I often talk about tipping your tailbone up or down in my weekly yoga classes. As I’ve written before, this cue is a way of helping you think about how to move your pelvis.
For this post I’m focusing on how tipping your tailbone up or out behind you (depending on your body position), can help stretch the hamstrings.
Let’s first look at how to tip your tailbone. I find one of the easiest (if slightly odd) ways to understand this, is to think about having a head torch strapped to your bum. While standing, if you want to tip your tailbone back or out, think of trying to shine the head torch behind you.
For some folks this movement feels weird, wrong or just hard to actually feel. So to think about it another way…think about sticking your butt out. A great example is chair pose – when you sit your butt back to an imaginary chair. Generally you slightly stick your butt out as you sit back.
Ok, so now you’ve got the idea of tipping your tailbone or sticking your butt out, how to get that extra hamstring stretch? When you bend forward this moves the joints that help pull and stretch the hamstrings. If you can tip your tailbone, you will move one end of the hamstring muscle even further from the other, creating a deeper stretch. In fact, it’s more important to tip your pelvis/tailbone than it is to fold forward.
If your muscles are tight, you will need to bend the knees. This will give your hamstrings a little room to move and allow you to tip your tailbone. Again, if you find your muscles are tight or the movement is difficult, you can also try this with your hands on a raised surface like table or chair.
You can do this same action in down dog or lying on the floor.
