiful things. And in many ways, it's the new way I vacation and take breaks. But if you would like to join me, go ahead and check the details out. And even if you don't want to join me, I would still encourage you to go ahead and check out the details so you have an idea if there's ever a future time or there's a retreat close to you itself. Okay, so that's prana and presence September 26th to October 3rd in southern Italy. Now, coming back to today's show, I have Chavi Sahal who joins me on this episode. Now, Chavi and I know each other through Instagram for a couple of years at this point. And Chavi is a Hata Vinyasa yoga teacher based in India, and she's also a functional strength coach who helps yoga practitioners develop the strength they need in an asana practice and its demands. And sometimes these types of strengths don't build just on their own. Chavi has been teaching for over a decade and she noticed a recurring pattern that pushed her to explore this type of work, that her students were becoming more flexible, yet they continued to struggle with instability, weak upper bodies, and recurring injuries and aches and pains. So today, her teaching practice bridges the gap between strength training and yoga, and she helps yoga teachers and other professionals build resilient shoulders, stable hips, strong cores, and load-bearing capacity for a sustainable pain-free asana practice. Through her online trainings, Chavi teaches evidence-informed strength principles that complement yoga, enabling practitioners to move with greater clarity, confidence, and longevity. In this conversation, Chavi and I cover a lot of ground about strength in asana. We talk about many different things, right? From what does it mean to be strong? How does strength change your yoga practice? Shavi talks about what is weak in our practice, like what in our collective bodies is where we should be focusing to build more strength and how we've fundamentally gotten that a little misaligned and what to do and how to build that strength. We, of course, talk about everybody's favorite, the core, talk about ways to build towards that strength. I bring up stiram sukam asanam and ask what are some of the more tangible ways to tap into this. And we also talk about push strength, longevity of the practice, what does your how does yoga and strength complement each other, and a whole bunch of other things. Chavi does use a little puppet to demonstrate some of the things in today's conversation. So if you could just pop over to YouTube and watch this on our YouTube channel, then it'll make a lot more sense to you. Okay, so I hope you enjoy this episode. I have linked to everything that Chavi does in the podcast description, her website, her upcoming strength online courses, as well as her Instagram where she shares all these tidbits, knowledge and wisdom and insight, which I think you will find very interesting. I hope you enjoy this conversation and you become stronger and have more clarity and confidence in your yoga practice and your teaching. I will see you on the other side. Hi everyone, I'm Arundhati, and you've just tuned in to the Let's Talk Yoga Podcast, your ultimate online destination for learning about yoga. Whether you're a seasoned yoga teacher or a curious yoga student, there's something for you here. Let's podcast video watch for yoga school. I intend to create a space to the yoga student and yoga teacher to learn about yoga. Think of this as your online yoga school free teacher training coming to you every week. So grab your cup of chai and let's jump in. Hi Chavi, welcome to the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. Hi, Aru. I'm so happy to be here. You know, just before we hit record, I was telling you, I see you so much on Instagram, and we've exchanged multiple messages on Instagram for a long time. So I've this transition is from that small grid to this big screen, is very fun. You and I are going to be talking about how to build strength in asana practice as a yoga teacher, as a yoga student, and how to work around the needs of that. So to kick things off, and I've noticed you've been exploring and teaching how to build strength in asana practice, right? And I've been seeing your work with that. So, how does one understand if there is a lack of strength in our asana practice? I mean, most of us probably understand we train a lot of mobility, a lot of flexibility. And I think most people who do asana practice consistently are hyper-mobile. But is there anything you think we need to do more of or less of in asana practice?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

I think that's firstly a it's a fundamental question that anybody who is into asana and is considering to add strength training should be asking, how do you even identify if strength is missing or not? Right. And I'm going to share with you what I have discovered based on my work with yoga teachers and serious practitioners who have specifically come to me saying that Shavi, I feel like I lack strength. So everything that I have seen on the mat while training yoga bodies who have been in yoga for almost a decade, that's that's where I'm coming from. And I'll just share with you what I saw basically. How do you detect that strength is missing? The most fundamental place to look for strength is the trunk. It's not the core, not the shoulder, it's the whole system that we call as the trunk. For users, I would like to bring in a friend of mine. I'm sorry, I'm bringing him too early. So let's say this is your body design.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Before you move on, Shavi, you have to name this puppet that we are looking at.

