Question

Hi I have a question purely out of curiosity. I took a yoga class the other day and the teacher had us working on standing pike. In order to compress she had us first bend our knees and place our chest on our thighs then try to straighten them as much as we could without moving our chest. If we weren't able to fully straighten then we were to leave our knees bent. Does anyone know the rationale between the difference in technique? Just curious. Thanks and hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Hi Kristen, 

Great question. In Yoga, the general focus of class is to get you into the shape, they don't typically break down the areas that need addresses to help your body get into the shape. For example many things can be holding you back from a compressed pike fold, so they have you bend your knees so you can feel your chest on thighs and then have you straighten your legs trying to keep your chest on thighs. In GST we understand the body works as one so we will stretch the foot, ankle, knees, quads, hamstrings and even the back to preform a pike with out forcing your body into it. If you focus heavily on your GST, the yoga flow will come easy. 

Let us know if you have any further questions. 

Tanya is spot on about the wholeness of GST. 

In the pike you're describing, when you bring your chest to thighs with bent knees, you'll notice that your pelvis anteriorly rotates or tilts forward (APT), in theory separating origin and insertion points in your hamstrings. In this respect, it's a much more local stretch primarily focusing on hamstrings.

Thanks ladies that makes sense! I am learning so much from this forum!

actually, you are not forcing anything into something weird. It is what it is, a specific stretch for the hamstrings. Even kit laughlin teaches it all the time for hamstring flexibility. 

When your legs are straight and doing a pike, there is of course more chance that you are stretching lower back and not the posterior muscles, so when bending your knees, you stretch the latter more effectively than with straight legs, because you can keep your back more straight, pushing it forward and ergo more emphasize on the hammies. 

Great point Luka.