Practice These Awesome Yoga Poses to Stay Fit Everyday
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Utkatasana is a standing yoga posture that strengthens your legs, upper back, and shoulders while stimulating your abdominal organs, diaphragm, and heart. To do this asana, stand straight, take a deep breath, and raise your arms perpendicular to the floor. Exhale bending your knees to adapt a pose that mimics sitting on a chair. Hold this position for 30 seconds. Then, inhale and straighten your knees lifting through your arms and finally exhale to release them. Beginners can try this pose near a wall to ensure better tailbone support.
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Tadasana promotes a great starting and resting position. It stimulates balance in your body and draws your attention to the present moment. It makes your abdomen and buttocks firm, relieves sciatica, and reduces flat feet. The pose can be practiced anytime during the day. Ideally, you can perform this asana at least four to six hours after your meal. Alternatively it can be done shortly after waking up in the morning after relieving yourself. To make this asana a little more challenging, try practicing it with your eyes closed.
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The intricate name originates from Sanskrit language, "adhas" meaning down, "mukh" meaning face, and "svana" meaning dog. The short one to three minute asana stretches your hamstrings, calves, spine, and back muscles. It calms your brain, relieves stress, combats mild depression, and symptoms of menopause. The pose is not recommended for someone who has high blood pressure, weak eye capillaries, conjunctivitis, or suffers from any injury, or inflammation in the eyes back, legs, ankles, hips, wrists, shoulders or arms.
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Virabhadra calms and relaxes your mind, strengthens your legs and ankles, thereby increasing the overall stamina of your body. Your breath also deepens and lengthens, making you feel alive and aware throughout the body. Be extra careful while performing the Warrior II Pose if you have complications like diarrhea, high blood pressure, vertigo, hip, or neck pain. For neck problems, do not turn your head and look over your front arm while in the pose. Instead, remain facing forward aligned with the chest to reduce strain.
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Trikonasana is a potent yoga pose that connects your back to the lower body. There are quite a few physical benefits associated with this pose. It expands your chest and shoulders, stretches and strengthens your thighs, knees, ankles, hips, groins, hamstrings, and calves, and also promotes natural arches in the feet. This pose is very helpful in relieving stress and calming your mind and can open up energetic channels in your body. Trikonasana is the most cherishable yoga pose that teaches you stability, expansion, and evenness.
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Vrikshasana is a powerful tree yoga pose that helps you strengthen and tone your leg muscles, ankles, feet, as well as groin and inner thigh. The name is taken from the Sanskrit language, where "vriksha" means tree and "asana" means pose. It also stretches your chest, shoulder muscles, and stabilizes the core muscles of the hips and spine. The pose can be a bit tricky for beginners as it is difficult to maintain balance. In this case, stand next to a wall or chair or use a steady vertical support to prevent from falling.
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This yoga pose opens your chest up, makes your spine flexible, calms the brain and alleviates stress and mild depression. It stimulates your abdominal organs, lungs, thyroid, improves digestion, and energizes tired legs. For women, it helps relieve the symptoms of menopause and menstrual discomfort. If you face difficulty in holding the pelvis lift during the pose, slide a block beneath your sacrum and rest the pelvis on it for support. Lift your heels off the floor once in the pose and push your tailbone up to make it more challenging.
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The Corpse Pose helps in calming your mind to relieve stress. It relaxes the body, reduces headache, fights fatigue, and helps lower blood pressure. You must lie face-up and stretch your legs to the outer edges of your mat. Slightly thrust your feet out to the sides and rest your arms along the sides with palms facing up. Close your eyes and relax deeply. Shavasana is most effective if you stay in the pose for five minutes. Pregnant women can raise their head and chest on a bolster to avoid any discomfort.
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Practicing this pose regularly helps with childbirth, urinary and menstrual discomfort, relieves pain and body heaviness. It also stimulates your abdominal organs, ovaries and prostate gland, bladder, kidneys, the heart, and enhances blood circulation. Beginners may face some difficulty breathing and lowering the knees to attain the pose. They can sit on high support (as high as a foot) if their knees are very high above the floor. Individuals with a groin or knee injury should only do the pose with blanket support under the outer thighs.
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This yoga pose is one of the key elements of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation). It enhances core stability, strengthens your triceps, and abdominal muscles. Start by lowering your knees to the floor from the Plank Pose, exhale, and lower your sternum almost an inch or two above the floor. Check in the mirror to adjust your position at a 90-degree angle. If one has carpal tunnel syndrome or any issues with the wrist, then they must avoid practicing the pose as it puts a lot of pressure on that area.
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The Half Moon strengthens your thighs, ankles, buttocks, abdomen, and opens your chest, shoulder, and torso. It also stretches your spine, groins, hamstrings, and calves. It provides benefits of mild inversions, stress and anxiety relief. When practiced perfectly, it can be therapeutic for sciatica and lower back pain. It is not advisable for someone who has low blood pressure, experiences headaches, insomnia, or diarrhea. Individuals with neck injuries should not turn their heads to face the top hand and must continue looking straight ahead.
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Upward-Facing Dog is a back-bending pose that extends and strengthens your spine, arms, and torso. It improves your physical posture and can be therapeutic for asthma. It creates flexibility in the back torso and abdomen, which stimulates your abdominal organs and improves digestion. Keep a rolled blanket under the thighs for support. Avoid if you have carpal tunnel syndrome or recent back or wrist injury. Pregnant women should refrain from practicing this after the first trimester as it can strain the ligament and lower back.
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The Intense Side Stretch relaxes your mind, stretches your hamstrings, spine, hips, shoulders, and wrists. It also stimulates the abdominal organs, improves posture and balance, and digestion. The therapeutic pose soothes your nervous system and improves mental focus. You can use blocks to place your hand and help keep your torso long. Hold the pose for 30 seconds at a stretch before you rise back up. People with a back injury or high blood pressure should avoid bending fully and instead do Ardha (Half) Parsvottanasana.
