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Working your way through a yoga sequence focuses more on balance than just the physical body. The physical poses serve as a conduit for mental clarity, enhanced energy and stress relief.
It’s challenging to keep your balance while in down dog - a classic pose in yoga that stretches and elongates your body and also strengthens and stretches your hamstrings. However, it’s an excellent way to strengthen your arms, shoulders and legs. Moreover, this pse can dramatically help improve your posture.
Effective Yoga Poses to Improve Your Body Balance
Here are six poses you can do for balance that don’t require any fancy equipment:
1) Mountain Pose (Tadasana)
The Tadasana, or Mountain pose, is the foundation of all standing yoga poses. Practicing this pose with keen awareness and a strong muscular engagement can create balance and stability.
Here's how you do this yoga posture:
- Stand with your feet parallel, toes apart and knees slightly bent.
- Contract your abdominal muscles, and tilt your your pelvis forward till you feel a slight stretch in your lower back.
- Lift your quadriceps (the muscles on the front of your thighs) to straighten your knees.
- Draw in your ribs to level your hips, and pull your upper arm bones back behind you.
2) Tree Pose (Vrksasana)
The Tree Pose is the most common balance building asana in yoga. It helps you improve your posture by engaging your core, legs, upper back and lower back. It also strengthens your feet and legs by working on your ankles, calves, quads, inner thighs and hamstrings.
To do the tree pose:
- Transition from mountain pose, and shift your weight onto your left leg.
- Press into the four corners of your foot, grounding through them.
- Bend your right knee, and reach down with your right hand to clasp your ankle.
- Place your right foot on the inside of your left leg either above or below the knee joint.
- Your knee should be pointed to the side.
- Press your inner thigh back into your foot, and press down with the top of your foot against that same area.
3) Dancer Pose
The Dancer Pose strengthens the legs, arms and core of the body. It builds balance and focus while stretching your quads, abdomen, shoulders, hip flexors and arms. This pose also improves trust as you hold one leg extended to the side.
To do this pose:
- Begin the pose in mountain pose by pressing firmly into the floor and taking a point on eye level to focus on.
- Exhale and bend your left knee, bringing your left foot to the buttock and holding it with your left hand.
- Keep your torso upright, chest open, tailbone down.
- As you inhale, push the left foot back into the hand, and raise up through your right arm parallel to the floor or next to your ear.
4) Warrior III Pose
This balancing pose requires the engagement of many body parts, including the upper and lower back, buttocks and legs.
To do this yoga pose:
- With an exhalation and a 90-degree turn of the right foot, bring your left knee toward your chest.
- The front of the knee should touch the mat, while the heel should remain on the floor. Your torso should face forward with your chest resting on your thigh.
- Extend your arms straight out in front of you to join both palms in Namaste position.
- Hold this position for two breaths, and slowly lift your left leg off the floor while straightening your right leg.
- Keep both legs straight as they become parallel to the floor in the Warrior 3 pose.
5) Half Moon Pose
To work on balancing your posture, try doing the Half Moon Pose on both sides. To open your hips more fully, and release any chest tension you might have (say, from sitting at a computer all day), do some hip-opening stretches before moving into this pose.
To do the half moon pose:
- Come into a standing forward bend.
- Bring your left foot to the inside of your right thigh, and turn your left toes slightly inwards.
- Place your hands on your hips, and extend your arms out in front of you.
- Bend forward from your hips, and keep your torso long as you reach toward the floor with both hands.
- Pressing down through your fingers will help steady yourself.
6) Extended Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose
The extended hand to big toe pose stretches the legs, thighs, knees and ankles. It also strengthens them, improves balance and boosts concentration.
To do this yoga pose:
- Once you are in the mountain pose, shift your weight to your left foot, and lift your right knee.
- Hold your right foot outward, with your right arm inside your thigh and crossed behind your ankle.
- Step forward with the leg extended, and slowly turn it out to the side.
- After 30 seconds, hold the extended hand to big toe position, and switch to the other side.
Takeaway
If you want to get the best results from your practice, it’s important to challenge yourself with poses and try something new. However, remember that you don’t need to be a beginner to try some of these balancing poses. Even advanced practioners can get benefits from them.
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