yoga

3 good yoga poses for runners

3 good yoga poses for runners

If you’re a runner, you’ve probably been told you “should do yoga.”
While generic yoga classes can help with recovery, one of the best ways runners can use yoga is by applying it specifically to correct and prevent chronic issues, such as achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, knee discomfort, quad strains and hip pain.

Ask a runner about their past or present physical complaints and you can expect to hear about one or more of these conditions. So what’s behind these ongoing problems?

Consider this: Running is a symmetrical activity and human beings aren’t symmetrical. We all have a dominant side. Which side of your hips is your weight resting on as you read this? How about when you drive your car? Or sit on your couch?

Consequently, spending hours doing a symmetrical activity without awareness of your asymmetrical tendencies can wreak havoc on weight distribution and muscle firing patterns, resulting in compensations that feed all the issues listed above.

Most runners’ issues are due to an inability to transfer their center of gravity out of their dominant side,” said Mike Cantrell, president of the Cantrell Center for Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine in Warner Robins, Georgia, and a faculty member at the Postural Restoration Institute in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Lack of acknowledging the problem causes “a cascade of mechanical breakdown, particularly in elite runners.”

Here are three yoga-based moves I use with running athletes to help them address compensations. These can be integrated into overall training programs or used as part of a dynamic warm-up.

Step-forward and step-back lunges
From standing, inhale and raise your arms as you step forward with your right leg into a lunge. Exhale to hold. Inhale as you step back to standing and lower your arms. Repeat on the left side the same way. Once back to center, repeat on both legs, but exhale as you raise your arms and step forward, inhale on the hold and exhale to return back to standing.

Next, switch to step-back lunges, incorporating the same breathing pattern; begin stepping back on the inhalation and do the second set stepping back on the exhalation.

While practicing these, avoid rolling your forward foot inward or to the outer edge, and maintain knee alignment above the ankle. Be sure both hips point forward and your back-leg-glute area fires. Pay attention to your breath and core stabilization. If your pelvis and diaphragm function properly, you should be able to stabilize and absorb the shock of stepping backward or forward on either side, regardless of phase of breath.

Flowing bridge
Begin on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor hip-distance apart. Be sure your feet are pointed forward and aligned horizontally. Your knees/feet indicate hip position, so a forward knee/foot means your hip on that side is pushed forward. Position yourself to place your hips, knees and feet in alignment. Exhale and lift your hips. Inhale and release to the floor. Repeat 8-12 times.

Pay attention to weight distribution in your feet and whether your hips lift evenly; you shouldn’t rely on one side more.

Like the lunges, this move allows you to establish awareness and work to correct favoring one side of your body while also counterbalancing quad and hip-flexor dominance with proper hamstring and glute firing.

Windshield wipers

Start in a bridge position, but place your arms out to the sides and feet wider than hip distance with knees dropped inward. Exhale and allow both knees and legs to drop to the right, coming as close to the floor as comfortable without pain. Inhale and bring the knees together again. Exhale and take the knees left. Repeat 10 times (five each side).

This move stretches and inhibits runners’ overactive hip flexors and quads.

Source: cnn

India to hold biggest Yoga fest in China next week

India to hold biggest Yoga fest in China next week

India will hold the biggest Yoga festival in China next week where the iconic Indian spiritual and physical art form has become a rage with millions of health-conscious Chinese making it part of their routine.

More than 1500 people are expected to take part in the Yoga Summit — the second such festival to be held in China in recent years — that will be held from July 7 to 12 at the picturesque city of Dali in Yunnan Province.

Indian Embassy and Indian Consulate in Guangzhou is organising the event as part of the ongoing year-long Glimpses of India festival being organised across China to expose the Chinese public to popular Indian ancient dance and art forms.

The Sangeet Natak Akadami dance troupe which is currently touring China is scheduled to perform at the festival. Geeta S Iyengar, daughter of the famous Yoga guru B K S Iyengar, along with 17 top Yoga exponents would take part in the event.

B K S Iyengar, who visited China in 2012, has become a popular ambassador of the art form among millions of Chinese practitioners and his works were widely translated into Mandarin.

