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The hamstrings are a common source of frustration for many yoga practitioners. In this interview, Doug Keller, author of Yoga as Therapy and a featured Yoga Spirit webinar presenter discusses some of the reasons why the hamstrings are so important to a rewarding yoga practice and gives tips and tricks for healthy hamstring stretches.

 Q. You teach yoga workshops all over the world just focusing on the hamstrings. Why are the hamstrings so important to people’s yoga practice—and structural health in general?

Doug Keller: The hamstrings are intimately connected to the health of the lower back and pelvis. Many back injuries and low back pain issues are related to the hamstrings. Also, the way people stretch the hamstrings can sometimes cause an injury to the connective tissue in the lower back. So back pain and tight hamstrings are often related.

But it’s not just people with tight hamstrings, who have issues. Yoga practitioners with very flexible hamstrings sometimes suffer lasting injury because of the way they stretch. They assume that because they are very flexible, they can go very far in the stretch without having to worry about it. However, they sometimes cause themselves injury from the way they do the stretch. The injury in that case can be both to the leg and the lower back.

These are the kind of issues I will be discussing in my webinar on yoga for safe hamstring stretching. Injuries to the ligaments can last a long time, if they are not treated properly, so it’s a pretty important topic for yoga practitioners.

We will be looking how to stretch in a way that first of all stretches the hamstrings effectively, because the way most people stretch actually limits their ability to stretch effectively. We will go into depth on the specific actions in yoga poses that help people make more progress in stretching the hamstrings. It really starts with the recognition that there are other muscles involved than just the stretching of the hamstrings.

Q. Could you give a few more details?

Doug Keller: For most people with tight hamstrings, the inner thigh muscles, the adducters present real limitations. In many cases, people who think they have tight hamstrings are actually limited by tightness in the adducters. If they don’t stretch those, they can go for years trying to stretch their hamstrings and really not feel they are making any progress.

Q. How common are tight hamstrings in yoga classes?

Doug Keller: Tight hamstrings are quite common, particularly in beginning level yoga classes. But you also find many people, who are in good shape, like runners and athletes, with tight hamstrings. Most of them recognize that what they’re doing creates tight hamstrings, which can lead to injury or limit them in their sports, if they don’t learn how to stretch the hamstrings effectively.

In more advanced yoga classes, however, you find the opposite problem. What is more common for experienced yoga practitioners are people who are very flexible in their hamstrings, but the way they are stretching is causing injury, especially to the attachments of the hamstrings at the sitting bones.

There are two sets of hamstrings –the semitendinosus and semimembranosus running along the inner leg, and the biceps femoris, which runs along the outer leg to the knee. People with flexible hamstrings tend to overstretch the hamstrings on the inner leg, which can eventually start to cause pain at the inner knee or the sitz bones from the overstretching, which tends to stress the tendons or the attachment.

Further, if people stretch in a way that doesn’t stretch the outer hamstring, it affects the rotation of the leg. So it becomes a vicious cycle, from the imbalance between the two sets of hamstrings, they end up stretching the inner hamstrings more and more and the outer hamstrings actually become a bit tighter over time. But most people don’t notice it, because they can go deeper into the pose, and that increases the strain on the tendons. 

Q. So you are saying that this predisposes people to injury? 

Doug Keller: Yes, when people hyperextend, they are not really stretching the hamstring anymore, they are just pulling on the hamstring tendons. And the tendons are not really built to stretch that much, so what happens is instead of stretching, they start to create micro tears in the tendons. That builds up scar tissue, and that becomes a persistent injury with persistent pain. It’s harder to heal, because the tendons don’t have as much circulation as the muscles, and they have a different kind of tissue that heals more slowly. 

Q. It sounds like people with flexible hamstrings are at greater risk for injuries?

Doug Keller: Both sides are at risk. I think it’s the experienced yoga practitioner or the flexible practitioner, who is more at risk for causing injury at the attachment which will lead to pain. 

If you take a survey of yoga practitioners, you will see that quite a few of them have pain at the sitting bones, which is the attachment of the hamstrings, and quite a few of them have pain at the inner knee. 

