Move with May

A lot of people do this band drill with elbows glued to their sides.

Try bringing your elbows slightly in front of your ribs instead.
That helps turn off overactive muscles — like the top and back of your shoulder — and lets your deeper rotators (infraspinatus and teres minor) do their job: rotating your shoulders out and improving posture.

It's a deep muscle so you might not feel a big "burn", but we want to feel it around the shoulder blades.
Some of my clients have felt it in their biceps at first — if that happens, just lower your hands a bit and keep your elbows soft.

This is great for people who sit a lot,
work at a desk,
or feel tight in their chest and shoulders.

It helps bring your shoulders back into better alignment — and makes overhead or pulling movements feel more natural.

egg retrieval in the US vs Bangkok

𝗜 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗴𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 but my knees still cave in.

I'm a personal trainer. In my last post on this, I talked about why I was frustrated with being told to do more glute med/hip abduction work for my knees caving in.

That post focused on the muscles that control rotation of the shin.
Here’s 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲 I learned through Brookbush Institute’s personal training and corrective exercise courses: what’s happening further down the leg.
I have 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝘁, 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗸𝗻𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻, so this one is particularly relevant to me.
With a knees-bowing-in pattern, Brookbush identifies some muscles below the knee, including the 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘂𝘀, as potentially overactive/short — while others may be long/underactive and need activation.

One of those is the 𝘁𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿.
It sits 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝘁, where it helps support the inner arch and control how much the foot rolls inward when we put weight through it.

So why not just do regular calf raises?
The tibialis posterior does help raise your heel, but that’s not its main role. Your bigger calf muscles do much more of that work. These variations change the position and resistance to put more emphasis on the tibialis posterior.

And this doesn’t mean 𝗸𝗻𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 = 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝘁𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿, just like it doesn’t mean 𝗸𝗻𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 = 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗴𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝘀.
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿 — 𝗮𝗯𝗼�

There isn't one way to teach or do yoga.

Back in August, I briefly took on an English teaching job that, completely coincidentally, also had a yoga studio. There was even the possibility of teaching yoga there too.

I remember thinking... of all the places I could have ended up, maybe this was a sign to start teaching yoga again. 😂

Then I took their yoga class.

And instead, it reminded me of one of the reasons I'd moved away from a lot of yoga spaces in the first place. 😅

It wasn't because it was advanced or because it was Vinyasa. It was the rigidity around how poses were supposed to look — very specific rules about things like exactly where the feet should be.

When I mentioned afterwards that I'm also a yoga teacher and had been taught — and teach — some of those poses differently, I was told that wasn't yoga.

And that comment stuck with me.
I asked my own yoga teacher trainer about it and started searching for examples of other yoga teachers teaching these poses differently. That's how I found the video at the beginning of this reel.

And just to be VERY clear: I'm not against alignment.

I'm a yoga teacher, personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist, and I also teach mat Pilates. Technique, positioning and alignment matter to me.

But there's a difference between considering alignment for the purpose of the movement and insisting that every person's pose needs to look exactly the same to be "correct."

Bodies are different. Our structure, mobility, strength, injury history and movement experience are different.

Sometimes we need to modify a position, use props, work towards something gradually or simply choose the variation that works better for that person.
That's how I've always taught yoga.

Finding another yoga teacher teaching Cobra with the legs apart reinforced my point: there isn't only one "correct" way.

But do people even want the way I teach yoga? I've tried creating group classes, but they haven't been popular, which made me wonder whether people only know — or want — advanced, traditional or slow-stretching styles.