The art form has become a rage with almost every gym across China having Yoga instructors. Specialised teaching centres like YogiYoga, run by Yoga exponent Mohan Singh Bhandari and Yinyan, a Chinese journalist who previously worked for Elle Magazine, trains over 8,000 would-be teachers.

Yoga is also considered as a million-dollar business in China where it is seen as a more of potent physical exercise. There is, however, criticism about the certification of teachers being churned out by many institutes.

The Yoga Summit which is being advertised all over China is expected to draw large audience, Indian officials said. Indian Ambassador Ashok K Kantha and top local Chinese officials were expected to take attend the festival.

Source: samachar

Smart yoga mat can be used as personal trainer

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This smart yoga mat has been developed by a Munich-based company Lunar Europe. The mat dubbed Tera is embedded with sensors and a constellation of LED lights.

The embedded sensors would help in tracking pressure and shifts in body movement while the data is used to cue patterns in the lights, designed to guide stance and posture.

According to a report, an app connects to the mat through Bluetooth, cueing up lights along the way.

The mat is designed in a circular shape, which helps to accommodate the natural radius of human motion, making transitions between poses and keeping up the flow of the practice easier.

Tera can accommodate yoga meant for weight control or strengthening back muscles.

Source; post

Try Vajrasana to improve digestion

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This is a simple pose that is great to relax the mind and improve digestion. It is believed that a good digestive system is the key to a healthy body. Therefore this asana is ideal to improve hair growth. Vajrasana also massages the kanda spot about 12 inches above the anus that is the point of convergence for over 72,000 nerves.

Steps to do this pose: All you need to do is place a yoga mat on the floor. Kneel on the mat, and let the top surface of your feet touch the mat such that your heels are pointing upwards. Now gently place your buttocks on your heels. It is important to note that your heels are on either side of your anus. Now place both your palms on your knees, facing downwards. Close your eye and breath in deeply at a steady rate.

Source: The health site

Yoga can ease stress for pregnant women

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Practicing yoga during pregnancy can help you reap health benefits like stress reduction and a decrease in a woman’s fear of childbirth, according to researchers.

A new report from Manchester University researchers finds that it can ease stress and reduce women`s fear of childbirth by a third. In addition to its many other health benefits for pregnant women, including reduced cortisol levels, less difficult birth plus more full term and healthy weight neonates, pregnancy yoga is a low cost intervention too.

Yoga teacher Natasha Harding has two children that she delivered naturally using her skills in the art. “Yoga is a wonderful exercise to try during pregnancy, when you naturally want to take it a bit easier. It’s ideal to ease many of the ailments that women suffer from when they’re pregnant such as backache, sciatica and general aches and pains,” she said.

“By maintaining a regular yoga practice during pregnancy the positions will become second nature with the aim being that the woman can have a more active labour with less intervention.

“My second baby was born in 51 minutes. It was because of the fact I did yoga every single day and felt so strong during the birth,” he added.

Harding`s five favourite yoga poses to try every day while you’re expecting:

* Butterfly (Badha Konasana): This position allows the baby to move down into the pelvis and uses all the muscles that a woman draws upon in labour. The yoga guru BKS Iyengar claims if a woman practises this pose every day it will take the pain out of child-birth.

* Wide Legged Seated (Upivista Konasana): Stretching your legs in this position will encourage your hips to be more flexible which is clearly vital during labour. It’s a great position to do every day if possible and leaning forward will gently stretch the back too and towards the end encourage the baby into a good birth pose.

* Staff (Dandasana): Staff pose is wonderful to sit in and circle your ankles and legs each day which will help with any puffiness you may be experiencing. When you combine breathing work too. you’re helping to release your shoulders as well as creating much needed space in your abdomen and chest. It’s a good one to try if you’re getting heart burn.

* Cat (Marjariasana) with arm and leg lifts: Being on your hands and knees is wonderful for any pregnant women as it relieves symptoms of backache and encourages the baby into a good birth pose – our mums would have been told to wash the floors. By lifting the arm and leg you stabilise the pelvis which is vital during pregnancy.

* Down Dog – adapted for pregnancy (Adho Mukha Svanasana): A lot of women find their back aches a lot during pregnancy and Down Dog is a great stretch to try. When you’re pregnant though you shouldn’t do the full pose, so using the wall instead will give a similar stretch but it’s much safer.