People think of hamstring injuries as coming from tight hamstrings. But the truth is that people who have tight hamstrings are somewhat safer in their stretching. They are not going to overstretch them unless they try too hard. Of course, they have another problem: they tend to injure their lower back in the process of trying to stretch their hamstrings. 

The tight people will pull too hard at their lower back in trying to stretch the hamstrings, and they often start to get low back pain from that. Stretching the hamstrings is actually meant to relieve you of back pain, but if you stretch too much, you end up possibly creating some low back pain for yourself. 

Q. Why are tight hamstrings so common? 

Doug Keller: The hamstring muscles have a lot of connective tissue. They are very tough muscles with a lot of fascial tissue, so it takes more dedication to keep them supple or flexible so they don’t tighten up over time. Also, many people stand in a way where they hang on their hamstrings, and that tends to tighten the hamstrings even more.

Q. What should yoga practitioners with tight hamstrings be particularly wary of?

Doug Keller: People with tight hamstrings, and the yoga teachers, who work with them, need to really focus on proper alignment in yoga postures. Otherwise, the hamstrings pull the body out of alignment in a way that puts more strain on the muscles in the low back than there should be.

Q. Most all beginning yoga students think that going deeper is better, so they round the back to get the head closer to the legs. It takes a long time to wean them of that habit.

Doug Keller: It’s true, most people are in a hurry to bend forward. The problem is, the way they bend forward, because the hamstring and inner thighs (the adductors) are tight, there is not room for the sacrum to tip forward, there’s not room for the hip to tip forward. So they try to go deeper, but like you say, they end up hanging on the lower back. It’s not the hamstring’s fault. When they don’t open up the lower back, they are not stretching the hamstrings effectively either. So try as they might, they will find that they’re not making much progress and getting more flexible over time. 

Rounding the back is the lazier form of doing the posture. People hang on the ligaments rather than really stretching. So it’s an important challenge for yoga teachers to work with students to get beyond this.

Q. You’ve studied the concept of Anatomy Trains with Tom Myers. How does that relate to the issue of tight hamstrings?

Doug Keller: The concept of Anatomy Trains shows how tension in the lower body, particularly the soles of the feet, the calves and the hamstrings translates up the whole body. Tension in the hamstrings or lower legs tends to cause tension in the lower back and the neck and even tension around the head that is related to tension headaches. In my webinar on the hamstrings, I will give some simple exercises that people can do to experience what the Anatomy Trains are all about.

In speaking of the hamstrings, we’re talking as if we’re just stretching one muscle, but the body doesn’t function according to just one muscle. So the Anatomy Trains really shows how the whole body is influenced by whatever happens in one part of the body. So stretching the hamstrings is not just for the benefit of your legs, it’s really for the benefit of your whole body.

Q. I know that you will be discussing this in your webinar, but what would you recommend to keep hamstring stretches safe? 

Doug Keller: Basically working the legs in a way in which you make space for the pelvis to move. That then opens up the possibility to start to stretch the hamstrings in a more balanced way, working both sides of the muscle equally.

If you don’t do that, you tend to both limit how much the back can move, and it also tends to isolate the action in certain parts of the hamstrings instead of stretching the whole configuration of them.

So it’s an action that creates a relief, so you can go deeper into the pose and feel it’s easier on your lower back and it also stretches the hamstrings more effectively. But there are a number of actions involved, which of course are hard to describe in a short statement—that’s one of the things we will be focusing on in the webinar on safe hamstring stretching in yoga.

Also Check Out Doug Keller's Webinar: Healthy Hamstrings - Unraveling the Knots

Whether you’re a yoga practitioner or a yoga teacher, chances are that your yoga practice has made you learn more about your hamstrings than you ever wanted to know. Tight hamstrings make correct alignment difficult in numerous yoga poses, in particular forward bends, but other poses are affected as well. And even if you are blessed with flexible hamstrings to begin with, for most of us keeping the hamstrings flexible as we get older is a constant challenge.

Strangely, increasing the flexibility of the hamstrings may involve not just yoga stretches targeting the hamstrings, such as Padangusthasana or Downward Dog. According to one study, yoga stretches for the neck could possibly make a difference as well.