unknown 9:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I think no, you will have to name. I think that would be let's call him Joe. Because yeah. Okay. So this is Joe, and Joe has been practicing asan for a while, and he feels that somewhere stamp is missing. So Joe should start looking at how his trunk moves. The trunk is basically uh this particular portion. The top part is the shoulder girdle, and the bottom part is the pelvic girdle. So just at the pelvis and the shoulder, this particular space is what we define as the trunk, and it includes the cold, it includes all the other muscles that fall in the space. So basically, how the trunk takes weight and how it responds to load is what decides whether your body is lacking strength or not. So it's not so much about how your arms are feeling, biceps, triceps, these extremities don't matter as much. What matters more is the trunk. Now, within the trunk, how the trunk takes weight across different arsen families. For example, let's say if you're doing backbends, in a backbend, your back, your spine is extending and your trunk is changing shape. So, how does your trunk take that weight? How efficiently that happens? And let's say if there is a lack of strength, how is that manifesting in the asin itself? So, what I have seen is that practitioners share that yes, they're lacking strength in specific asins. For example, if they are doing a standing asin, like a warrior three. I think one of the most common experiences that I have heard is that practitioners struggle to hold weight in warrior three. And it's it's extremely challenging as an ASIN, and the most common complaint over there is that the hip is just not able to hold the weight. So that is an example of lacking strength. A part of your trunk is not able to hold weight. So this is how you discover and detect strength gaps in your practice. Let's say you do any asan and you bring yourself into alignment, whatever is or should be the alignment according to your you know, your knowledge. And within that alignment, you are somewhere struggling to hold the weight of the asan, whether it's at the shoulder, whether it's at the hip, or at the core. That is the first place to detect a strength gap. So, as a foundational layer of inquiry, personal inquiry in the asan, this is where a practitioner should start looking. That how is the shoulder, how are both the shoulders taking weight, and how is the hip, both the sides of the hip holding onto weight?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

I think that's that's it's a very strong way to understand it, strong and clear way to understand it. The center, how, for lack of a better word, how tight is that center? Because then when everything moves away from it, you are not falling all over. So I like I like the use of the puppet and showing showing us what that trunk actually does. And it makes sense, right? From shoulder to hips. And most often, I think we over-train arms and legs. We don't really think of how strong is my back, how are my you know, the front of my body. So I like that the fact that you said it's not your core, it's more than that. And your core is part of this, but it's more than that. And I think there is a a gap, right? In in yoga's PR, like there's so much emphasis on mobility and flexibility, and not enough on how much strength an asana practice demands. And I've had these conversations at the studio. I ask, like, especially beginners, like, do you think yoga works more on flexibility or strength? And most of them will say flexibility. Because we we we see a warrior three, but we don't we think of it as the stretch element. We don't think of how much strength there is. So I so I'm glad we're having more conversations around strength. Now, I also think that teachers need to first update their education so they can spot the strength gaps in themselves and in in other students versus working more mobility. So, what does it mean to feel strong in an asana? Are we referring to sthiram sukam? Or is there more tangible, relatable things to look at?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

