Reflexive stability is crucial to movement and yoga (and everyday life), but what does it really mean and how can it improve your daily life? Learn all about it in this blog post and don’t forget to share, comment and like.
What is Reflexive Stability in Movement and Yoga?
Reflexive stability refers to your body's ability to maintain balance and stability in response to changes. This can be achieved through the automatic activation of reflexes that help the body adjust its posture and movements.
For example, when we step on an unstable surface, such as a yoga block, our body activates reflexes that help us maintain our balance. These reflexes include the vestibular reflex, which helps us maintain our orientation and balance, and the proprioceptive reflex, which helps us sense the position and movement of our body parts.
Why is Reflexive Stability Important in Movement and Yoga?
Reflexive stability is important in movement and yoga because it helps prevent injuries and improves performance. By maintaining stability and balance, we reduce the risk of falls and other accidents. Additionally, reflexive stability helps us move more efficiently and effectively, allowing us to perform more complex movements with greater ease and control.
How Can Reflexive Stability be Developed through Yoga Practice?
Reflexive stability in movement and yoga also involves activating different parts of the brain that are responsible for balance, coordination, and motor control. Here are some ways that yoga can help activate different parts of the brain:
Coordination and motor control: Practicing yoga poses that involve coordination and motor control, such as balancing poses and flow sequences, can activate the cerebellum. The cerebellum is a part of the brain responsible for coordinating movement and balance.
Proprioception: Proprioception is the sense of where your body is in space. Practising yoga poses that involve proprioception, such as standing poses with eyes closed, can activate the somatosensory cortex. The somatosensory cortex is responsible for processing sensory information related to touch and body position.
Vestibular system: The vestibular system is responsible for maintaining balance and spatial orientation. Practising yoga poses that involve the vestibular system, such as inversions, head movements and balance poses, can activate the vestibular nuclei in the brainstem.
By activating these different parts of the brain through yoga practice, we can improve our reflexive stability and balance. Additionally, studies have shown that regular yoga can increase grey matter volume in these areas of the brain, leading to improved motor control and coordination.
Sit-Ups Are Out, Reflexive Core Stability Is In
Functional fitness is the way forward, by working on our reflexes and bulletproofing parts of our brain that are responsible for stability, then we can develop a strong core that automatically engages with the breath, rather than gripping and causing rigidity.
What Is A Reflexive Core?
The Reflexive Core includes the diaphragm, deep abdominal muscles and the pelvic floor. It is a pressurised system that moves with your breath, much like a balloon - please read my other blog posts to learn more about this. However, when your core is engaged/gripped for a whole yoga class or long periods of time, then instead of the whole system working with the breath, it just becomes rigid and doesn’t work reflexively. Physios are now seeing this in their clinics, where their patients have overly gripped core when they pick up a pencil or in day-to-day life, leading to many other issues.
So What Is Core Stability?
As the trunk of your body, your core muscles act as a foundation for all movements, providing stability and strength to the spine, pelvis, and shoulders.
Having good core stability is important for many reasons. It helps improve posture, balance, and coordination, preventing injuries and improving athletic performance.
To improve core stability, it is important to engage both the stabilisers and the movers through specific exercises. Do you want to learn more about these movements? Then, watch out for next week's blog!
Overall, reflexive stability is an essential concept in movement and yoga. Developing reflexive stability through yoga practice can improve your balance, coordination, and performance while reducing the risk of injuries. So, the next time you hit the yoga mat, focus on building your reflexive stability and see how it can transform your practice.
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