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People experiencing high or low blood pressure, migraines, or insomnia should not practice Dhanurasana. The backbend pose opens up your chest, front of your body, ankles, thighs, groins, abdomen, chest, throat and deep hip flexors. It strengthens your back muscles and improves posture. You can execute the asana with your thighs, calves, and inner thigh muscles pressed in. Practicing the yoga pose provides relief from constipation, respiratory ailment, mild backache, fatigue, anxiety, and menstrual discomfort.
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Camel Pose is done to prepare for deeper backbends. It creates space in the chest and lungs, which increases breathing capacity and revitalizes the body to help reduce anxiety and fatigue. It stimulates the kidneys to improve digestion. Similar to Bow Pose, practicing Camel Pose can offer relief from constipation, respiratory ailments, mild backache, fatigue, and menstrual discomfort. Individuals experiencing high or low blood pressure, migraines, or insomnia should avoid performing this pose.
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The revitalizing inversion strengthens your shoulders, arms, and wrists to promote balance, calmness, and confidence. It can be challenging for beginners to straighten their elbow but they can use a strap and loop it over their upper arms, right above the elbows, and then stretch out their arms. To modify the pose for comfort, you can place the crown of your head against the padded support on the floor to avoid any head injury. The pose should be practiced empty stomach.
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Bakasana tones and strengthens your arms and wrists the abdominal muscles, stretches the upper back, and opens the groin. It also improves your balance and overall body coordination. It will deepen your self-awareness and boost confidence. In the beginning, it is often helpful to squat on a block so that your feet are a little above the floor. One should not perform the pose if they have any injury in the wrist or shoulder, or if they have carpal tunnel syndrome. Pregnant women should also strictly refrain from practicing this pose.
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Wheel Pose stimulates your thyroid and pituitary glands, increases energy, alleviates depressions, and is therapeutic for asthma, back pain, infertility, and osteoporosis. You must try remaining in the pose for five to 10 seconds and repeat the posture for 3 to 10 times. People with a back injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, diarrhea, headache, heart conditions, high or low blood pressure should not perform this asana. To make it more comfortable, you can support either your hands or feet on a pair of blocks for the full backbend.
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This is a relaxing yoga pose that stretches the spine, shoulders, pelvis, and hamstrings. It helps stimulate and balance the uterus, ovaries, kidneys, liver, and adrenal glands. Yoga teachers often state that it improves digestion and appetite, provides relief from menstrual pain and menopause symptoms, and improves sleep. You must know that pushing yourself too hard to attain the correct posture can injure your body. It takes patience and years of regular practice to execute this pose with perfection.
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Boat Pose intensely challenges your abdomen, spine, and hip flexors, building strength and balance at the core. It energizes the abdominal organs, including the intestines and kidneys, enhancing digestion. It also promotes healthy functioning of the thyroid and prostate glands, maintains good metabolism, and relieves stress. You should not perform Navasana if you’re experiencing headaches, low blood pressure, or diarrhea. People with asthma and heart problems can alternatively switch to the Half Boat Pose.
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Sirsasana stimulates the pituitary and pineal glands, strengthens the lungs, tones the abdominal organs, improves digestion, helps alleviate symptoms of menopause, and is therapeutic for asthma, infertility, insomnia, and sinusitis. If you’re a beginner, you must avoid taking too much weight onto the neck and head when coming into and exiting the pose, as it can be dangerous. Avoid practicing this pose if you have a back or neck injury, headache, any heart condition, high or low blood pressure.
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Side Plank is an arm and wrist-strengthening pose that challenges your ability to stay calm and focused. It increases flexibility in the wrists, opens the hips and hamstrings, and tones the abs. This asana requires a lot of strength to be perfect. It is most effective if you can keep up for 30 seconds before retracting from it. Any sudden movements can easily injure your body. You must avoid attempting the pose if you have a serious injury in your wrist, elbow, or shoulder.
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Virabhadrasana III posture strengthens the entire backside of your body, including the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, ankles, and the back. The pose improves your balance, posture, body coordination, and tones and strengthens the abdominal muscles. Advanced yoga practitioners can try entering Virabhadrasana III from Virabhadrasana I. Please note that you must not try this posture if you're experiencing high blood pressure or any heart problems. The posture is most effective if you try to be in the position for 30 seconds.
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Uttanasana provides relief from stress, headache, anxiety, fatigue, mild depression, and insomnia. It stretches your hamstrings and calves, opens the hips, and relieves tension in the neck and shoulders. Practicing the pose regularly stimulates the liver and kidneys, and improves digestion. The pose is also therapeutic for stress, infertility, osteoporosis, sinusitis, high blood pressure, and asthma. It requires patience and years of regular practice to get this pose at its fullest expression.
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This pose reduces tension in the shoulders and chest, stimulates the abdominal organs, which helps in improving digestion in the body. You should avoid practicing this pose if you have any recent or chronic knee, ankle, or sacroiliac injury. Pregnant women should keep their torso upright and not practice the restorative version of the pose. You can place a thickly folded blanket underneath your hip for support, as it is sometimes difficult to descend the outside of the front-leg down to the floor.
Over the years, how we perceive yoga has transformed significantly. It’s no longer recognized as spiritual gymnastics practiced by Indian saints. Studies revealed the exact science of how yoga helps to not only reduce the symptoms of diseases that bother us frequently but also helps free people from stress, anxiety, and mild depression. Practicing different yoga postures for fitness burns fat and tones your muscles. Including these into your routine will enhance the overall strength and fitness of your body.
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