So I think that as the foundational way of thinking, for most asans, the first priority should be sthiram sukham asana. That is that that's something that should be kept in mind before doing most of the asans that we learn that come from classical style of yoga or even even from modern yoga, specifically. And it's very interesting to see that like till now I was I used to think that yes, Sriram Sukham Asana is it, right? I need to apply the correct alignment, I need to keep certain muscles engaged when I'm holding an asana, and that is it. But now that I've sort of worked with certain families of asan, like arm balances and inversions, specifically in the last one year, I feel like these two families require something that goes beyond just skiram sukam arsana. There is an extra element of force that a yoga body should be able to generate when practicing armbalances and inversions that require you to push more of your body weight as compared to let's say backbends or hip hopels. So yeah, I feel like that's that's where I am at with my own approach. And this could be very different for different teachers, but based on what I've seen in other teachers, in other practitioners, I feel like they really need to have the capacity of going beyond Siram Sukram Asanam also, but within a limited range and only within these two families. If we look at the other aspects, the other families, then yes, I feel like just getting the right amount of alignment and engagement is that is what is required, right? What is what is the whole point of Siram Sukram Asana? It's just to create the state of the asana within, right? To to be able to let the mind sort of move away from the exertion that the body requires to be in the asam. That that I that that's what I feel is the whole point of putting in effort in asan to make it stir, right? To reach that sukham, you need that much of stiram. And yeah, that's that's just I mean, yeah, that's what I feel should be the approach. I don't know what you think about it.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

No, it's wonderful. And I like how you said, you know, inversions and arm balances, because that's where people really, it's when people start to fall out of things or notice that they're unable to hold it and they keep collapsing, that's when the strength gap is really visible. And and of course, most people are very far from stiram sukham in in those moments. So that those two categories, inversions and arm balances, I think are are crucial. And it's also we we don't have we don't have full strength in yoga, right? We don't pull much. How much are we disadvantaging ourselves in asana without pull strength? And yes, we have to go outside and trains train a lot of this sometimes, right? So when we are generating that force, um uh and I like the fact that you bring that up because we don't think of how much force you generate in these asanas. So, where does full strength sit in all of this?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

So um generally, I don't know, there isn't enough stimulation in terms of pulling. That's just because how that's how asans were designed. First of all, asans were never designed to build strength, it's just where we have landed. Now there are people turning to asans for strength as well, right? So just because of the situation that we are in, and because so many people do turn to yoga for a sense of stability, a sense of strength, if we look at asans from that lens specifically, Pulan's strength is substantially missing from the asan practice itself, and how that impacts a you know practitioner's body, in the long run, it doesn't. So let's say if yeah, by that word, basically what I'm trying to say is that it would impact your asan practice in you know a substantial extent. This means that you could be doing asan's for years and years, and you could also see improvement in asans, even when you have not precisely done any pulling movement, you've just been doing the arsenal. Right, if you've just been focused on the pushing aspect, and that has been going on for years, that doesn't really show up as a deterrent in the arsenal practice itself, but it will show up off the mat.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, in life, it will show up.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, it it will, yes. And that this is something that mature practitioners realize after you know spending let's say a decade in arsen and just working on push, that the lack of pull pull stimulation does affect how your back muscles create force. Now what happens? In the long run, is that if your back muscles, your scapula, parts of the other parts of the shoulder, they don't know how to create force. That can affect how your daily movement will be, in the sense that, let's say, if off the mat, you have to suddenly push something, you know, some person or some object comes towards you, and you have to defend yourself. That movement requires your back muscles to be able to create force. So that kind of sudden movement or just general pulling, pushing can be impacted if you don't rein pulling somewhere. So I think that's that's where that's how practitioners should be thinking that yes, asans will not get your pull stimulation. There is no, there isn't enough of you know horizontal pulling. This is really important for just for the health of your muscles. For the back muscles. There's there isn't enough of vertical pull as well. So that needs to be supplemented from outside just to ensure better strength and overall functionality in the long run. So it's it's it's unf I mean it's slightly unfortunate that asins don't reach that aspect, but that's just how it is. And it is. I think people really need to adapt.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

I also have been saying this, Laura, is as yoga teachers, we can't be everything to everybody. You know, we can't be the nutritionist, we can't be the mental, we shouldn't be the mental health therapist, we can't be the gym trainer, you know. We can say, maybe explore this and some other things, but but we can't be everything. And we should, and it's completely okay to say, hey, go build this type of strength in this way, and then that will benefit you. Some people, I think we also look at one discipline as the only thing I will do, right? Is I will only do asana. Like at the studio, I'm we we have these conversations. Most of the people at the studio are above 40. And I'm like, you should go do some strength training. You know, start small, do something. Because in here, you while while this this works, this helps, and there are many layers to it, you might want to also supplement that. Two days of asana is very different from supplementing with a little bit of strength training. So, do you think flexibility and strength are they opposites? And is there any way in which they support themselves?

