Social media feeds stuffed with images of health fashions twisted into poses requiring excessive power, flexibility, and steadiness could depart you considering, “Yoga is just not for me.”
Nadine Kelly, MD, founding father of Yogi MD, desires to alter your thoughts.
“We have a tendency to consider yoga as an athletic endeavor that must be completed on a mat,” Kelly says. “Yoga observe is about far more than the bodily [poses]; the observe contains expertise like respiratory, regulating your feelings, and training self-care.”
Chair yoga, a mild type of yoga that’s completed whereas seated or utilizing a chair for steadiness, makes the observe extra accessible. In chair yoga, it’s attainable to maneuver into poses like cat/cow, warrior, solar salutations and ahead folds, all whereas seated.
Kelly believes the Arthur Ashe quote, “Begin the place you’re, use what you’ve got, do what you possibly can,” is ideal for chair yoga.
“You’re there to work and to problem your self, nevertheless it’s about … realizing what’s best for you,” she says. “I consider yoga poses as adaptable to a pupil’s physique and never the opposite method round.”
Whether or not yoga is completed in a chair or on the mat, the observe nonetheless focuses on the identical core rules: focusing in your breath, listening to your ideas, and staying within the second.
Analysis reveals yoga is linked to decreased ranges of stress, nervousness, and melancholy, lowered ldl cholesterol and blood stress, improved vitality, higher sleep high quality, much less ache, and diminished physique mass index. Matt Minard PT, DPT, bodily therapist with Atrium Well being in Charlotte, NC, believes these advantages prolong to chair yoga.
Chair yoga can also be a superb, secure exercise for rookies.
“It’s a good way to work your core, discover the completely different vary of movement of the joints and prioritize motion,” Minard says. “Whenever you’re sitting down or utilizing a chair for steadiness, the protection issue goes method up.”
Though chair yoga is usually promoted as a observe for many who could battle with a mat observe, anybody can profit from any such light train.
Kelly says chair yoga is especially well-suited to individuals who use wheelchairs and people rehabilitating after surgical procedures, residing with power diseases, or coping with steadiness points that make it arduous to get down onto a yoga mat. It’s additionally good for a fast exercise in the course of the workday or whereas touring.
“It’s not in regards to the consequence. It’s not about hanging the proper pose,” Kelly says. “Whether or not yoga is taught on the mat or in a chair, it’s all about being wholesome.”
Chair yoga can also be ideally suited for rookies who could be intimidated by a conventional mat observe as a result of it provides a secure solution to be taught the poses, Minard provides.
You will discover chair yoga lessons at neighborhood facilities, health services, and yoga studios. There are additionally loads of on-line choices. On this video, Kelly supplies detailed directions for a brief chair yoga observe that’s appropriate for all ranges.
To observe at residence, use a sturdy chair (an workplace chair on wheels or overstuffed armchair should not applicable for chair yoga). Minard suggests a chair that naturally positions your hips barely larger than your knees and means that you can put each toes flat on the ground.
“In case your toes aren’t flat on the bottom, your weight is all in your backbone and if the chair is simply too low and your knees are above your hips, there may be extra impingement in your hips,” Minard says. “You need to have the ability to do gradual, managed actions with out placing further stress in your again or hips.”
Ensure the chair is on a steady floor like carpet or a yoga mat to maintain it from slipping. You may as well place the again of the chair towards a wall for further stability, Minard provides.
Yoga props like blocks, straps, and resistance bands which can be frequent in mat practices aren’t required for chair yoga — until you need an additional problem.
“Chair yoga is an efficient start line to make use of muscle mass you haven’t used shortly with out the potential dangers of overloading [your muscles and joints] or falling,” Minard says. “If the resistance out of your physique weight isn’t sufficient of a problem, you possibly can add gentle hand weights, ankle weights or resistance bands to your chair yoga observe.”