The hamstrings are vital to our structural health. If the hamstrings aren’t flexible enough, their tension pulls the pelvis into a tilt, which flattens the lumbar curve of the spine. This places strain on the muscles and intervertebral discs of the lower back, which over time can cause various problems, particularly lower back pain. Therefore maintaining and quite possibly improving our hamstring flexibility is crucial to our long-term wellbeing.

The hamstring is actually a group of three muscles – the semitendinosus, the semimembranosus, and the long head of the biceps femoris. These muscles run along the back of the thigh, crossing both the hip and knee joints. They can contract in ways that straighten the hip and bend the knee. The word “hamstring” is often also used to include the short head of the biceps femoris muscle, which is only involved with the knee and not the hip, a portion of the adductor magnus muscle on the side of the thigh, and the tendons behind the knee. Our hamstrings are a fundamental part of many of our daily activities, like walking, running, jumping, and controlling movement in the torso.

So what does this have to do with your neck? The connection is the suboccipital muscles, which attach from the top of the spine to the skull. These muscles form a triangle called the suboccipital triangle, which consists of the rectus capitis posterior major (the top of the triangle), the obliquus capitis superior (the side of the triangle), and the obliquus capitis inferior (the bottom of the triangle). The suboccipital muscles also include the rectus capitus posterior minor, which isn’t part of the triangle. This area contains key nerves, and is covered by dense, fibrous tissue. These muscles control fine movement of the head.

Researchers Henry Pollard and Graham Ward conducted a study in which they found that stretching the hamstrings directly created a 9% increase in the length of the muscles, but stretching the suboccipitals created a 13% increase in hamstring length. Their explanation lies in the suboccipital muscles’ neurological role. The suboccipitals contain the most muscle spindles of anywhere in our bodies – in fact, the most of any creature on Earth. These are important to our sensory functions, especially our bodies’ compensation for the effects of gravity. Pollard and Ward suggest that through the Tonic Neck Reflex, a reflex shared by most mammals, extension of the subocciptals will cause a release of tension in the hamstrings.

For most people, if we shorten the upper neck, our hamstrings will stay short no matter how much we stretch them. Whereas if we lower the tonus of these upper neck muscles, lengthening our hamstrings and increasing hip flexion range of motion will be much easier.

Yoga neck stretches, of course, are a great way to relieve tension in the neck in general and suboccipitals in particular. In addition to yoga stretches, the suboccipitals can be stretched using structural bodywork, myofascial release, ideokinetic movement facilitation, alternative stretching, and/or a Ben’s Block (a specific kind of block designed for applying therapeutic pressure to the neck). Many chiropractic adjustments also focus on releasing tension in the suboccipitals to ease muscle tension in the legs and pelvic area.

So, next time you warm up your hamstrings during yoga, why not throw some deep yoga neck stretches in to see if it makes a difference? Who knows, you might find that adding yoga neck stretches to your daily routine won’t just help avoid neck tension, it could even improve the flexibility of your hamstrings, the alignment of your pelvis and lower back, and the overall health of your body.

See the video below for a great, relaxing neck stretch routine that will also help you wind down in the office or after a long day’s work.

If you need some energy and motivation to roll out your yoga mat, practice this simple, energizing practice called “Breath of Joy.” This three part breathing technique is a staple warm-up exercise in many yoga classes.

Amy Weintraub, author of Yoga for Depression and founder of LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute, recommends this practice to help sweep away the sluggishness of depression and infusing the mind with a serene sense of clarity. By creating a state of homeostatic balance, the Breath of Joy has been found to be particularly effective in managing mood, and will leave you feeling more balanced and refreshed. The practice counters the shallow upper chest breathing of anxiety by inviting the breath to completely fill the lungs.

The strong inhalations and synchronized arm movements, awakens your entire system —increasing oxygen levels in the bloodstream, temporarily stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, circulating more prana, and gently stoking agni. The forceful exhalation lightly detoxifies the body and helps release pent-up tension.

Step by Step Instructions - Also See the Yoga Video with the Practice Below:

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and parallel, knees slightly bent.

2. Inhale one-third of your lung capacity and swing your arms up in front of your body, bringing them parallel to each other at shoulder level, with palms facing the ceiling.

