Hatha yoga is the most popular among the eight styles of yoga. Many beginners want to start their yoga lessons with this style. Nonetheless, starting yoga is not only about the position. It also involves the right set of clothes to wear and the use of some important yoga gears like the yoga mat. These mats can help in avoiding unnecessary accidents and give some comfort when doing yoga postures.

Meditation is the main goal of Hatha yoga positions. To achieve this, you need to relax and free your mind. Now, you might wonder how anybody can be relaxed in such a position. This is because yoga poses allow you to focus your energy in certain chakra points. If you are still having a hard time relaxing in each posture or asana, you can use a yoga mat for added comfort.

Before continuing any further, here are important tips from some yoga experts. The yoga postures or asana should not be taken as just another form of exercise for strengthening the body muscles. This is because exercise is only a part of yoga. It is therefore performed for us to attain overall well being. It is also advisable to use a yoga mat while doing these positions for your own safety.

Yoga practice also involves doing some warm up exercises on your yoga mat before doing the actual postures. This is to loosen up the joints and readying them for some extreme routines. One great position for those doing yoga at home is the corpse pose or savasana. In case you are enrolled in yoga class, your guru or instructor can guide you to certain poses other than the savasana.

Savasana is commonly recommended for those doing yoga at home. This is because it is a simple routine and just involves you lying down on your yoga mat. No necessary twisting and bending is needed thus you can do this pose in between complicated yoga poses to cool down and relax your mind and body.

There also some other yoga positions that are commonly used. These involve tension relieving positions like the matsyana or fish pose and some stretching positions like the dhanurasana or bow pose. There are also positions like the setu bandhasana that are suitable for flexible persons. However, before trying to do these positions, it is vital that you make sure that your yoga mat is clean and free from any sweat.

It is necessary to stress out that after doing your yoga practice, you must let your body cool down before further doing any other task. It is needed for your heart rate to be at a normal level and your muscles at a relaxed state. Therefore, doing poses on your Yoga Mat like the corpse pose is important.

Over all, yoga poses are essential in the meditation process. If you are going to practice by yourself, always ensure your safety first. Do not do complex positions if you are not an expert or without the help of guru. Lastly, always use yoga mat to give you a grip of the supporting surface.

Core stability and core strengthening exercises are a much overlooked, but vital, part of a comprehensive workout routine and back health maintenance.

Every day, our daily activities are filled with all kinds of abuses to our back. We twist, turn, bend, pick up things incorrectly. Most of us spend almost all day sitting for our jobs. In order for our core muscles to adequately support our back and internal organs, they have to be in pretty good shape. As soon as we start to get lax in our efforts to stay in shape, our back begins to “talk” to us. Bending over becomes a chore, we hurt all the time, and life becomes more and more miserable.

And our workout routines become ever more risky; we always are on the edge of straining our back.

OK, then, what are some really good core strengthening exercises to do?

* Pilates. You can do any Pilates workout and you will come out ahead. I’ve used Pilates for years to keep the old middle tight and strong. Pilates has a sort of “girls only” reputation for some reason, but take it from me, guys; this is serious exercise.

* The Farmer’s Walk. This is really a whole body exercise, but your core will work real hard, as will your back, legs, arms and hands. Just go pick up two very heavy dumbbells, and carry them over to the other side of the room and back again. Maybe another time. Your core will work overtime to keep you balanced and stable.

* The Wood Chopper. Take a medicine ball, hold it in both hands over your head and to one side, and swing it down diagonally toward your feet on the opposite side. Bend your knees and hips and use your legs to get to the bottom point, and then lift back up to the starting point. Do several, and then switch sides.

* Saxon Bends. Tough stuff here. Take that medicine ball again, or a weight plate, and standing, hold it over your head at arms’ length. Now sway over to one side, and back over to the other side. Back to center is one rep. Be sure not to bend forward or backward to protect your back, and keep the abs tight at all times.

You can use these exercises as either a great warmup or cooldown (sort of) for your regular weight training routine. Or, why not devote a whole workout to core strengthening exercises from time to time; the change will do you good.

Tight hips is a very common problem today. This results in back pain and other problems. Practising yoga can help you make your hips more flexible.

Yoga today is a very good web site, showing a lot of different yoga postures and they also have done a video about hip openers. I really recommend taking a look at this video and I even more recommend doing the postures. This will guaranteed give you a better position on the bike and will also help you with your running technique.

Today I will show you 7 standing yoga postures (asanas) that help runners, cyclists and triathletes to stretch their leg muscles.

If you are doing a lot of running or cycling, it is also probable that you have stiff legs. This stiffness in the legs, ranging from the foot up to the gluteus maximus, can be the cause of different problems as for instance the iliotibial band syndrome. Other problems that can arise from stiff leg muscles are back problems. Please refer to my post about iliotibial band problems for more information about that specific problem.

If you haven’t got any yoga experience or if you have just started with yoga, these asanas are a great start for getting more flexible leg muscles.
I have chosen to write the english name as well as the sanskrit name to make it easier for you to find videos or pictures of the postures on the web. I recommend looking at youtube for instructions on how to do the bends.

When your legs are more flexible, they can perform with less resistance. It will be possible to run or cycle more efficient. It will also help you to avoid overuse injuries as iliotibial band syndrome.
I have noticed that when I started doing yoga or stretching, I didn’t get any knee pains anymore. At first I was very stiff and couldn’t really get into the postures without it hurting a bit, but after a few weeks I noticed big improvements. Just take it easy with the postures. Don’t overdo it. Let it take it’s time. You will gain flexibility and when you do it carefully, you won’t get injured during the training.

