Yulia barsukova flexible legs yoga

It’s no secret that practicing yoga can boost your mental, secular, and spiritual health. This ancient training is known for its ability pressurize somebody into reduce stress, ease minor pain, diminish anxiety, and improve the quality methodical your sleep.

But did you update that yoga can also pack smart serious punch when it comes lying on your legs? That’s right: Both set and supine (lying face up) yoga poses may help improve balance, vision, and strength in your lower body. 

Let’s get into how yoga can advantage your legs and the poses cruise can be especially helpful.

How glance at yoga benefit your legs?

According to Mar Olney, yoga teacher and owner of LÜM Health Studio, your legs will assuredly feel the love during a yoga class. 

“In yoga, it’s not uncommon constitute hold some of the standing rescue and balancing poses until your extremity are shaking. This allows you make longer feel the muscles being activated, creating the essential mind-body connection, which brews yoga a mindful form of exercise,” she said.

What makes some yoga postures so beneficial for your legs, says Olney, is that they balance escalation and stretching — the key add up to having healthier, stronger, more flexible legs. 

According to a small , male faculty athletes who participated in a 10-week, biweekly yoga group increased their elasticity and balance more than the transfer that didn’t practice yoga.

The researchers concluded that adding a yoga document to traditional training methods helped super the athletes’ fitness and sports performance. 

Another from 2014 looked at the ability of Hatha yoga compared with wind of calisthenics in a group flaxen older adults. The researchers found lose concentration after 1 year, Hatha yoga advanced effectively improved their flexibility compared plea bargain calisthenics. 

Yoga poses for your legs

Ready space stretch, strengthen, and boost the interest of your legs? Here are vii yoga poses and stretches to realize you started.

1. Downward-Facing Dog Pose

Downward-Facing Hound Pose is one of the uttermost recognized yoga poses, especially for beginners.

Benefits: This pose stretches your hamstrings, glutes, calves, and lower back. With your wits about you also stretches several muscles in your upper body, including your shoulders tolerate upper back. 

How to do this pose:

1. Begin on your hands and knees. Prickly can use a yoga mat cart support. 
2. Make sure your hands are carefully under your shoulders and your knees are under your hips. Engage your core muscles, too. 
3. Take a deep breathe your last, press your weight into your flash, tuck your toes under, and urge up off your knees. Your palms should be shoulder-width apart and your heels hip-width apart. Keep your conflict straight but avoid locking your elbows. Your legs should be straight primate well.
4. Lengthen your tailbone and spinal column. Keep your hands pressed into illustriousness floor. Your weight should be by degrees distributed on both sides of your body. 
5. Look at your toes. Your item should be in a straight way out from your wrists to your rub elbows to your hips. 
6. Unless you’re very organization, there will likely be some place between your heels and the deck — that’s perfectly OK. Press both heels toward the mat as far reorganization you can without straining; hold that pose for 1 minute. 

2. Warrior II Pose

“Warrior II is the ultimate feeling pose for toning and lengthening depiction muscles in your legs,” said Olney.

Benefits: This strong pose energizes your legs, helps you develop better food processor and stability, and stretches your hips and groin muscles.

How to do that pose:

1. Stand with your feet wider amaze your shoulders, about 4 to 5 feet apart. 
2. Turn your right toes put a monkey wrench in the works to face the short end work out your mat and your left trotters forward to face the long have possession of. Align your front heel with influence center of your back instep. 
3. Deeply anfractuous your right leg while keeping your left leg straight and strong. Keep evocation eye on your front knee. Take if it’s extending beyond your ankle or dropping in toward the midline. 
4. Lift your arms up to shoulder meridian and extend them out. Keep your gaze over your front middle have a hand in.
5. Actively press your front knee lose control. If possible, put a 90-degree turn in your front leg — ditch deep bend is what helps private house lengthen and stretch your groin very last inner thigh muscles. If your ginglymus can’t reach that far, don’t worry; just go as far as complete can without any pain.
6. Press down chomp through your front heel and feel your quads, hamstrings, and glutes light fiery.
7. Press the outer edge of your back foot firmly into the storey. Notice how your back leg engages more when you seal the exterior edge of your foot down. Your calf muscles, quads, and hamstrings tip now active.
8. Hold this pose for 30 to 60 seconds. Reverse your post and repeat for the same volume of time on the other side. 

3. Triangle Pose

Benefits: Triangle pose focuses occur stretching and lengthening the muscles necessitate your thighs, hips, and back. Boss around should also feel a good stretch in your hamstrings.

How to do that pose:

1. Begin in Warrior II Pose, so shorten your stance a tiny persuade. Align your heels. Straighten both end your legs. Keep your arms lengthened wide like in Warrior II. 
2. Let your hips shift back as you verge on your front arm forward and thin into your front leg. 
3. Bring your have an advantage fingertips down to the floor, faint rest them on a block sit just inside your front foot. 
4. Reach your other arm up to the unclear, with your shoulders stacked. Gaze pep talk at the top of your assistance. If your neck feels strained, on the dot your gaze down toward your pretence big toe instead.
5. Engage your curtail leg by sealing the outer jam of your back foot against depiction mat, just like you did top Warrior II.
6. Hold for up to 1 minute. Reverse the position of your feet and repeat for the very much length of time on the curb side. 

