Yoga Benefits

Routine 5 improves the strength and flexibility of your wrists, shoulders, and ankles to confidently support your weight and to build long, lean muscles and strong bones. The poses convey several benefits:

• Steepled Shoulder Squeeze fully rotates your wrists and shoulders and improves focus and concentration.
• Half Boat strengthens and tones your lower-back muscles to improve your posture.
• Stimulating the Kidneys energizes your kidneys, which are one of the main filters of the body. Kidneys are responsible for eliminating the body’s toxins and for maintaining the proper alkaline/acid balance in the body. It also stimulates your adrenal glands to reduce stress levels.
• Vinyasa 5 improves the strength and flexibility of your abdominal muscles and hips.
• Bellows Breath cleanses your body of toxins. It also strengthens and tones your abdominal muscles so that you have a stronger eliminatory system as well as a flatter abdomen.
• Mental Housekeeping is a visualization that clears your mind of mental clutter and improves the quality of your sleep. When you consciously let go of mental clutter before sleeping, you will awake to feel refreshed, renewed, and ready for the day ahead, with all of your body systems energized. When it’s combined with soothing music or a warm bath before bedtime, this visualization promotes a deep, relaxing, and restorative sleep.

Benefit

• Increases flexibility in the knees
• Strengthens the thighs
• Improves balance and concentration

Focus

Bring all of your weight down through your groin to center and balance your body. Visualize your upper thighs having the stretch of a rubber band, and know that as you breathe and lunge, these muscles will lengthen and grow leaner.

1. Kneel on the floor. Step your right foot forward into a lunge. Keep your left knee on the floor.
2. Place both hands on your right knee, one on top of the other.
3. Inhaling, stretch up through your spine. Exhaling, extend more deeply in the lunge. Bring all of your body weight down through the center of your grom area.
4. Inhaling, return to the relaxed lunge position.
5. Repeat the slow back-and-forth lunge 3 times, stretching more deeply with each lunge to stretch the backs of your thighs. On the last repetition, hold the extended lunge for 7 Full Yoga Breaths . Relax your shoulders.
6. Bend your left heel up to your left buttock, and reach around with your left hand to clasp the top of your left foot firmly.
7. Steady yourself, then reach around with your right hand to clasp the top of your left foot, so that both hands are clasping the front of your left foot. Press your right foot into the floor for balance.
8. Exhaling, lunge more deeply, and pull your left foot closer to your but­tocks. Pull slowly, so there is a deep stretch but no strain on the thigh. Inhaling, release your foot away from your buttocks slightly, exhaling, pull it in again. Repeat the lunge-and-pull motion 3 more times.
9. Release your left foot, and step your right foot back to a kneeling position.
   

   

10. Step your left foot forward into a lunge. Place both hands on your left knee, one on top of the other. Repeat the sequence on this side with slow breathing: the back-and-forth lunge 4 times, then the lunge-and-pull motion 4 times with your right heel pulled to your right buttock. On the last repetition, hold the lunge with bent leg for 7 breaths.
11. Release your right foot, and step your left foot back to a kneeling position. Sit on the floor with both legs stretched out in front of you, and rub your legs gently.

To hold this balance, your abdominal and back muscles must be tightened and activated.

Benefits

Improves the strength and flexibility of the abdominal and back muscles

Focus

Make tiny adjustments with your abdominal muscles to hold your balance; make slow and controlled movements when widening your legs.

1. Sit on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Clasp both big toes, and rest your elbows inside your knees.
2. Lean back so that your weight is evenly balanced on your sitting bones (at the base of the buttocks), then lift both feet of the Boor while maintaining your balance.
3. Inhaling and maintaining your balance, slowly straighten your right leg out to the side. Keep holding your toes! Exhaling, bend your right knee.
4. Inhaling, straighten your left leg out to the side; exhaling, bend it.
5. Straighten and bend 7 times on each side.
6. Sit in the original position with your knees bent, toes clasped, and feet off the Boor.
7. Inhaling, straighten both legs out in front of you.
8. When you are steady, widen your legs as far as possible. Tighten your abdominal muscles. Hold the pose for 3 Full Yoga Breaths.
9. Bring your legs together. Hold for 3 breaths with your legs together.
10. Bend your knees back to your chest.
11. Repeat the sequence 2 more times, first straighten and bend both legs 7 times, then pull them wide apart and balance for 3 breaths.
12. Bring your feet to the floor, release your toes, and relax.

You have now learned from this site how to nourish your physical needs for a healthy body from within, but you also have the skills to go further and explore your mental, emotional, and spiritual needs as well. For, as Godfrey Devereux, author of the Hatha yoga, Breath by Breath, says Hatha yoga is a spiritual practice. In practical terms, yoga involves the release of human potential. This means the full power of your body and the full power of your mind become available. The deeper you go into the practice, the more this potential will fulfill itself”Imagine how you can use that improved concentration, determination, self­discipline, self-confidence, willpower, physical and mental stamina, and inner calm to bring positive changes to other areas of your life. The power of your mind is unlimited. Following the steps is the first of many challenges to keep you moving forward.

