In essence, health yoga is the ancient practice of stretching and breathing. For many centuries, this has been used in order to help ease stress and also improve fitness and health. It is not really surprising that many individuals are practicing yoga these days because we are all exposed to highly stressful working and living conditions. Although there are many branches or sects of yoga, you will realize that there are certain positions that are common among them. These key positions are useful and effective in achieving not only higher levels of fitness, but also inner peace. Below are some of these useful positions.
Simple health yoga positions include the standing and seated position. Actually, the one that most people often associate yoga with is the seating position, where the individual is seated with legs crossed, back erect, and hands placed above the knees. This position is best for beginners who want to learn how to breathe properly as well as to control the diaphragm. If you start enrolling in a yoga class, you will realize that breathing is one of the important things that you need to learn first. The standing yoga position is also fairly easy. This is used to improve spinal alignment, flexibility and proper breathing.
Supine yoga position is also quite common for beginners. This health yoga position is aimed at strengthening the spinal column. Those who do not have good posture or are suffering from back pains could benefit from supine yoga pose. More often than not, this is also the position you take if you are ending your yoga session. Other relatively easy yoga positions include balancing and twisting poses. The balancing position, which is also aimed at strengthening the abdominal muscles and the back area, entails holding a certain pose for a long period of time while balancing the weight of the body. This might seem simple but it works many muscles in the body. Twisting, on the other hand, is primarily aimed at stretching the body, particularly the spinal column.
Another position that people who are keen about losing weight and having fantastic abs may want to consider performing is the belly down pose. This position concentrates on improving the strength of the upper body and the abs. However, many people, especially those who are not active and fit, find this particular position challenging.
So aside from the meditative and spiritual aspects of yoga, the physical benefits are many.