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I think if you just look at the quality of the movement that gets created when we're trying to get flexible and trying to get strong, they're both poles apart. Right? Strength elements will like you know, I won't say all strength elements, but most strength elements will require you to contract your muscles. Right? Flexibility, if you're just focusing on that, that will require you to lengthen your muscles out, stretch your hamstrings out, extend the shoulders out, right? But they are both complementary as well. I mean ideally, if let's say if I'm I'm trying to be a healthy asan practitioner who wants fitness out of asan, my aim should be to access parts of both while I'm doing an asana. So, all in all, what it means is that you need to generate more active flexibility that combines both of them. That in a way that let's say if you are trying to lengthen a muscle out, you're also contracting another muscle that further stimulates extension. So I think yeah, that's how the approach should be when it comes to asan, if we keep that as a context. And yeah, this applies to most of what modern yoga offers in terms of asan's. Yeah, but if we look at it outside the scope of asan, again, strength can mean can mean so many different things. Like, you know, there are six, seven types of strengths and functional strength, relative strength, maximum strength, yeah. So that's like another totally, I think another conversation in itself. But yeah, when it comes to arsana, strength and flexibility should be combined to as much of an extent as is required to bring the body in in the asana itself. So, like you know, when we say sthiram sukam asanam, that element of stiram represents stability and strength in equal parts. And if we just I mean honestly, it's I think it's absurd how we have reached this point where asana has become so deeply associated with flexibility. When flexibility was never mentioned for the longest time. So yeah, I feel like it's that's just how any practitioner should be looking at it. And it's always a mix of both. The more you keep it that way, the the healthier your body is going to get.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

That's why I was telling you, I think there's a PR problem here. You know, flexibility, flexibility to a point where we've not, we don't think of how much stability, steadiness, strength there is to stand on that one leg or to stand on your two tiny hands and put your whole body on it. And I also think it is just strength. Flexibility feels good, right? You feel like there's that release, you feel expansive. I would also argue that it's probably easier to become more flexible than to become stronger. And but also I'm in a hypermobile body. So I've always leaned more towards just bending into things. But it is it that that experience of strength. Like I notice it when I teach at the studio. The day I do strength classes, everybody is more unhappy. You know, they're just they are just the you you can see, they give me the eye rolls a lot more, there's more huffing and puffing, they want to come out of the poses. Next class, they'll tell me, please don't do that, because it's effort. And and I always joke that next class I'm not doing this, this, this. So don't skip thinking, oh my god, she's gonna make me do these strength drills in in asana practice. So so I'm glad you clarified that. So can we go back to the trunk? Okay, and are there any specifics, okay, for for all the yoga teachers listening? Are there any specifics that you you think we should be doing with the trunk to strengthen it?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So I mean it's a big question. Yeah, and I think definitely a lot that can be done. So let's say if we are making this starter path for any yoga teacher who you know who just wants to start building foundational strength that also benefits a rasan. Just benefits movement in general. I think the first place the first place to start is working on the core. And this might sound extremely cliche, but working on your core is the reason it's core is also because a lot of teachers think they know how to work on the core, but they don't. I mean, I'm just again sharing from what I see in you know in the workshops that I've taken. I've seen teachers who don't really know what it means to engage the core. And they give this as a cue in their classes. They take this as a cue when they're learning from another teacher, but they don't know what that means in the body. So, so that's something that I've I've seen that just doing targeted work on holding the core engaged, holding the core engaged in movement, not just static. That is so important when you come to Vinyasa practice. When you start doing those transitions, you need to have enough core stability that will sustain through the movement of your legs. So every teacher who comes across this episode, just look into your core stability and your core strength both as a static practice when you're still and also when you're moving, like when you're doing a transition, like you know, like something like jumping forward, jump back, jump through, like we have in Ashtanga practice. So building upon core stability is it's it's literally core, it's like foundational. Because if your core is not well engaged, it will create muscle imbalances. You can very easily get, you know, sensitivities around your lumbar spine. These things they start to come up when you're not able to hold weight around your core well enough. So, yeah, I think like just start at the core and get clarity on what it means to engage your core and you know, in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

