Tag yoga stretches

Can Yoga Help Your Lower Back Pain?

The American Heart Association says that most people will suffer some form of lower back pain in their life. And if you have this debilitating affliction, you know how limiting it can be. Aside from improving heart health, helping you lose weight and drastically increasing brainwave function and recall, proper yoga practice can actually reduce lower back pain.

But there are a few yoga poses and positions that do a better job at this than others. Practice the following yoga poses in your routine every week, and benefit from less lower back pain as a result but be sure that you have proper clearance from your doctor and be certain that you are doing the poses correctly. A good yoga instructor can help you with this.

Whether sitting at your computer on the job for hour after hour, or bent over in your backyard garden, your daily activities can lead to lower back pain. One pair of yoga poses that works so well together for reducing back pain is the Cat/Cow combo.

By moving back and forth between these two postures, you begin to warm up as well as stretch your back muscles. These include the muscles in your lower back. Look to your yoga trainer or coach for proper form and function, or turn to the many yoga courses and programs offered on the Internet for convenient use in your home at your leisure.

One of the yoga positions well known for strengthening your lower back muscles is the Chair pose. A quick word of warning… If you are new to yoga take it easy with this particular mode. Mimicking the natural human body movement when you sit in a chair, you hold this pose for 10 deep breaths.

As you squat this focuses attention on your lower back muscles, and over time can condition your body with such strong muscles in that region that you not only can treat lower back pain, but you greatly reduce your risk of contracting it in the first place.

While Downward Dog may sound like a depressed canine, it is actually an excellent yoga pose for supporting all of your back muscles. This wonderful position also helps improve your overall body posture, and even engages your abdominal muscles. The longer you are able to hold this pose in a comfortable manner the better and more beneficial it is to your lower back.

Spinal Twist sounds like a great name for a rock band, but is actually a great pose for overworked back muscles. Beginners are recommended to take this slowly, as over-twisting can aggravate and accelerate back pain.

With the Spinal Twist pose you are looking to stretch gently. If you begin to feel pain of any kind, back off and move to a more comfortable position. The Standing Forward Bend is a beneficial exercise in many ways. It also effectively uses gravity to more gently and comfortably stretch your lower back after positions like the Chair pose.

With your arms raised above your head, swan dive forward on your next inhale and bend at your waist. Practicing this yoga pose will eventually allow you to touch the floor, and this is one of many simple to perform but helpful yoga positions which can help you reduce back pain.

Who hasn’t heard of the expression “rise and shine!” at least once in their lifetime? It’s pretty much a good exhortation, but it isn’t as easy to do as it would seem to be. That’s one of the reasons that practicing Hatha Yoga stretches can do a world of good for you.

Energy Doesn’t Just Appear Magically

Picture yourself waking up. You don’t suddenly rise and go bouncing around like a pogo stick with a mind of its own, much less like a hyper pneumatic drill that’s rattling with energy, do you?

Nope, of course not. You need time to recover your faculties and fully wake-up. And even then, you can’t expect to have an optimum supply of energy already available to you. The point is, energy doesn’t appear on command or by magic. When we are tired, it’s not just a physical thing. Our minds and our spirits are also tired.

In general, that’s what makes it hard to “rise and shine!” even after getting a full night’s rest.

How Yoga Stretches Help

Yoga stretches prepare your body, mind, and spirit to face a new day, especially when stretching is done first thing in the morning. However, the stretches are also good at any time during the day, because the stretches can be done when you need:

• To increase the flow of oxygen and blood in your body to recover strength, to clear up your mind, and to get rid of the blahs or feelings that make you feel sad
• To improve mobility and flexibility, which is especially good when you’ve got sore muscles from overexerting on another activity
• To develop and recover equilibrium (mind, body, spirit), sharpen your focus, and improve your basic strength

Yoga stretches, when done properly, can make you achieve all of those goals.

It’s perfectly understandable if, at this point, you may be harboring some doubts or are even downright cynical about such claims. Like with most everything else that is new, it takes some time for key concepts and truths to settle down in our minds.

But we’re very confident about your success regarding this matter.

Just make sure that you read this guide from start and finish, and follow along with the demonstration videos on Hatha Yoga and eventually you’ll be able to see the quality of your life improve as you go along.

Access to the videos can be had by subscribing to the MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter. Now that we’ve covered yoga stretches, let’s touch on important “yoga breathing benefits” and why it’s more than simply inhaling and exhaling.