We are each responsible for our own well-being. Take the time to explore all of your inner needs and to satisfy them. Look after the inner needs, and the outer needs will take care of themselves, including keeping you at your healthy optimal weight. Do not settle for second best-you deserve to travel first class all the way in this life. Keep growing, because what you are becoming is inwardly beautiful, and what you see what you see when you look in the mirror is just the tip of your true potential. Enjoy the journey.

When the body is constipated, it retains water to dilute the toxins. Bloating occurs, which results in increased weight.

Benefits

Reduced constipation and bloating, tones the digestive organs

Focus

Your breathing should resemble the panting of a dog. Visualize your abdomen becoming firmer and flatter as a result of increasing the strength of your abdominal muscles that move food throughout the digestive and eliminatory systems.

Warnings:

Practice on an empty stomach. This exercise is not recommended for people with high blood pressure, heart problems, or peptic ulcers.

1. Sit back on your heels with your hands resting loosely on your knees, lean slightly forward. Keep your arms straight.
2. Open your mouth slightly, and let your tongue hang out. Keep your mouth open (i.e., breathe through your mouth) for this exercise.
3. Inhaling, expand your abdomen; exhaling, contract your abdomen. Quickly alternate inhalation and exhalation (with accompanying expansion and contraction), strongly activating your abdominal muscles, for 10 breaths.
4. Rest.
5. Repeat the Cleansing Breath for another 10 breaths.

Routine 2 is more challenging than Routine 1. It builds strength in all the muscles and joints of the body with deep lunges and a variation of the Salute to the Sun. The poses convey several benefits:

• Lunge in Prayer stretches and opens up your hips so that exercising becomes easier and more enjoyable. The more easily your body moves, the more you will want to keep moving, which will speed up your metabolic rate throughout the day.
• Mountain Pose increases your awareness of how to correct poor posture, which can make you look heavier and older.
• Cleansing Breath is recommended by the Bihar School of Yoga in India to reduce gas and constipation while toning the digestive organs.
• Vinyasa 2 requires you to jump your feet back and support your body strongly on your arms, which improves bone and muscle strength. The strong arch in your lower back strengthens your back muscles to improve your posture.
• Full Yoga Breath forms the basis for many yoga poses and ensures that you get the maximum amount of oxygen into every cell of your body to nourish and repair cell tissues.
• Affirm Your Existing Qualities is a visualization to help reprogram your mind with positive thoughts about who you are.

The vinyasas need to be approached with care, because when they are done dynamically, they are quite strenuous.

• If you are moderately fit or mildly overweight, you can practice the routines safely in the comfort of your own home. If you are very overweight, consult your medical practitioner first, then work with an experienced yoga teacher before you embark on this program.
• Consult your medical practitioner if you have back, neck, or joint problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, or asthma.
• Do not eat for an hour before practicing, even then, eat only something light, such as some fresh fruit or yogurt.
• Establish a regular time of day to practice. Warm up first, then spend about 30 minutes practicing one routine at a time, for a week at a time. It is important to complete an entire routine-stretching, posture­improving exercise, vinyasa, breathing technique, and visualization-for maximum effect.
• Practice on a floor surface that is not slippery or use a nonskid mat (called a “sticky mat,” available at sports stores and from yoga suppliers).
• Practice in bare feet, and wear loose, comfortable clothing. Do not practice in air conditioning if possible. (These routines will build heat in your body, and air conditioning can cause a chill when your body is still again.)
• Use an aromatherapy diffuser or burn incense while you practice. For an uplifting effect, use scents such as bergamot, geranium, orange, rosewood, sandalwood, or ylang ylang. To clear your mind, try using eucalyptus, pine, or tea tree.
• Listen to your favorite nonintrusive music while you practice.
• After completing the vinyasa, cover yourself with a large towel or blanket to complete the breathing and visualization work, which requires you to sit still.
• Drink a glass of water after practicing to help eliminate toxins from your body.

Yoga poses, or asanas, stretch and tone the muscles, massage the internal organs, tone the nerves, and regulate the body’s hormonal output-all of which improves overall well-being. Each asana brings certain benefits individually. But when several asanas are combined into a flowing sequence (a vinyasa), their value is enhanced by the combination of the poses as well as the speed at which they are practiced.This site contains seven yoga routines. They progress from easier to more difficult, so you continue to be challenged as your strength and flexibility improve.

Each routine is presented in six sections:

• STRETCH AND TONE, a gentle warm-up for your muscles
• IMPROVE POSTURE, an exercise to tone your abdominal muscles
• IMPROVE DIGESTION AND ELIMINATION, a bandha (a strong abdominal exercise that massages all the internal organs to improve their function) that helps prevent water retention, bloating, and constipation
• IMPROVE METABOLIC RATE, a vinyasa to boost your metabolic rate BREATHE, a technique to increase your metabolic rate and focus your mind
• VISUALIZE, a guide to increasing positive thinking