How would you engage the core? Now I'm thinking I know how what you're going to say, but how would you what do you mean by engage the core?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

So it can again, as simple as the question is, the answer is always complicated. It's more nuanced than you know, just just what we feel it is. Engaging the core can mean different things in different positions. For example, let's say if you're lying down and you try to engage your core in a supine position, that is different from what it means to engage in a stand-in position. And that is different from what it means in a tabletop position. So by and large, the cues are similar, but there are still variations that happen depending on the orientation of the body. So, based on that, there will be differences. But let's say if we pick up just one, picking it up in a you choose, which one do you want to discuss? Lying down, standing, let's do standing and lying down. Okay, standing and lying down. So, as a thumb rule, what are the basic requirements of an engaged core? Is that you want the pelvis to be tucked in, uh, and you want uh your ribs, your rib cage to be neutral, and you want the whole of your abdomen to be compressed in a way that the intra-abdominal pressure, I think I'll bring Joe back. Basically, the pressure that the body experiences here, it remains intact. Okay, great, yeah. So that's that's just what it means in a standing position. Basically, pelvis is tucked in, your ribs are neutral, and you can hold that pressure around the abdomen. Understood. So this means partially engaging the belly and the oblakes.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

It makes uh makes sense to me when you say the pelvis, and you went straight to the rib flare, right? Because most people will keep that rib lifted and the ribs flaring. So, so yeah, because a lot of times when uh when you we we talk about the tuck of the pelvis, it's that full tuck where it's so extreme and everybody sucks everything in. Uh you you can't sustain that. So finding this engagement and holding on to it. What about lying down? How is that different?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

So fundamentally, it's the same when it comes to a lying down position. The thumb rule is that your abdomen should be able to hold pressure under compression. So lying down, it's again the same thing. It's the tuck of the tail pole. Maybe a little, this time the tuck is slightly stronger, it's not as subtle as when you're standing, and then you let the ribs come to a neutral. Normally, what happens is that when you're just lying down, the flare of the ribs is more as compared to when you're standing straight. So just a conscious effort in bringing them to a neutral. Yeah, that's the difference between standing and lying down, and then a compression of the whole abdomen so that the whole trunk becomes one opposite.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Right, right. Yeah. I hope I'm not boring you with offering. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

I'm doing it in my head. Okay. So no, it makes sense to me because also gravity plays with so differently, right? From standing to to lying down. And most often, what at least I've noticed is uh somehow, at least here, people are always in fast-forward mode. They are rushing, okay. And it's also because you don't have a support system every and you're by yourself doing pretty much everything. So people they rush in, they rush out of the studio. And I've when when we talk about supine work like this, I notice a lot of times people are swinging their arms and legs in in a lot of the strength work just to get through it. And not really in the center, just swing the leg up and down a few times, move the arms, just get it done, and not really taking that pause, even though you're saying it, that is it just goes over. So I was thinking of that as you were talking, that this is so crucial that people have to stop on it and move through it in a certain way. So, no, I appreciate that. I appreciate the clarity between standing, lying down. What changes when somebody becomes stronger? Okay, in especially in asana practice, is it just effortlessness that goes up, mental resilience goes up? I believe you're working on that all the time in Asana in many ways. But what is one of the biggest shifts or gifts that come from being stronger?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

