Yoga isn’t as easy as it seems! The mind and body discipline demands concentration, correct form and technique, and commitment toward achieving your goal, as well as core strength. Indeed, yoga is strongly recommended for people who want to develop their overall flexibility, aerobic endurance, and core strength, as well as their ability to focus.
But even long-time yoga practitioners can become bored with the poses, known as asanas in the industry. Of course, mastering a new pose can ward off the boredom but there’s also the option of leveling up the asanas you have already mastered. Here are a few tips that you can discuss with your yoga instructor at CorePower Yoga.
#1 Be a Lightning Warrior
The Lightning Warrior can be made even better by stretching back your arms so that these become awake, so to speak. Your legs should be in a lunge akin to the Crescent position. You will find that the alignment jumpstarts your adrenaline so that you snap out of your humdrum routine.
- Reach your arms back along the length of your sides.
- Be sure to spread your fingers as widely as possible.
- Lift up your back knee and let your chest hover at a comfortable 45-degree angle.
- Reach through your head’s crown and extend through your back heel.
- Hug your shins at its outer part inwards toward your centerline.
#2 Pack Power Into Your Wide-Legged Forward Bend
Known as the prasarita paddottanasana, the wide-legged forward bend can sometimes look and feel like a middle-of-the-flow throwaway pose, especially for flexible yoga practitioners. Fortunately, there’s a great way to pack more power into the pose – by extending your hamstrings yet still maintaining the full engagement in the front of your thigh.
With this variation of the pose, you will feel your lower back spreading widely when you start rotating your active thighs in an outward direction.
- Angle your feet in an inward position and fold forward.
- Get your center before swinging to your right and holding your ankle.
- Pull to a side-bend position to your left trunk.
- Hold it for two minutes.
- Switch sides.
But even as you level up your yoga poses, you must always keep in mind that safety should always be your first and foremost concern. Unfortunately, too many people are getting hurt during their yoga sessions because of their disregard, even their ignorance, of basic safety practices. While older people are more likely to become injured, even relatively fit people can also become injured for many reasons, such as the failure to perform warm-up before and cool-down exercises after the asanas.