Flexibility & Strength Benefits of Practicing Yoga  

Flexibility & strength are two aspects of the human body that when maintained regularly, can improve your life quality. Yoga for flexibility and strength is one of the best approaches to improving lifestyle in the shortest time. Over some time, Yoga improves your poses and enhances your muscle tone. It sometimes can be uncomfortable, but over some time, you will be fully satisfied with the results. Being an ancient method of Indian culture, Yoga is seen as holy. Manuscripts suggest that yoga is a doorway to open spiritual experiences too. However, in this blog, we will discuss how practicing yoga benefits in enhancing flexibility & strength. Read the full blog to know more. 

Yoga & Flexibility:

One of the major reasons Yoga is famous for its flexibility-boosting poses. Regularly practising Yoga improves muscle flexes, the respiratory system, digestion, and control over the body. Yoga also enhances energy, and vitality, and boosts the metabolism of our body. Yoga has many poses to improve flexibility. These poses stretch the body muscles, making them leaner & limber. This means you become faster and gain better control over your hands, legs, spine, and other body parts. It helps in loosening soreness and tight muscles. Regularly practicing Yoga improves the body’s vitality and recharges it for more strenuous work activities. Improved flexibility results in fewer muscle injuries and faster recovery in case of any injury. 

Yoga & Strength:

Though many people don’t know about it, Yoga greatly impacts your strength. Practising different poses and holding them right away for minutes seems not tough but it is. It needs a good amount of core strength to hold those positions. Yoga poses boost your strength, endurance, and muscle tone over a while. For example- the forearm plank needs a very strong core that it develops with time. 

Yoga for flexibility and strength is all about free weight or bodyweight exercises where you use your body as an instrument to improve your power. The weight-bearing exercises strengthen your whole body and promote a better quality lifestyle, improved health, better functioning of muscles, and easy recovery from injuries. 

Benefits of Improved Flexibility:

Social Media has surely impacted everyone’s life. But you must not get motivated by seeing unrealistic images of flexible bodies. Here are some genuine benefits of improved flexibility. 

• Flexibility increases your range of motion therefore it reduces the chance of getting injured. 
• It improves your body posture. You are freer and feel lighter than before. 
• Stretching your body impacts your mind too. It boosts happy hormones and keeps your mind in a positive state. 
• Flexibility also improves your strength. 
• You gain better balance in your body. 
• It reduces the chances of potential back pain. 
• You gain more efficiency as flexibility adds effectiveness to your movement. 

Benefits of Improved Strength:

Similar to flexibility, improved strength will not make you the Superman of your town. But improved strength certainly has some great effects on your body & life quality. Here are some of the genuine benefits. 

• Improved strength increases your bone density. As a result, you gain healthier & stronger bones. It also reduces the risk of osteoporosis. 
• Strength training helps you maintain your body weight. It boosts your metabolism and burns extra calories. 
• Strength training improves your quality of life quality. It improves your focus, and ability to do everyday work, builds muscles, reduces knee injuries, improves balance, and makes you independent of age. 
• Improved strength also helps you fight against symptoms of chronic conditions such as arthritis, back pain, heart disease, depression, diabetes, and obesity. 
• Some researchers claim that strength training also improves your thinking ability. Especially aerobic exercise helps greatly with mental capabilities. 

Below are some types of Yoga poses that will help in improving flexibility & strength.

Yoga Poses for Flexibility:

1.      Intense Side Stretch: 

This is a forward bend yoga pose that affects the spine, hips, and legs. It also benefits in correcting your position and posture and gaining balance. 

2. Head to Knee Pose: 

This yoga pose is for all-level yogis. This pose improves flexibility in the hips, legs, hands, and thighs. Also, it improves your blood flow in the lower abdominals and reduces stress. 

3. Bow Pose: 

Bow pose is exceptionally beneficial for all body muscles. However, it highly impacts your core muscles to be more flexible as well it improves flexibility in the back, chest, glutes, and legs. 

4. Low Lunge Pose: 

This pose opens up your hips and gives strength to your spine & thighs. It also helps alleviate sciatica. 

5. Cow Face Pose: 

Ideal for all-level yogis, it is a very simple yet very effective pose among all. This yoga pose helps in stretching your chest, shoulders, and arms. 

6. Plow Pose: 

This pose involves bending your torso towards your head. This pose helps alleviate tension in your neck, spine, and shoulders. 

Yoga Poses for Strength:

1. Cat-Cow Pose: 

In this pose, you regularly work to round the back in an up-and-down motion. It results in strengthening your core muscles. 

2. Downward-Facing Dog: 

This pose stretches your body and strengthens your overall body. Also, it tones the hands and leg muscles when regularly held for a few minutes. 

3. Forearm Plank: 

Forearms are one very famous yoga pose for building your core muscles & abdominal area. It also gives strength to the uppermost part of your arms- the deltoids. 

4. Boat Pose: 

The boat pose is an excellent choice for strengthening the hip area, neck, back, quadriceps, abdomen, and hamstring muscles. 

5. Warrior

Warrior 2 pose is all about making your body stronger. By regularly practicing this, your shoulders, arms, legs, and hip areas gain strength. 

Conclusion:

Yoga is very effective when it comes to improving your overall lifestyle. It helps you to live a long, healthy life. However, yoga for flexibility & strength benefits you the most. It improves your body posture by stretching your body parts. Also, yoga poses are not so easy to perform. Holding them for minutes is tougher than you think. Regular yoga practice helps you build muscles naturally and also improves the body’s range of motion with time. In this blog, I have discussed the benefits of gaining flexibility & strength through several types of yoga poses.