Five Reasons Why You Should Learn Human Anatomy

by Nina

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nichlaes Tulp by Rembrandt

A friend of mine surprised me the other day by saying she thought I should blog about anatomy more often. When I said that we’ve got Baxter and Shari to do that and that I thought of my post Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga as an exception, she replied particularly liked how I wrote about anatomy in layman’s terms, making it very accessible.

The truth is that I find anatomy just fascinating. Years ago when I was in Paris, I went with my friends and family to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. In the Great Gallery of Evolution, there was an extensive display of the skeletons of large number of species of living creatures, both great and small. I was so excited to see for myself how all mammals, from mice to whales to humans, have the same bone structure (with different variations in the sizes, shapes, and proportions of the bones). Different species of fish, on the other hand, can have dramatically different bone structures from each other.

And my friend’s comment got me thinking about why I thought human anatomy was so intriguing, how my understanding of human anatomy related to my yoga practice, and why I thought it was a good idea for everyone who practices to learn at least a bit about human anatomy.

1. Improves your alignment. Of course, you can just do the basic shape of a yoga pose without worrying too much about subtle alignment techniques. But working with alignment cues involving specific muscles and bones has several important benefits. First, you can learn to bear your weight more symmetrically in the pose—helping to keep you safer. Then, you can learn to make the pose more comfortable—you can breathe more easily, feel more freedom in the pose, and allow the energy move through you without getting stuck in certain tight areas. (Oh, yes, that feels better, doesn’t it?) See Tucking and Tilting the Pelvis for an example.

2. Enables you to customize your practice. It seems that almost everyone has a little something different about his or her body—something that deviates from the standard, you might say. It could be some usual flexibility, such as hyperextension of knees that I discussed in Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga or the same thing in your elbows, an asymmetry like scoliosis or one leg shorter than the other, a misalignment, such as knock knees or a carrying angle in your arms—the list goes on and on. When you learn about these differences in your own anatomy, you can use your knowledge of anatomy in general to adapt your asana practice to your particular needs and concerns. For example, in my post Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga, I talked about how I’ve worked with my knees over the years by focusing on moving individual bones and muscles.

3. Improves your proprioception. Working with individual muscles and bones in your poses helps make you more sensitive physically (you can wake up unresponsive areas by focusing on them). Having more sensitivity in the nerves that tell you where you are in space will, in turn, make you more agile (see Yoga for Agility) and improve your balance (see Balance and Safety).

4. Allows mindfulness. Although you can work with your breath in your poses as a mindfulness practice (see No Control: Watching Your Breath As It Is During Asana), you can also use specific alignment techniques in your poses—changing them from day to day—to focus your mind on a particular body part or sensation. This provides you with wide variety of ways to harness your mind to your body, which can help you from falling into a rut in your practice. As my teacher Donald once said, “Feeling an adjustment is concentration. Feeling the adjustment ripple through your body is meditation.” See What is Mindfulness? for further information.

5. Teaches you to love your body from the inside out. Learning anatomy can give you an appreciation of the marvelous complexity the human body! Just feeling the aliveness of my body as I practice yoga is often a great joy to me. And turning your focus from how you look in a pose to how your anatomy enables you to move into the various shapes of the poses allows you to let go of body image concerns. Like a mouse or a whale or every other human being, you are made up of skin and muscles and bones and organs, all throbbing and pulsing with life. This is the real “yoga body.”

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