Practicing bridge poses can help you learn some of the back-supporting movements that are essential to do the wheel pose correctly.
Lie on your back with your feet flat on the ground and your arms at your sides with your palms down. Exhale, press the inner and outer edges of your feet towards the floor and move your tailbone up into your body. The base of the buttocks will be lifted along with the tailbone, and the tailbone will be tucked into the body continuously, raising the hips as high as possible while raising the chest.
Keep your hips and chest up, move your feet in the direction of your hands, and grab your ankles. Press your feet into the floor and lift your hips. Then, lift your chest closer to your chin by pulling on the shoulder straps or ankles, pulling your shoulder blades firmly towards your back ribs – but avoiding pressing your chin down your throat. Relaxes the abdomen, throat, facial muscles, and breathing. After 30 to 60 seconds, exhale and lower your body.
Wheeled
Lie on your back with your feet hip-width apart and close to your hips. Bend your elbows and place your hands near your shoulders, slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, pointing your fingers toward your feet. Don't let your elbows spread to the sides, and as you exhale, lift your hips as you would in a bridge, then lift your chest and head off the floor. The top of the head is gently placed on the ground. Lift the medial shoulder blade from the back of the neck. You should not feel any pressure on your neck.
Place your head on the ground and press your feet towards the floor, elongating your sacrum away from your lumbar spine. Stretch the outside of your thighs from your hips toward your knees, keeping your knees hip-width apart. As you exhale, lift your body from your tailbone and shoulder blades at the same time, moving upwards into a wheeled pose. Balance and synchronize hip and chest movements. Observe those places that are sluggish or slow-moving. If your hips are reluctant to lift, you can place your feet on the yoga block against the wall and open your groin further. If chest lift is slow or difficult, you can place your hands on the yoga block against the wall.
If you can't lift up from the ground, place a mat perpendicular to the wall. Place two yoga blocks on the mat, spaced slightly wider than shoulder width apart, so that they form an angle of 45 to 60 degrees between the wall and the floor. (In addition to helping you get up, this angle relieves tension in your wrists.) ）
Sit on the mat and wrap a strap around the middle of your legs so that your legs are hip-width apart. Lie on your back and wrap the second strap around your arm above your elbow so that your arm is slightly wider than shoulder width. Put your hands on the yoga block, breathe deeply, exhale, put your feet on the ground, and place your hands on the yoga block – then up.
If you still can't lift it, continue to do the preparatory position for a few weeks. A common mistake made when lifting the body is to turn your feet outward. This puts pressure on the knee joint, and the outward movement of the leg narrows the sacral region and can also jam the sacroiliac joint. If keeping your feet parallel is difficult, place a yoga block or two between your feet and keep the inner edge of your heels and the balls of your feet in contact with the yoga blocks throughout the asana.
Once lifted, don't straighten your arms too quickly. Start by maintaining and increasing the extension of your spine. Keeping your feet parallel, turn your tibia and front thighs inward. Separate the sacral muscles from the spine and push the coccyx deep into the pelvis to remove the top of the hips from the lumbar spine. To strengthen the inward movement of the coccyx and the upward lifting of the hips, pull the back of the thighs towards the buttocks and lift the bottom of the buttocks as if they were higher than the top of the buttocks.
Without drooping your hips, press the inside edge of your hand toward the floor and rotate your upper arm so that your triceps roll toward the center line of your body. Pull the medial shoulder blade up away from the neck and spread the anterior rib cage away from the sternum. The wheel pose needs to be repeated several times to warm up and open up the inside of the body. Then the resistance starts to disappear and the posture becomes easier. Don't rest too long between repetitions, or you'll cool down, lose energy, and become stiff.
For the second time, repeat all the movements of the first time. The spine is extended and supported by the limbs, and now the arms are extended to lift the ribcage higher. When you eventually try to move your chest forward, the height of your ribs is important to avoid pinching the shoulder joint or pressing on the mid-thoracic spine. If you're having trouble stretching your arms and lifting your back ribs, try lifting your heels. The extra height that this movement brings to your hips allows you to find the extra stretch you need in your upper back.
Once you feel the opening up (which will make you feel relaxed in your chest and your mind excited), lower your heels towards the floor, and as you stretch your heels towards the floor, stretch your arms and continue to raise your back ribs higher. As the ribcage opens up, the spine becomes more flexible, and you'll notice that you can move your foot in the direction of your hands after lifting your heels. This will deepen your posture.
Lifting your heels brings extra stretch to your upper back, tuck your back ribs into your body, and lean your chest forward to bring your shoulders closer to your wrists. (Your shoulder joint should not be compressed or painful; if there is, you haven't created enough lift.) Keep in mind that you must keep the maximum extension of your spine and the shoulders and groin open to avoid compressing or injuring your joints.
Every time you do yoga, keep the front of your body relaxed. Do not harden your groin or push with your pubic bone. Despite the huge stretch on the abdomen, keep the muscles there passive. Your breath can then move without restriction and provide you with the energy to repeat and hold the asana. (Stay for a minute or more.) Using your breath will not only provide energy, it will help you avoid unnecessary tension.
While wheels and other backbend poses can strengthen and stretch your muscles and allow the spine, hips, and shoulders to move freely, the true power of these asanas is more subtle. They act on your nervous system, which is one of the reasons why they are helpful for depression.
The presence of your bones and muscles is obvious. However, your nervous system is essentially invisible – just like the back of your body. Because your back and your nervous system are invisible, they must be perceived from within, perceived rather than thought about
Since most of the action of the backbend occurs in the unseen rear of your body, developing the ability to perceive what is happening and what to do will draw you from the front of the brain and external sensory organs to the depths of the back of the brain and the unknown corners of intuitive thinking. The flow of consciousness in yoga practice is from the outside to the inside, from the periphery to the core, and from the objective to the subjective. You must eventually leave the familiarity and solidity of the known and embark on an adventure to explore the unknown.