The Power of Poses: Activate Those Large Muscle Groups!

By Jenna Pastuszek

We had an awesome time at our BOOTCAMP last week! The group spent the night exploring  the power of body awareness and movement in song. A big theme of the night was the  importance of recruiting larger muscle groups to aid in “supporting” the sound to decrease  effort at the vocal fold level.

Many teachers often talk about “support”, but few singers actually know what they mean.  Perhaps they are referring to activating your postural muscles to expand the efficiency of your  inhalation muscles to aid in diaphragmatic breathing? Or perhaps they mean engaging the  lower half of your body in order to lengthen and anchor the spine? Or perhaps they mean  turning on your “pants zipping” lower abdominals to engage your pelvic floor and/or encourage  the opening of your chest. Any of these are viable and interesting options! 

You can play with activating the larger muscle groups (think abdominals, hamstrings,  inner/outer thighs, glutes, pecs, lats, traps, etc.) of your body by using a variety of yoga poses! 

HOW TO POWER POSE 

Try singing a short 4-8 bar cut in each of these poses and analyze which poses add a special  something to your voice (ring, volume, ease, clarity, etc). 

Compare the different sides of your body! Doing a pose on one side may be more effective than  the other. 

Did you know our body is made up of asymmetries that effect us down to the vocal fold level?  More on that later… 

Here are some of our favorite yoga inspired POWER POSES to try! 

• Plank 

• Downward Dog 

• “Figure 4” stretch 

• Quad stretch 

• Tree pose 

• Eagle pose 

• Goddess pose 

• Warrior I, II, III 

• Crescent lunge 

• Chair pose