Source: zee news

New studies offer evidence of the mind and body benefits of yoga

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The idea that yoga is beneficial is not new. But new studies continue to advance our understanding of the health benefits attained through yoga practice. Three studies reported in the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine show that yoga can improve balance and reduce fear of falling, helps to reduce and regulate blood pressure and can improve important aspects of cardiovascular health.

As we age, it is common to experience a loss of balance and an increased risk of injury due to falling. Yoga, with its great emphasis on enhancing overall balance, demonstrates the capacity to reduce age-related imbalance and the tendency for fall-related injuries. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University examined 152 studies on yoga, identifying 15 that assessed balance-related issues. Among these, 11 studies showed that yoga practice can enhance balance, reduce the incidence of balance-related falls and reduce fear of falling – a common issue among seniors.

The balance study was not based on one style of yoga or on one particular practice, but on several styles, and on a number of methods aimed at improving balance, especially one-legged standing poses.

Yoga is low impact and can be adapted to meet the abilities of most people. Yoga practice shows no negative interactions with medications and improves body awareness, a factor in loss of balance. The bottom line of this study was that yoga can improve balance and reduce falls that lead to injury. For seniors, this is a significant gain.

The second yoga study, conducted at the University of South Carolina College of Medicine, examined the effects of Hatha yoga on blood pressure among a group of young people. Hatha yoga is the most commonly practiced of yoga styles. The study involved a group of 28 seventh-graders. Half of the group participated in school-based yoga practice for three months, while the other half attended a music or art class. Among these students, some were pre-hypertensive, meaning they exhibited standard clinical signs of early-stage high blood pressure.

Overall, the students who practiced yoga had lower resting blood pressure and reduced a-amylase activity, a determining factor in high blood pressure, as determined by a variety of tests. Researchers concluded that Hatha yoga helps to decrease resting blood pressure and regulate important nerve and hormonal factors that can lead to blood pressure disorders. This finding is consistent with other assessments of blood pressure among those who practice yoga. Given that high blood pressure is a common problem that can lead to other health complications and increase mortality, this benefit is significant.

The third yoga study, conducted by researchers at Eastern Virginia Medical School, examined a group of Tibetan yogis who engage in an extreme yoga practice known as Tumo, or Tum-Mo, at very high altitude in the freezing Himalayan cold. This technique seems to enable the yogis to maintain normal body temperatures at very cold temperatures, apparently without harm.

Dum-Mo has been studied and filmed by American cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson, who founded the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In Benson’s film, the yogis, clad only in loin cloths, sit on the freezing ground melting iced sheets wrapped around their bodies, while members of the film crew huddle in heavy down-filled mountaineering gear.

The Eastern Virginia Medical School study examined various cardiovascular factors of both non-yogis and yogis in sub-zero temperatures. As expected, the non-yogis were not capable of generating inner body heat, and had to be warmed to maintain a healthy body temperature. The Tum-Mo practitioners stayed warm without shivering. Analysis of heart rate, blood pressure and numerous other factors resulted in the conclusion that this mystifying practice somehow enables the Tum-Mo yogis to activate brown fat and generate heat, increasing overall blood flow greatly and decreasing peripheral vascular resistance.

The Tum-Mo study left many questions unanswered, but it showed yet again that yoga can exert profound changes in normal physiological activity – in this case, keeping Tum-Mo yogis warm at temperatures that would typically lead to death by hypothermia.

Deriving from India, China, Nepal and Southeast Asia, yoga practices of various types have gained popularity because they are adaptable to people of all ages and most levels of fitness, and impart significant benefits on both body and mind. These three recently reported studies support the salutary effects of yoga, and clearly show that practice can positively affect health in significant ways.

Source: fox news

12-Year-Old Becomes Youngest Yoga Instructor In Us

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Jaysea DeVoe is a yoga instructor who has the challenging job of teaching fidgety preschoolers the ancient practice, but once her charges get going, she says, “they really start to focus and listen.”

DeVoe knows a thing or two about childhood and focus, for she is only 12 years old and just recently became a certified yoga instructor after completing 200 hours of teacher training. She is believed to be the youngest certified female yoga instructor in the United States.