3. Continue inhaling to two-thirds capacity and stretch your arms out to the side like wings to shoulder level.

4. Inhale to full capacity and swing your arms parallel and over your head, palms facing each other.

5. Open your mouth and exhale completely with an audible ha, bending the knees more deeply as you sink into a standing squat and swing your arms down and back behind you like a diver.

Repeat up to nine times: Don’t force or strain the body or breath; simply be absorbed by the peacefully stimulating rhythm. Return to standing. Close your eyes and experience the effects. Notice how quickly your heart beats; feel the sensations in your face and arms, and the tingling in the palms of your hands.

Variation: For a lighter, brighter mood, add a bija mantra to each arm movement. As you lift your arms out in front of you, silently inhale the sound of va; as your arms move to the side, intone the syllable ra; with arms overhead, the sound is ya. Finish by exhaling completely as you speak the sound of ha out loud.

Contraindications: If you have high blood pressure or if you suffer from any kind of head or eye injury, like migraines or glaucoma, it’s best to skip this practice. Also, if you start to feel light-headed, stop for a minute and just breathe normally.

Like downward dog, Uttanasana - or Standing Forward Bend - is one of the most common poses in yoga. It is part of the Surya Namaskar series, and often used as part of a Vinyasa transition between yoga poses.

Benefits. Uttanasana offers many great benefits: It stretches the hamstrings and calf muscles, it opens the hips and groins and stimulates the digestive system while improving the functioning of the inner organs, including the liver and kidneys.

Because Uttanasana gently stretches the large leg muscles, where many people hold a great deal of tension, Uttanasaana has a deeply relaxing effect. It calms the entire nervous system and relieves stress, anxiety, and insomnia.

Contraindications. This pose is not recommended for people with low back problems without the guidance of an experienced yoga teacher.

Also, for people with tight hamstrings Uttanasana can be contraindicated, because if not done properly, the pose puts stress on the lower back. Tight hamstrings will prevent the pelvic bowel from moving freely forward, and as a result, the bending action is shifted into the lower back, putting pressure on the intervertebral discs of the lumbar spine. To avoid this, follow the remedial steps below, or start with non-weight bearing gentle hamstring stretches, such as Supta Padagustasana.

Uttanasana Step-By-Step Practice

1. Start standing in Tadasana with your feet parallel and hip width apart. Lift you toes and engage the muscles of your legs, drawing energy upwards from you feet. Then spread your toes put them back on the floor, keeping the leg muscles engaged. Root down through the four corners of the feet.

2. Lift the crown of your head away from your shoulders, lengthen your sidebody, and elongate your spine.

3. Raise your arms overhead, turning the palms to face each other. Keep the legs gently engaged towards the center. Pulling the shoulder blades down your back, extend from your low belly and lengthen out through your fingertips.

4. On an exhale, bend forward by pivoting from your groin area, being careful to keep the spine straight and long. Slowly fold your torso over your legs. Maintain the length through your spine, maintaining the forward bend from the pelvic bowl only, not from the lower back.

5. Lift your tailbone and allow the lifting to extend your torso further forward.

6. Again, lift your toes up from the floor to feel the leg muscles firm. Keep your leg muscles firmly engaged as you place the toes back down. Engage the inner thighs by gently bringing the legs towards each other.

7. Bend your knees slightly and come more deeply into the pose by allowing your upper torso to lengthen over your legs. Then, lift up from the knee cap to engage the quads and let that action slowly straighten your legs.

8. To release the posture, press the soles of your feet downward and drop your tailbone, gradually bringing up the squeeze as you return to the starting position.

Modifications

For tight hamstrings, try the following modifications:

1. Bring the feet further apart, so the outer edge of the foot lines up with the outer edge of the mat.

2. Bend you knees as much as is needed to keep your spine straight as your torso drapes over your leg. If your spine rounds, bend the knees more.

3. Put your hands on a block in front of you instead of on the floor.

Variations: Padahastasana—Standing Hand to Foot Pose

This is a more challenging version of this forward bend. Standing in Uttanasana, bring your hands underneath your feet. The hands and feet both contain many nerve centers and this variation has a nourishing and grounding effect on the entire mind and body.