I think the first change that you feel once your body has built a certain kind of strength is that load does not feel as terrible. There's this idea in you know, arsenal. I've seen a lot of practitioners who just hate the idea of taking load, putting load on the shoulders, putting load on the hip. So true. Right? Like, I don't know, Nick, you two must have seen certain students who just don't like the idea of doing a plank. Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear you. Yeah, yeah. So I think the first thing that happens is that load does not feel like a burden. It feels like a natural part of the process. And if you've built strength in a way that you know how to create force in the right places in the right essence, that load eventually feels like lightness. But that's I think that's a more advanced stage of really seeing that strength manifest. Yeah, that's that's where I feel a lot of practitioners change their mindset, is that they stop complaining about the plank or the boat pose.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

I feel Utkatasana and Navasana are the two most hated poses in so many ways. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

It's like it's the bane of people's existence. It's it's so good. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think that's that's the first place. Where else does like how does that feel? I'm just trying to recall based on what I've seen. I feel the second instance where strength really changes your experience is that instances of pain drop. Like, for example, I had this teacher in my class, I think two or three workshops back, who specifically came to me with hip pain. She had pain on one side of the hip. And as we went through the whole course, at the end of it, she just, you know, one day she just said that I I just forgot about the pain. So I think that kind of transformation where pain disappears is like it's a real win that strength training brings in. And yeah, I think the third one is that you know the instances of fatigue also draw. Yes. Like, you know, even if even if you've done a very advanced practice, you don't you don't leave the mad reign like always. Yeah, that recovery is brief. Yeah, that's also true. And you know, like I don't know if you've seen this in your class, but sometimes students have left limping. And at least I've seen this in other classes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Who knows? Today might be the day. No, no, touch word.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

No, I mean, I mean, so that kind of you know, limping and imagine like go leaving the mat with a drained body that can stop if if you really work on strength and yeah, if it's targeted work. So yeah, I feel like this is where I've seen that shift. You know, practitioners going back, feeling energized and not drained, and then no pain and really taking body load very efficiently.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

I want to be mindful of how late it is getting for you because I can keep you up till midnight and keep asking you questions about strength.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

No, no, I'm enjoying myself so much. I can go on, trust me, I'm low class tomorrow. So I'm I'm very happy to be.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

You know, because whenever I tell students here that when I lived in India, my my yoga school would open at 4 a.m. And and you know, you had to be there fully present in body, mind, and spirit.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Um so for the yoga teachers who are listening, right? I think it's very clear that you're saying focus on the trunk, focus on the trunk, build strength here, be mindful of the center, engage your core. That's on the front. Can we talk a little bit about the sides and the back? Okay, because I always say we only focus like we live here, we're not living behind us, right? We're living only on the front body. So when we talk about strengthening the back, okay, and and there's also upper back, mid back, lower back, would you put the glutes into that as well? And is there anything specific that comes to mind when it comes to strengthening the back body?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

I'm I'm just collecting, I'm getting bullet points. Yeah. So I feel like the generally, I think the posterior chain isn't always trained as much of maybe because it's at the back, we give it a back burner, you know it's just not seen. But yeah, I think like first thing, if we talk about how to even check if you need to. Specifically work on strength on the posterior chain. I think one of the instances is whether you get back pain or not, and how frequent that is. Because in a lot of yoga teachers, I've seen SI joint-related issues coming up, pain around the SI joint, pain around the middle back, posture and change, all of that. It's actually surprising. I was telling another friend of mine that for all of the batches I've had for yoga for strength or strength for asin, there has always been one teacher who has had an SI joint injury or pain. So I feel like it's really important to address this also because somewhere we're not really working on strength at the posterior chain. So yeah, I feel working on load-bearing capacity, specifically on your glutes, which are, I think, one of the most poorly used muscles right now, because of the way that we sit, the way that we move. And I think also because our practice has so much of forward bending, forward folds, uh, a lot of the hip hopness also. I think because of these trends, somewhere, we don't do targeted load bearing on the glut. We don't give it enough of body weight that comes from squats or lunges. So I feel like just these basic movements that challenge your glutes, challenge your QL quadratus lumborum. That's basically a muscle that connects your spine to the pelvis. I think working on just being able to hold weight is really important. And to be good at that. So that's I think that that's one place. Just being able to hold body weight through basic movements like squats, not just chair spores, but like real from moving squats. Because a lot of teachers immediately think, oh, squat is chair space. Is utkata tasan, right? No, doing more repetition, getting working on your form, even over there. So that's one place. And second, this is one thing that I've noticed specifically around back pain, is that a lot of teachers don't know what pelvic stability is and why is it even important. Yeah. So then I'll just bring Joe back in. What happens is like if let's say Joe has come with some back pain and it's just on one side of his back. This kind of pain usually comes when you're not keeping your hip square in splits, in a lot of movements. Yeah, I think he won't be able to do this, but let's say he's doing it.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