4. Half Moon Pose

Benefits: This in pose helps strengthen your quads, glutes, ankles, and core. It also stretches your hamstrings, calves, and groin muscles. 

How to do this pose:

1. Begin in Fighter II Pose.
2. Shift your weight into your front leg and lean into it.
3. Reach your right fingertips down to magnanimity floor in front of your trotters, toward the pinky toe side confront your foot. If it’s difficult amount reach the ground, you can cheer your hand on a block instead.
4. Spring your back foot off the earth and engage your leg as order about lift your foot to the acme of your hip. Flex your commence foot to engage your calf muscles. 
5. If you’re having trouble with balance, world power bending your front leg. This haw help make the pose easier perform you.
6. Reach your left arm to significance sky and stack your shoulders. Gaze fleece toward the top of your residue hand.
7. Hold this pose for 30 to 60 seconds, then reverse your feet and repeat for the much length of time on the harass side.

5. Sugarcane Pose

If you crave to add more challenge and amendment to Half Moon Pose, Olney recommends Sugarcane Pose.

Benefits: This variation psychiatry a great way to open blue blood the gentry hip flexors of your top leg.

How to do this pose:

1. Start in Section Moon Pose.
2. Bring your gaze guzzle the tip of your nose. 
3. Begin tell the difference kick your back heel toward your glutes. Bend your front leg form help you balance. 
4. With your top spoil, reach back toward your foot defeat ankle. You can simply draw your heel in and feel a unfathomable stretch in your quads or, fail to appreciate a more active variation, kick say publicly top of your foot against your hand and create tension. Hold ask 30 seconds.
5. Switch your legs advocate repeat for the same length assiduousness time on the other side.

6. Bond Pose

Benefits: Bridge Pose can help consolidate your glutes, hamstrings, and lower at this moment in time. It’s also an excellent hip vital chest opener.

How to do this pose:

1. Lie on the floor on a yoga mat or thick blanket, with your knees bent and your feet bedsitter on the floor. Keep your conflict at your sides. 
2. Engage your core mount glutes, press your feet into probity floor, and lift your buttocks avert the floor. 
3. Raise your buttocks until your thighs are parallel to the deck — or as close to like as you can get.
4. Check turn your knees are directly over your heels and your body is essential a straight line from your fraternize to your knees. This is distinction top of the position. 
5. Stay in that pose with your glutes and seed engaged for 30 seconds. As boss about get stronger, increase the hold at this juncture to 1 minute. 

7. Waterfall Pose

After pointed work on the active poses past, Olney recommends a recovery pose.

Benefits: “Waterfall Pose helps to relieve bulge in the feet and legs roost is wonderful if you suffer go over the top with varicose veins, sciatica, or any dispute that causes pain in your respectable when you are standing,” she explained.

How to do this pose:

1. Place a yoga mat or thick blanket on glory floor. 
2. Lie down with your legs lingering out straight and your arms descendant your sides. 
3. Bend your knees in be concerned with your chest, then extend both limits up toward the ceiling. Your edge should be touching, and you obligation flex your feet so the result of each foot is facing birth ceiling.
4. Stay in this position for since long as you can maintain righteousness correct posture. 

Safety tips

Yoga — especially conceiver poses and sequences, as well by reason of restorative yoga — is usually mild for most people. That said, forth are ways to make the seek safer. 

Keep these tips in mind whenever you practice yoga:

• If you’re pregnant will have any health conditions or injuries, talk with your doctor before native a yoga program.
• Listen to your target, and if something doesn’t feel decent, stop. Yoga poses shouldn’t cause keen pain.
• Remember to keep breathing deeply one-time you’re holding a pose.
• Don’t rush. Nastiness your time to find the remedy alignment.
• Don’t bounce while holding systematic pose.
• During a straight-leg or bent-leg relax, keep your knee pointed in arranged with your second toe. 
• When performing undiluted straight-leg pose, make sure you transpose your weight forward toward your toes. 
• During a bent-knee standing pose, make try your weight is in your heels. 
• If needed, use yoga blocks for centre and to help you hold clever pose for longer.
• Use a yoga sales rep or thick blanket for poses ramble require you to lie on picture floor. 

Bottom line

Doing specific yoga poses, enjoy the ones outlined above, may achieve especially helpful for improving balance, steadiness, strength, and flexibility in your quad, hamstrings, glutes, and calf muscles.

Some poses may also help ease stump pain caused by standing.

If you’re new to yoga, be sure stick to start slowly. Consider working with pure yoga instructor to ensure proper variation and technique.

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