While the world is sitting at home, trying to kill time? What’s the natural instinct that comes to your mind? To look at few exercise videos or log into your Netflix account? I know by now you would have come across many such home exercise videos, blogs, articles and this may be one more addition to it however I still see the motivation is missing. Hence consider this article as one more attempt to motivate you, to get you up and get your body moving. Believe me if you don’t get up now, you are going to regret the time that you wasted bingeing on web series for the rest of your life.
Here I list down 4 really simple and home friendly yoga asanas which would not just make you fit but will help you tone your body. Let’s look at them one by one:
Tadasan (Mountain pose): This is a great asana to begin with. It is as simple as standing straight in a correct pose. Before you start doing Tadasana, observe closely your posture, how you like to stand? Weather you put your weight on the inner edge of the foot or towards the outer edge. Probably you can get more idea about it if you look at your shoe soles and notice the area of the sole, which is worn out. However the idea is that weight should be distributed uniformly over on feet rather than it be one sided and this asana can help you correct that.
Standing straight, lightly touching a wall with your hands for balance, while inhaling, lift your heels as high as possible and exhaling, bring them back to earth. Repeat this 15 to 20 times daily. This asana helps you build awareness in your feet. This also helps in strengthening your ankles and calves.
Virasana (Hero Pose): Virasana is a great asana that people new to yoga can start with, since it also helps you in bringing the posture, which is required for pranayama and dhyanam. The asana includes basic sitting pose in which one sits on the buttocks, tops of the feet, with the hips positioned between the ankles. If you are a beginner, it might lead to some pain in thighs and knees, showing that your leg muscles don’t posses enough flexibility. This pain could be another reason to try this, since your muscles are meant to flexible. This asana stretches the arch or the sole of the foot hence it helps in improvising flexibility and strengthening your ankle and calves. Also, this is a great asana in curing flat feet.
Vrikshasana(Tree pose): This asana requires you to stand on one feet, bending the other leg from the knees, maintaining balance with your folded hand stretched atop of your head. Since you are required to stand on one feet, it helps you work on all muscles of your leg, including feet, ankle, knees and thighs. This is a great balancing exercise, which is a middle aged person should start including in their daily regime, since it helps you build endurance for ageing feet, improvise on body balance and bring coordination between your mind and the legs. This also helps people experiencing hip and knee pain.
Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog)
This is again a great asana, which is used to stretch your leg muscles and bring flexibility. Svana in hindi means dog. Hence the pose requires you stand in a pose as used by dog when they stretch themselves. Bend yourself from the hips and facing down align your palms with respective feet (right palm should be in line with right feet and left palm in line with left feet). Now bend your kneecaps inward by lifting your feet from their heels. Since, it requires you to stretch your hamstring and calves, hence strengthens lower legs. It also is beneficial to people experiencing back pain. It has become one of the most important asana of contemporary yoga, especially because it is easy to do and is used as starting pose of other asanas.
Dr. Parth Parekh
DNB (Orthopaedic) ; D (Orthopaedic) ; M.N.A.M.S (Orthopaedic)
Consultant Orthopaedic Foot And Ankle Surgeon
CIMS Hospital
Science City Road,
Sola,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat India 380060