The postures (asanas) that I suggest for the beginning are the following seven:

1. Standing forward bend (Uttanasana): This is an excellent pose to extend your hamstrings. It will stretch your gluteus maximus, medius and minimus as well as your spinal muscles too. Precaution is to be made by people with back injury. These people should approach this bend very cautiously. It is important to let gravity do the work, don’t push your body into the pose. If your hamstrings are very tight, bend your knees. That will make the stretch better.

2. Warrior I (Virabhadrasana I): Warrior I is a very good posture to stretch you hip flexors, which is a weak point in many runners and cyclists. It increases flexibility in the hips, back and front groins.

3. Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II): As in Warrior I this posture stretches the hip joints and opens the groins and it also stretches the inner thigh muscles.

4. Side Angle Pose (Parsvakonasana): This is a good following pose of Warrior II. It stretches the back side of the legs and opens the groin. At the same time it also stretches the upper body.

5. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana): This is a follow up of the Warrior I pose. Works the side body and the hips.

6. Intense side stretch (Parsvottanasana): This is another very good stretch for your hamstrings and it will also increase the flexibility in your gluteus maximus. This posture is more intense in the hamstrings than the standing forward bend.

7. Wide stance forward bend (Prasarita Padottanasana): This posture is sometimes also called wide-legged forward fold and is related to the standing forward bend. The difference is that the feet are wide apart in this posture. This posture is also a very good stretch for your hamstring and the gluteus maximus.

In every of these 7 postures remain for five deep breaths in position. If you do these poses regularly they will give you much more flexibility in your legs and they will open your groin and hips. I recommend doing them at least 3 times a week. When you have done them for about 2 months we can go to the next level.

If you get more interested in yoga and want to learn more poses, please read my review of The athlete’s guide to yoga or have a look at the books and dvds I have collected for you.

The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga – A Personalized Practice for Strength, Flexibility, and Focus featuring Sage Rountree Endurance Films, 120 min, 2008

This is the companion DVD to the excellent book The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga by Sage Rountree. Sage Rountree is an endurance athlete, racing triathlons up to half-Ironman, and a registered yoga teacher. In this DVD she presents 20 different yoga sequences which will help you becoming a better triathlete.

With the DVD you have the possibility to choose from three preset sequences — Strength, Flexibility and Focus, or you can develop a customized routine selecting up to 12 of the following sequences:

• Centering
• The breath in space
• The breath in time
• Six moves of the spine
• Half salutations and lunges
• Standing balance flow
• Arm balance
• Sun salutations
• Moon salutations
• Lunge series
• Static core work
• Dynamic core work
• Shoulder strap series
• Camel pose
• IT band flow
• Pigeon pose flow
• Hamstring strap series
• Restorative poses
• Corpse pose
• Closing

All postures, asanas, are demonstrated at three levels of intensity. The explanations are straightforward with enough detail to ensure that you can perform the asanas safely at home.
The DVD also has a section for the frequent problem areas of endurance athletes. These are:

Building core strength, Stretching the shoulders, Opening the hips and Encouraging recovery.

The target group for this DVD is athletes, including triathletes, that want to increase their strength and flexibility to reduce chance of injury and recover faster. Above all it’s well suited for athletes that have no possibility joining a yoga class. Since the postures are very well explained, this is a good start even for beginners of yoga. And of course it can also be used by athletes merely wanting to discover some new stretching routines.

The DVD is very well made and offers a good start in the world of yoga. It is especially well suited for endurance athletes and also has suggestions for solving some of the frequent problems in endurance athletes, e.g. the IT band problem. For those people, especially interesting is the sequence Opening the hips.

If you want more information about the postures in this DVD and about yoga in general, I sincerely recommend buying the companion book The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga.

The DVD and the book can also be bought here:

Iliotibial band syndrome, or Iliotibial band friction syndrome as it is also called, is one of the most frequent overuse knee problems in athletes. Especially runners and cyclists suffer from this problem.
In my earlier post knee pain it band syndrome treatment prevention I described what ITBS is, how to treat it and how to prevent it. In 8 yoga poses for removing or preventing knee pain it band I showed some Yoga postures that work good if you are suffering from Iliotibial band syndrome.
In this post I direct you to a few products that can help you to recover and prevent IT band problems. I hope to be able to help you with these posts and those product directions. If you have any other suggestions or information, please tell me and I will include this information in the blog as well.

Here is a list of some books that I find useful for getting more information about ITBS. There are also some books that help preventing it.

DVD:

Other products:

One of the most common knee problems by athletes is the Iliotibial band syndrome, also known as IT-Band syndrome. This is a well known complication by runners and cyclists. The IT-Band is a thick band of tissues running from the pelvis, along the hip, down the outside of the thigh, around the outside of the knee, and to the tibia. If you have this problem you will feel pain on the outside of the knee. It is common, that you get the problems when you are running and later you might also have the same problems walking.

To prevent this, there are a few IT band Yoga-poses available. If you don’t want to do yoga, you can still use these poses simply for stretching. That’s really what you need to prevent problems with the IT-Band.
If you want an explanation of the poses below, you can find most of them on Youtube. Or you can also find them explained in The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga: An Integrated Approach to Strength, Flexibility, and Focus.

The following poses are known to be good for preventing IT-Band problems:

• Square
• Cow face forward fold
  
• Pigeon
• Outer hamstring twist
• Outer thigh twist
• Half lord of the fishes twist
• Cross-legged reclining twist
• Frog legged pose

For more reading about Yoga and Triathlon please visit The triathletes 9 reasons for doing Yoga or Yoga and Triathlon.

You also might want to take a look at this podcast from Sage Rountree.  She shows you how to do some very efficient exercises to prevent you from getting an IT band problem. Here you can find a review of her Yoga DVD the athlete’s guide to yoga.

Here is an article with more information about ITBS and here is a link to a post showing some products for ITBS.