A Yoga For Every Body

What if I am already flexible? Will yoga still help me? Yoga is widely known as the exercise that puts us into a variety of shapes and postures that help to increase flexibility. It's true! That is one of the many physical benefits of yoga, but there is so much more!! Depending on the style, asanas (postures) and instruction, yoga can have a wide range of benefits. For instance, a power style class can be all about strength and agility. A slow flow class can help with gentle mobility of the body to decrease chronic pain. A series can focus on balance poses such as lunge, tree, warrior 3, seated mountain. Core strength can be targeted in a variety of styles of classes using poses such as bridge, boat, half way lift and many others. For those people who are already very flexible, there is a great opportunity to work on stability to protect tissues from injury by working on holding the poses just before the end range and holding them with soft joints versus locking out. Check out this sequence from our Strong and Stable series.

For a teenager looking to return to play following a sports injury, yoga can be a great gentle way to balance strength, flexibility, and stability of the tissues surrounding the injury and optimize their return to sport. Yoga is also great for spine health offering the opportunity to stretch and strength the spine in all of the various planes of movement. A healthy spine is the building block for a healthy body.

Yoga also has some great proven benefits for sensory systems as well. Overstimulated? Try a series that includes head down poses (downward dog, cat, and rag doll), forward folding poses, and any grounding poses to help to regulate an overstimulated system. Feeling a little sluggish? Open heart and extension poses such as extended mountain, bow, tree and many others can be great to help with alertness. Try a sun salutation and then check in with your body to see the difference. If you or child has sensory seeking needs, try grounding poses and strength poses, activating all of those muscles and using the floor contact as a sensory input will help to organize those systems.

They way that I see it, there is a yoga for every body and every goal. It's about finding the right match! If you are looking for more specifics on how yoga might help you or your loved ones, check out Yoga as Medicine by Timothy McCall.