An Adjunct for Exercise and Fitness

Yoga is an excellent addition to any exercise or fitness program. Most sports and fitness activities focus on a specific set of muscles and use that set repetitively. Yoga is a balancing activity which requires many areas of the body.

Many poses are practiced in both directions, to ensure equal stretch and strengthening on both sides of the body. Other poses are balanced by their very nature requiring many diverse muscle groups to perform.

A good start to a yoga practice is the ever-popular Sun Salutation, a sequence that is many thousands of years old. It is performed twice, once to the right, and again to the left to maintain balance. This will take just a few minutes and will expand and release many areas tight from other activities.  

By adding a short yoga practice before or after your sports or fitness program, you can let your body use all your muscles, not just a select few.  

Backbends: step by step

Preparing for backbends is an incremental process. First, an adequate warmup is essential for a backbend practice, ensuring supple muscles and a flexible torso. Next, when you are warmed up, set up your backbend practice so your spine flexes in small increments, either moving up or down the spine.

For example, lying on your back on your mat, position a block or firm blankets under your back to allow your shoulder blades space to release back and down. After several breaths, move the prop down your spine to the base of your rib cage, releasing at that location. The next position for the prop is just above the waist and the last is at the sacral spine. At each prop position, release into a backbend using your breath to assist in the release.

To increase the release you can use a larger prop. Be sure to support your head so as not to hyperextend your neck.

Backbends open the chest and heart chakra spaces as well as release tight shoulder and back muscles, step by step.    







  

Chair Yoga

Yoga while seated on a chair is a good way to have a gentle practice. The chair is a support that  allows modifications of many poses.

Start with a sturdy metal folding chair. Open the chair and place it on a yoga mat. This will prevent the chair from slipping during your practice.

A simple seated twist while sitting on the chair is a good start. Crossing your leg, so your ankle is on your opposite knee, and bending forward is an excellent inner and outer hip stretch. Try with a flat back and a rounded one. To create a gentle backbend, slide your buttocks forward on the seat, place your hands on the sides of the chair seat, and lean your upper back and head over the back of the chair.

Gentle poses are great for those stressful days when your strength of character gets you to practice, but muscular strength is lacking.

Mindfulness as meditation

Meditation time is all the time. While finding 15 minutes to do another worthwhile activity seems challenging, we can take the approach that meditation is now, each moment. Every second of living is a meditation. The concentration, focus and attention we call mindfulness is meditation. Through mindfulness we live neither in the memories (good and bad) of the past, nor in the anticipation or anxiety of the future.

We are familiar with mindfulness from things we do that are fully engaging, putting us in "The Zone". That is when all time ceases to exist for us, for a while. Accessing "The Zone" isn't relegated to physically demanding activities, it can be simply through taking a deep breath, bringing your awareness fully to this time and place, and being completely here, right now.

Mindfulness is a practice, just like yoga, and the more we practice the better we get. It is a life skill, and one we can practice every moment of our lives.

Prana: the breath, not the clothes

Prana is frequently translated from Sanskrit as "vital force" or "breath". It is the breath of life and the energy of consciousness in yogic teachings. Dr. David Frawley, in Yoga & Ayurveda: Self-Healing and Self-Realization, describes prana as "the master form of all energy working on the levels of mind, life and body." Pranayama (yogic breathwork) couples the poses (asanas) of the physical body with the more subtle work of the breath, integrating the physical and energy bodies.
Initially, I encourage students to increase awareness of the breath in their yoga asana practice by exhaling as they move into a posture. Exhaling ensures that the student is not holding her/his breath while in the pose.
Once that is comfortable and natural, I suggest inhaling during the extension of the torso and limbs, and exhaling while grounding the feet or other body parts into the floor. A wave action can be visualized to assist the inhale/exhale pattern.
Most importantly, the mind, the thinking aspect of our bodies, follows the breath, and does not try to control the breath.
Prana flows from the body and through the body. Pranayama is our chance to work with the breath and deepen our practice from the inside out.

Backbend Preparation

Backbends are the ultimate opening for hunched-over bodies. Our daily activities encourage rounded shoulders and collapsed chests. Backbend poses help counter habitual body positions such as sitting at computers and desks, and driving a car.

One very good preparation for backbends is ball work. The giant ball used in many bodywork activities can support our vertebrates from the base of the spine to the back of the head. It gently curves the spine while supporting it.

Place the ball near a wall, and sit down on it facing the center of the room. Walk your feet forward to move the ball while leaning back onto the ball until your back and head are on the ball. Having the correct size ball makes this possible. If you aren't supported by the ball, you need a different size.

Once positioned lying on the ball, reach your arms back over your head, keeping them straight. Reach for the wall; it might take a few tries positioning the ball just the right distance from the wall to do this. Walk your hands down the wall to the floor if possible. This is a powerful chest opener and is wonderful preparation for backbend poses like Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana) and Bow (Dhanurasana).

After working in this way, it feels good to lie on your mat and bring your knees to your chest in Apanasana, wind-relieving pose, for a few breaths.

15 minutes a day

A yoga practice takes 15 minutes a day. Thats all! It isn't a commitment to an hour in the gym (along with the travel time), or an hour run (add shower time, too). Your yoga routine can be just 15 minutes.

To make the most of the practice, do it every day. That usually means doing a practice about the same time each day. It makes scheduling easier, and your body will get into the habit and be ready.

Don't worry if you aren't in your yoga clothes, with your yoga mat and all your props. I have practiced yoga in jeans and dresses. It isn't my first choice for apparel, but it is better than no yoga. If you are stuck in a hotel, put a towel down on the carpet and use that for your yoga mat. If you need props for a particular pose, skip that pose, or improvise. Towels can substitute for blankets, books for blocks, leather belts for yoga belts.

Your 15 minute practice can be the gift you give to yourself every day.