He can do only side splits. One hip is already a little off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

So yeah, so you see one side is more active than the other. I don't know how he's doing this, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

So that also is listening to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Yeah, yeah. So basically, this proof is something that brings up back pain. Like if just one side of your hip is more active than the other, one allows you to lift your leg higher than the other, that also leads to back pain and to weakness. So these are the small little things that teachers need to observe that if one side of your hip you're able to lift the leg higher up, other side is nowhere near. Right? We all have that one side that's the good side. That's so true. So that's not just a thing that is there, like it could lead to consequences, and that too leads to back pain if you're not very careful.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

So I think similar to the sh for the shoulder, too, right? One shoulder is stronger than the other.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

So, so yeah. Right. So, yeah, I think one place that really a teacher should look at is balancing your ability on both the sides of your hip. It's I mean, it's difficult, but it's when it comes to strength, I think it's really important to make sure you're both the sides of the hip are equally functional and strong, that they can take weight. And yeah, I think that that's that's these are just directions to think in. There's this other misconception that backbends are enough to build strength in the back. That you know, like I see a lot of reels that promote build a strong back, do these five bad bins. Oh gosh, huh? And I think we've all seen maybe I've made one of these during COVID. I I think I might be guilty of making one.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

You know, we all did we all did things in COVID that we will probably not do ever again. So, yeah, those those were desperate times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

But yeah, so I think now that I also sort of, you know, read about strength, I think backbends are anyway not enough. You need you need more than just backbends to really build the kind of strength that supports you in movement. You need a lot of planks and movements where your back muscles are really challenged to pull, that's what is required. So that would mean again a lot of pulling movements, like pulling down, pulling out, all of this. For the posterior chain, these are just as important. And yeah, also another very interesting observation. I don't know if you felt this, but no matter how much of backbending you do, at some point, if you're working at your desk, that can very easily take over all your strengthening or your flexibility work and bring back pain in. Right? Even as yoga teachers, we are so careful about health. But if you have a desk job, it can easily wipe out a lot of that good work just because right how things are.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah, which is just your amount of time you're stacking in at the desk versus in movement. And you know, something I'm consciously trying to do at the studio, everybody is sitting, and especially here, you're sitting at in your car, you're sitting at your desk, you're sitting on your couch, you're just going from one sedentary position to the next. And I keep telling them that you have to warm up, don't skip that. And we do those what I would call boring warm-up drills because firstly, everybody's above 40. Most of them are, and they've come from this position, very static forward bending, to suddenly going into the opposite. I'm like, no, there has to be a filler in between. So I think those are required. Now, there's so much I could keep asking you about strength. I also believe this is such a big topic and so many layers and nuances in it that no one conversation is going to be able to contain this, right? And and so many questions around taking specific poses, specific positions, loading them. And I'm sure you even use the same asana in different ways, right? To generate mobility, to generate strength, stability. But but I want to close with this one. Okay, what can strength teach us about yoga? And what can yoga teach us about strength?