In addition to her pint-size students aged 4 to 6, DeVoe teaches teens and fellow tweens in her California beach town of Encinitas and is about to start a family yoga class. Oh, and she just told her dad she wants to look into making eco-friendly yoga mats.

“I feel like I want to do this for a long time because I love teaching so much,” says DeVoe, the picture of a California beach girl, with long blond hair and long legs to match.

But Jaysea is not alone in her entrepreneurial zeal. Her twin brother is a sponsored competitive surfer and works at a surfboard fin manufacturing company. Her 15-year-old brother is a “professional water man,” a spear fisherman, rod and reel angler and surfer who also teaches and has sponsors.

Encinitas, 25 miles north of San Diego, happens to sit at the junction of laid-back beach life, high-octane sports and entrepreneurial gumption. Skateboarder-turned-businessman Tony Hawk and Olympic gold snow boarder Shaun White are both based in Encinitas.

With so much opportunity around, the DeVoe parents, Rick and Julie, decided less time should be spent at school and found an accommodating institution for their kids’ plans.

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“They only go to school three days a week and we told them ‘You have to figure out what you want to do and you’ve got four days to do it,'” says Rick, who manages bands and surfers. “‘And hopefully by the time you graduate high school, you have a career path chosen.'”

Jaysea told her father she wanted to teach yoga and when she said it was 200 hours of training, “We were like ‘Whoa.'”

“She was just adamant about doing all the homework and never wanting to miss a class,” Rick says. “We were just really thrilled and very honored that they allowed her to do it and that she pulled it off.”

Source: Fox news

Harvard yoga scientists find proof of meditation benefit

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Scientists are getting close to proving that yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease. Scientists are getting close to proving what yogis have held to be true for centuries—yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease.

John Denninger, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, is leading a five-year study on how the ancient practices affect genes and brain activity in the chronically stressed. His latest work follows a study he and others published earlier this year showing how so-called mind-body techniques can switch on and off some genes linked to stress and immune function.

While hundreds of studies have been conducted on the mental health benefits of yoga and meditation, they have tended to rely on blunt tools like participant questionnaires, as well as heart rate and blood pressure monitoring. Only recently have neuro-imaging and genomics technology used in Denninger’s latest studies allowed scientists to measure physiological changes in greater detail.
“There is a true biological effect,” said Denninger, director of research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of Harvard Medical School’s teaching hospitals. “The kinds of things that happen when you meditate do have effects throughout the body, not just in the brain.”

The government-funded study may persuade more doctors to try an alternative route for tackling the source of a myriad of modern ailments. Stress-induced conditions can include everything from hypertension and infertility to depression and even the aging process. They account for 60-90% of doctor’s visits in the US, according to the Benson-Henry Institute. The World Health
Organization estimates stress costs US companies at least $300 billion a year through absenteeism, turn-over and low productivity.

Seinfeld, Murdoch

The science is advancing alongside a budding mindfulness movement, which includes meditation devotees such as Bill George, board member of Goldman Sachs Group and Exxon Mobil Corp., and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. News Corp.  chairman Rupert Murdoch recently revealed on Twitter that he is giving meditation a try.

As a psychiatrist specializing in depression, Denninger said he was attracted to mind-body medicine, pioneered in the late 1960s by Harvard professor Herbert Benson, as a possible way to prevent the onset of depression through stress reduction. While treatment with pharmaceuticals is still essential, he sees yoga and meditation as useful additions to his medical arsenal.

Exchange programme

It’s an interest that dates back to an exchange programme he attended in China the summer before entering Harvard as an undergraduate student. At Hangzhou University, he trained with a tai chi master every morning for three weeks. “By the end of my time there, I had gotten through my thick teenage skull that there was something very important about the breath and about inhabiting the present moment, he said. I’ve carried that with me since then.” His current study, to conclude in 2015 with about $3.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, tracks 210 healthy subjects with high levels of reported chronic stress for six months. They are divided in three groups.

