Hip Anatomy: Femur Neck Length & Rotation (1-Min Educational)

Now what I'd like to examine is one more variation of a difference in human femurs. No two human femurs are the same and they're different in every possible way. We've looked at two of them. Now let's look at one more that's simple but still has consequences for yoga practice.

If we look at these two human femurs, again these are right femurs or right thigh bones. What we're going to look at is the necks of these bones and the neck is this little bridge of bone that connects the head to the shaft or the head to the trochanter. And it's much longer on this yogi than this yogi. That would make a big difference on when would these bones find compression when they move in yoga postures.

For example, if I look at the long neck femur first, because there's more space here, this yogi when it's sitting in the socket, when it's abducting and rotating in different directions, because there's more space or length, it will probably be able to rotate much more in most directions before it would hit and find compression and not be able to move anymore. Whereas our other yogi may be just as diligent or more so, just as disciplined in their practice, because this neck is not as long and the space in here is not as broad. It's going to find compression in most ranges of motion and rotation sooner or more quickly. And once again, like the other variations in the femur that we have examined, yoga is not going to change these bones.

Yoga is not going to change the length of the neck of the femurs. Yoga can make these bones more healthy, but it won't fundamentally change their shape and change this femur into this femur.