SPEAKER_00 52:16

It's such a nice question. So, what can strength teach us about yoga? Actually, what it can remind us of yoga is that things in life can move us and they can come in to shake our foundation. But to hold ourselves still is always a choice that we can make. So, resistance from the outside world can torment us, it can really disturb our inner equilibrium. But if you choose to push against that resistance and in that push, choose to remain still, that's always a choice you can make. And that is just as yogic as it is to flow through life, to really stretch with things. That's what I feel that strength, yeah, that's what strength training has really taught me that I don't have to go with the flow all the time. I can stay anchored, I can choose to push my way through things and just be more yogic than you know, not. So yeah, I feel like that's how strength training just it does remind me so much about uh the other principles that we learn. I think if we keep the physical aspect aside, where we're check we're really pushing against so much weight, right in positions where if we don't really hold ourselves together, we will collapse. And so that's where just the you know, there's this sense of rebelliousness that also comes out when we do asans, where we choose to put our body in positions that you know without truly tests the mind and the body, which is so true. Like and just the sense you know, the whole practice of tapas, it just builds so much of strength mentally that you know you're choosing a hard path, even though it's uh it might not seem very hard, but it's it could be really hard for a practitioner. That you're choosing something so difficult and sticking to it just to reach a higher level of uh consciousness or just the advancement. So I feel like that's where strength, strength really, it really gets practiced when it comes to the asana part of yoga. Otherwise, if we look if you just look at strength in so many other ways, there is there's pratyhar. I think that's really difficult to practice. On paper, it's so easy, but if you really start withdrawing the attachment you have to your senses, yes, it is the most difficult thing that I've ever experienced in my life. And just generally, strength comes about because for a practitioner who is in yoga and who is meeting herself every day, knows exactly who she is. Some days just to face that person, I think takes a lot of strength. Absolutely. I don't know what what do you think about what what would you answer this as?

SPEAKER_01 55:52

The one thing that would linger in my head, Shabi, is is Karuna, compassion, you know, just as you are pushing through all this work, and I believe physical and mental, they always go together, and is is doing it with compassion. So going through the struggle, going through what I would call the suffering for a good thing is, and doing it with compassion and also doing it with a little bit of detachment. Where you know you're not, I'm not doing this, so I can do bhakasana so well tomorrow or or later, but doing it just because that is in many ways the path. So for me, that that that karuna and that detachment, right? Those two come to mind. So I'm not carrying that burden mentally, even after the practice is over. I will go back in next time and start afresh with no baggage from previous or future. And to me, that that shedding what is is not carrying that helps me feel mentally lighter. And somehow I'm hoping that mental lightness will translate into physical lightness inside the practice. But but for me, it is it is that compassion and detachment.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

I think that's that's such a word, that's such a clear answer, and it makes a lot of sense now that you've shared it. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Oh, you are more welcome. You have the harder job. I told you this before we started recording. You have the harder job, I have the easier job of asking these questions. So, for all the listeners, where can they connect with you? Where can they understand more about some of the work you do? Where are you in this digital world?

SPEAKER_00 57:45

So I'm most active on Instagram. I have a page, it's called Move with Chavi. I think there will be a way to connect afterwards. And there is also a website that goes by my name, which is chavisahel.org. So yeah, that's that's these are the two places where we can connect. And if anybody has any questions, I would just love to answer those. So yeah, yeah, that's that's about it.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Wonderful, wonderful. I will make sure to link all of this in the show notes so people have it very accessible. Is your strength course already done?

SPEAKER_00 58:23

So one is halfway, another one starts in two weeks, and yeah, there's a shorter one starting in 10 days. Okay, and where can it's all on the website? Yes, it will all be on the website and also on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Okay, okay, wonderful. Chavi, thank you so much for being here. There is again, there is an unlimited number of things we can explore when it comes to strength, but this is meant to be a portal so then people can go find you and ask their own questions and and dig a little deeper. I hope you will not be a stranger to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Thank you so much, Arun. This was an amazing experience, even though it's 10:30 over here. And I've just enjoyed this conversation so much. Loved the questions, and I hope we can do this again.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation, please remember to share it with a friend to review and rate this podcast so other people looking for such yoga content will stumble upon it. I will see you next week with a brand new conversation. Until then, take care.