Why do we love The Essential Alignment Band so much? Because the possibilities with this prop are endless! This multi-purpose band is our favourite for 3 main reasons: Postural Feedback, Resistance Training, and Joint Support.
Whether your body is seeking a challenge, correction or rest, The Essential Alignment Band is here to offer you what you need.
Postural Feedback
In an ever evolving and high demand world where we spend countless hours in our cars commuting, seated at a desk perhaps for work or studies hunched over a computer and the use of our smartphones encouraging a forward head position, we tend to develop poor postural habits and discomfort in our bodies. This is why having a dedicated movement practice is ideal and encouraged for our health.
The essential alignment band is a great prop to offer you postural feedback and stability as you align your body in any movement practice.
We love the Posture Wrap, amongst other wraps, for this very reason in our yoga practice as simply standing tall in Mountain Pose, Tadasana, will offer you an alert experience of becoming more aware of how you hold your body in space, feeling taller, more grounded, and confident in yourself.
Resistance Training
Resistance training involves any exercise that requires muscles to work against weight or force and has been proven to improve bone density, decrease risks of injury and help people build overall strength and flexibility. The essential alignment band offers you resistance in all bodyweight exercises to help you coordinate and be aware of a push and pull effort. This dual focus towards stabilization before mobilization helps prioritize ones core strength and full body function in all movements.
This prop is a complement to your yoga practice especially for those who are kinetic learners and those who seek to up their practice with safe loading using the essential alignment band for more resistance.
Using this prop in Bridge Pose, Setu Bandhasana, encourages you to actively engage your core and connect with oppositional energy lines (push and pull) in order to strengthen your body safely and effectively in this shape.
Joint Support
Although the essential alignment band is incredibly supportive in all movement exercises, we absolutely love it for Yin and Restorative postures.
Yin yoga targets the deep tissues of our body through passive, longer held postures, whereas Restorative yoga is a restful practice all about slowing down and opening up through passive stretching. What these two branches of yoga have in common is that they are both slower paced, more introspective and require longer holds. Multiple props are often used to offer support for students to decrease unnecessary stress placed on their joints when taking a Yin or Restorative class.
The essential alignment band is an ideal prop for these practices as the function of the band is to offer joint support through multiple different body wraps. You will feel held and relaxed ready to release into your postures.
Our absolute favourite, the lower body wrap, offers incredible support for the pelvis and hips in any variation of Cobblers Pose, Baddha Konasana.
There are endless possibilities for you to play with, explore and enjoy this incredible prop!
We hope that you feel confident, strong and supported by your essential alignment band!
Athletix Academy Inc
Paria Mirazimi (Co-Founder) and Naomi Zahler (Co-Founder), are movement educators and enthusiasts. They both share a passion for continued learning, personal growth and the collective human experience. They believe movement is a healing force that leads us to growth and evolution where we may be empowered to tap into our full potential.
Connect and move with them online www.athletixacademy.com or @athletixacademy_a2