One group with 70 participants perform a form of yoga known as Kundalini, another 70 meditate and the rest listen to stress education audiobooks, all for 20 minutes a day at home. Kundalini is a form of yoga that incorporates meditation, breathing exercises and the singing of mantras in addition to postures. Denninger said it was chosen for the study because of its strong
meditation component.

Participants come into the lab for weekly instruction for two months, followed by three sessions where they answer questionnaires, give blood samples used for genomic analysis and undergo neuro-imaging tests.

‘Immortality enzyme’
Unlike earlier studies, this one is the first to focus on participants with high levels of stress. The study published in May in the medical journal PloS One showed that one session of relaxation-response practice was enough to enhance the expression of genes involved in energy metabolism and insulin secretion and reduce expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and
stress. There was an effect even among novices who had never practiced before. Harvard isn’t the only place where scientists have started examining the biology behind yoga.

In a study published last year, scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn found that 12 minutes of daily yoga meditation for eight weeks increased telomerase activity by 43%, suggesting an improvement in stress-induced aging. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, shared the Nobel medicine prize in 2009 with
Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for research on the telomerase immortality enzyme, which slows the cellular aging process.

Build resilience

Not all patients will be able to stick to a daily regimen of exercise and relaxation. Nor should they have to, according to Denninger and others. Simply knowing breath-management techniques and having a better understanding of stress can help build resilience.

“A certain amount of stress can be helpful,” said Sophia Dunn, a clinical psychotherapist who trained at King’s College London. “Yoga and meditation are tools for enabling us to swim in difficult waters.”

Source: Live Mint

Yoga can help improve well being of women with breast cancer

Yoga may improve the lives of breast cancer patients, a study has found.
Researchers say practising it can control stress and improve the wellbeing of women having radiation treatment.

Simple stretching exercises were able to lessen fatigue, the study showed.
But – when stretching was combined with the breathing, meditation and relaxation techniques used in yoga – breast cancer patients also felt healthier and more relaxed.
Lorenzo Cohen, a professor who led the research at the University of Texas, said that combining mind and body practices had ‘tremendous potential’.

The study, which was reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, split 191 women with breast cancer into three groups: yoga, simple stretching and neither.
Women who practised yoga had the steepest fall in their cortisol levels, suggesting yoga helped regulate the stress hormone.
Dr Cohen said: ‘Combining mind and body practices that are part of yoga clearly have tremendous potential to help patients manage the psycho-social and physical difficulties associated with treatment and life after cancer, beyond the benefits of simple stretching.’

To conduct the study, 191 women with breast cancer were split into three groups – yoga; simple stretching; or no instruction in yoga or stretching.
Participants in the yoga and stretching groups attended sessions specifically tailored to breast cancer patients for one-hour, three days a week throughout their six weeks of radiation treatment.

They were asked to report on their quality of life, including levels of fatigue and depression, their daily functioning and a measure assessing ability to find meaning in the illness experience.  Saliva samples were collected and electrocardiogram tests were also administered throughout and after the course of treatment.

Dr Cohen said the research shows that developing a yoga practice also helps patients after completing cancer treatment.
He added: ‘The transition from active therapy back to everyday life can be very stressful as patients no longer receive the same level of medical care and attention.
‘Teaching patients a mind-body technique like yoga as a coping skill can make the transition less difficult.’
Dr Cohen and his team are now conducting a clinical trial in women with breast cancer to further determine the mechanisms of yoga that lead to improvement in physical functioning, quality of life and biological outcomes during and after radiation treatment.

Source: daily mail

Poorvottanasana — get stronger arms and shoulders with this asana

Poorvottanasana or the upward plank pose, this asana strengthens the wrists, arms, shoulders, back and spine and stretches the abdominal organs, spine and hips. It also helps improve one’s respiratory function and helps resolve any problems with digestion. Apart from all this it is also great to restore one’s thyroid functions.

Steps to do this pose: Lie on your back on your yoga mat with your legs together. Now fold your hands at the elbows and place your palms on either side of your shoulders, with the fingers pointing in the opposite direction as your hands. Now, exhale and rise up off the floor using your hands, keep your heels on the floor. Breathe normally in this pose. To return to your original position exhale and rest your buttocks on the mat.

Tip: If you suffer from a wrist or neck injury please avoid doing this condition.

Source: the health site