At home yoga

At home Yoga

Yoga improves your posture, it helps to relieve stress and boosts your confidence – so it’s equally beneficial for body and mind. Regular workouts that you can easily do in a quiet part of your house, apartment or in your garden, will quickly help you to feel energy flowing through your body. So you can keep fit from home, we have put together some brief yoga workouts for Spring with different exercises for the whole body.

Malasana - Toe Balance

A lot of sitting when working from home results in muscles and fasciae “shortening”. This causes tension in certain areas of your body, such as the hip flexor, affecting your whole posture. Malasana, which is also called Garland Pose, combats exactly this problem. This exercise helps to stretch the foot joints, ankles, calves and the lower back. Additionally, this Asana, which is how seated meditation poses are known in yoga, helps to strengthen the abdominal muscles and to open up and mobilise your hips. The deep squat also boosts your metabolism and your entire balance is improved. 

• Warm up before you start with the exercise.
• Hold your hands in front of your heart in a praying position. 
• Breathe in and go into a deep squat. 
• Loosely position your arms between or on your knees. 
• Shift your weight to your toes while the soles of your feet touch each other. 
• Hold this position and push your knees outwards. 

Parivrtta Anjaneyasana - Revolved Lunge Pose

This exercise supports your spine’s mobility and promotes healthy digestion. It also improves the flexibility of your rib cage, thus perfectly preparing your body for all twists carried out while standing. During this exercise, it’s important to take your time and to concentrate on your breathing. 

• Step back into a lunge, with the back knee touching the mat. 
• Breathe in, lift your hands to the sky, then breathe out. 
• Put your palms together in front of your heart, then take a moment in this position to free your mind. Make sure that your lengthen your spine. 
• Turn your upper body in one direction, for example to the right. Include your elbow in this movement and hook it on the outside of the left knee.

There’s a chance you may briefly lose your balance here, so make sure you really push forwards with your feet. 

• Now imagine you’re turning your heart towards your thumbs.
• If you feel more confident now, shift the weight from your back leg to your toes and lift your knee. 
• Don’t forget to breathe. 
• Slowly loosen your hands, knees and toes and change to the other side. 

Bakasana - The Crow

The Crow is part of the arm balance exercises and takes quite a bit of practice. It challenges your strength, flexibility and co-ordination. Once you have mastered this yoga pose, you will be prepared for other arm balance positions and inversions. This exercise involves your arms and wrists, elbows and shoulders, abdominal muscles and legs, of course. The Crow – a step-by-step guide:

• Squat on your mat, extend both arms in front of your body and spread your fingers.
• Bring your knees close to your armpits. Make sure that your legs are tight against your upper body.
• Slowly shift your weight to your hands until your feet lift off from the yoga mat. If lifting both feet simultaneously is too quick for you, lift them one after the other. Try to keep your balance and breathe evenly.

Tips:

• Make sure that you keep your hands shoulder-width apart and that your weight is evenly distributed.
• First contract your muscles, then pull your body upwards. Contracting all the muscles involved will make the upward movement easier.
• If you’re worried about falling, put a cushion or pillow under your face.
• Focus all your energy on your breathing, not on your worry.