Self-Myofascial Release: Yoga Flow

YogaMedicine’s Allison Candelaria shows off how to use yoga postures to perform self-myofascial release. Increase flexibility and relieve pain with this series of postures.

Free Your Back Body Like Never Before: A Flow for Your Fascia

Do you practice yoga regularly but somehow still feel “stuck” in certain spots?  Senior Yoga Medicine teacher Allison Candelaria created this fascia-freeing flow to tune up the whole backside of your body.

The back side of the body takes on a lot of tension. Our postural habits, stress and natural tendency to move mostly in the sagittal plane (forward, specifically) can all be to blame. Sitting, standing, and walking make the external rotators of the hips, hamstrings, and calves tight and weak. Our low backs tend to house discomfort from sitting. Another culprit could be over-exaggerating the curve in the lumbar spine (hyperlordosis). It could be something as simple as sinking your weight into one hip while standing.

Moving up the body, the rhomboids (the muscles between the shoulder blades and spine) become weak from our tendency to round the upper back. And the upper traps (top of the shoulders and neck) are notorious for holding stress-induced tension. To top it all off, our necks have to work very hard to hold up our heads, so tension can get trapped in the base of the skull and sometimes send referral pain to other areas in the body.

Read the full article on the Yoga Journal website.

About the Author

Allison Candelaria is a senior Yoga Medicine teacher and the owner of Soul Yoga studio in Oklahoma City, where she resides with her husband and two children. For Allison yoga was a perfect transition from her previous dancing career and complement to her professional work in the nonprofit sector. Her vinyasa flow classes are anatomically informed by years of study and uniquely incorporate myofascial release techniques to balance the mind, body and breath.

She is currently working on her 1000-hour certification with Yoga Medicine. She has also had the privilege to be personally mentored by Tiffany Cruikshank herself. You can find Allison leading 200-hour training with Yoga Medicine around the world. She also teaches workshops, classes and privates in the midwest. Learn more on allisoncandelaria.com and soulyogaokc.com.