Anatomy for Yoga; click to view Uttanasana Spread

McGraw-Hill Publishing was kind enough to send me their latest yoga book to review. Anatomy for Yoga: An Illustrated Guide to Your Muscles in Action, by Nicky Jenkins and Leigh Brandon, is a helpful guide to a personalized yoga practice. The authors provide an overview of yoga anatomy, including terminology, main systems, and breathing. They also review meditation and the chakra (or “subtle”) system, and how it might affect your physical systems.

From there, they identify four major postural types: kyphosis (round shoulders), lordosis (overarched lower back), flat back, and swayback (hips forward). Each type has a few possible causes; you might have a head-forward posture because of your computer setup, the sports you play, or the emotions trapped in the chest.

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I want this:

The Fitbit. Attaches anywhere, measures everything. Calories burned in your rocking chair. Miles traveled up and down your staircase. Percentage of sleep that was uninterrupted. (Why limit OCD to your waking hours?)

The thing uploads your data, anytime you walk within 15 feet of the base station. (And it doesn’t make you subscribe to MobileMe.) It just gives you lots of pretty charts and graphs.

You can even make it a nutrition journal, if you have the discipline to write down every single thing that you eat. Supposedly that’s very revealing.

Does it come with an intern to wear it around for you?

Yoga Hyde

A quick shout-out to Hyde Clothing, who were so kind as to drop by the site and send me their spring look book. I’ve seen their gear in a lot of the studios around town, but I had no idea they were based in New York City! So, if you’re a locavore, you can eat their clothes. They’re organic.

I’ve not actually worn any of their clothes — I’ve only recently pried myself away from $3 yoga pants and $5 t-shirts at Conway, $30 crops at Old Navy, and the occasional forgot-my-yoga-clothes Nike Fit splurge. Finally, I admitted that anything that shrinks after the second wash is not worth the effort to bring it home, and treated myself to a steep Calvin Klein sale at Macy’s. As much as I resist “outfits” for yoga — too much of a “look” brings my attention too much outward — I am beyond happy with my well-made gear, which still looks and feels like a hug, twenty washes in.

The clothes have cute details like spiral seams on the pants, to help you remember how to rotate your femurs I’m sure. Their full-length pants look a bit short to me, but they have plenty of crops (which let your teacher see your alignment better anyways). I am curious about the taryn halter, which is listed “for those who hate halters,” since I am indeed a halter-hater and I wonder if this one will give me a back massage or something to win me over.

So if you’re needing new gear, and want to support your local shops, look for Hyde around town. And tell me what you think!