Tight hamstrings can be so, so painful. They can shorten and pull on hip muscles, forcing other muscles in your pelvis to do extra work, and inflame the tendons surrounding the joints of your sitting bones. Worst of all – when we sit for a long time, we are automatically shortening our hamstrings and making them tight. This means that many of us are accruing issues in these muscles before we even know it.

Relieving tightness from stubborn hamstrings can bring a lot of the surrounding musculature into balance. If you have pelvic pain that comes from shortened hamstrings, you may want to add Big Toe Pose to your sequence to try and hash them out. Read on to learn how to do the pose, as well as the many benefits you can get from regularly practicing it.

 

Benefits of Big Toe Pose

Big Toe Pose gives you a full stretch along your hamstrings and calves. This action can help them lengthen after being shortened at a desk for a long time. This will help you form better loading patterns in your hips and spread the weight throughout your lower body.

At the same time, Big Toe Pose can help you improve digestion by stimulating your liver, kidneys, and stomach. The stretch you get energizes those organs for improved function and can help people suffering from common digestive symptoms from menopause find a little relief. Too many of us are familiar with the curse of a digestive tract slowed by hormones, including cramping and bloating. Big Toe Pose can help you resolve some of those issues.

The pose also helps calm your troubled mind, relieving mild depression and treating some of the runaway stress and anxiety that can catch up to you during the week. As a result, Big Toe Pose can help you treat mild cases of insomnia, as well as relieve stubborn stress headaches.

 

How to Do the Pose

Big Toe Pose begins in a standing position with your feet facing the same direction about half a foot apart from each other. Tense your thigh muscles while holding your legs straight as you prepare to bend at the hips. Exhale and move your entire upper body (torso and head) down towards your toes at the same time.

You may be wondering why the pose is called Big Toe Pose. Curl your first two fingers between the first two toes of both of your feet, gripping your big toe and using your thumb to hold onto your foot. Not everyone will be able to reach this far! If you can’t, find a strap that you can use to hold your feet during your forward bend. Remember: if your back rounds out as you try to do this, you’re bending further than you should at your current flexibility.

No matter how you’ve got a hold on your feet, the next step is to breathe in. As you do so, raise your torso and straighten your arms in the motion of standing up from your bend, even though you’re still bent over. You should feel a lift in the front of your body as well as in your tailbone. Your hamstrings should release and lengthen in this position.

Keep your forehead in a state of relaxation as you lift your sternum. Be mindful of your neck: you want to keep it long and prevent it from compressing during this movement.

Hold here, breathing and contracting the front of your thighs. As you breathe out, pull your sitting bones up and feel your hamstrings release. Your lower back should be deepening, not rounding, though many of us may not have the flexibility to maintain it. On the last exhale, bend your elbows as you pull on your feet and bend fully over, pulling your head towards your legs if you can.

Most of us who need Big Toe Pose will have short hamstrings, so the best we can do is keep the torso nice and long and be mindful about not hunching our backs. Remember that it’s always more important to perform a pose healthily than to perform it more intensely.

You can remain in Padangusthasana for up to a minute before releasing your toes, bringing your hands up, and unbending your head and body at the same time, coming back to a standing position.

 

The Takeaway

Big Toe Pose can help you lengthen and release stubborn hamstrings that have become short and temperamental from a lifestyle that includes too much sitting. At the same time, you can calm your troubled mind and ease digestive symptoms of menopause. Easy to try and hard to master, Big Toe Pose makes a great addition to any standing sequence.