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Using Yoga Exercises In Your Home Fitness Routine
A lot of people may be familiar with the term yoga, having heard it mentioned several times, but they may not really understand what it is. Actually, it's a practice of physical postures and poses that promote health of both mind and body. There are also several types of yoga that have survived to the present day, but the type of yoga that is most often used in Western culture focuses on physical fitness and health.
By performing certain prescribed poses and positions yoga helps improve physical strength, stamina and flexibility. The poses can be varied in intensity and rapidity. so that a slow pace helps with flexibility while doing them more rapidly helps build strength instead.
Yoga can also involve breating control and even meditation too, and if they are incorporated into a workout routine there can be definite benefits for both mind and body. Such a practice of yoga can help promote relaxation of stress which also contributes toward good health.
Yoga can be easily worked into a regular home fitness routine, but often it is best to learn yoga from a good teacher by attending classes at first. Once the yoga poses and positions are mastered they can be performed almost anywhere, and so it lends itself to a home fitness workout at that point. Here are a couple of free yoga poses that can help you understand more about the practice itself. Only attempt these poses if your body is in good consition though.
- The Locust pose - You can start the locust pose by lying on your front side while holding your hands close to the body. The palms of the hands should be facing up, while resting on the floor. Turn your thighs inward by moving the big toes to face toward each other. Then while exhaling move your arms and legs slowly away from the floor. Your head and upper body should also move upwards while you keep your balance on your belly.
Stretch your arms out but remember to keep them on the same plane as the floor. Raise your arms towards the ceiling and raise your head very slightly by keeping the base of the head lifted. Don't be surprised if holding the pose may become difficult after a while. However, just try to sustain the Locust pose for around a minute or so. Come out of the pose slowly while exhaling and then rest for a while afterward.
A word of caution is that you should proceed with extreme caution with this particular pose if you have already suffered back or neck injuries.
- The Mountain pose - The mountain pose is achieved by keeping the heels slightly apart, so that your toes are parallel to each other. Then gently rock back and forth on your toes and gradually come to a complete stop. Lift the ankles off the floor in order to strengthen the pose while also tightening the leg muscles. Then push your rear towards the floor while lifting your pelvic area towards your navel instead. Just let your arms hang while you are pressing your shoulder blades backwards.
Remember to go into and out of this pose in a very slow deliberate fashion while breathing deeply.
These free yoga exercises provided here should only be attempted if you are in good physical shape and if you have any question about that you should consult your doctor before trying them.
Yoga is very useful as a strength and conditioning tool in your home fitness workouts, but it does not really provide as much cardio workout as most people could use, so yoga is best used as another way to get and stay fit, in addition to your regular cardio exercises.
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