Whether it’s Mother Nature’s arctic blasts or your office’s gusting air conditioning, there’s nothing like the cold to make you feel like your veins have frozen. To get your blood flowing again, Sandy Blaine, codirector of the Alameda Yoga Station and author of Yoga for Healthy Knees and the upcoming book Yoga for Computer Users, explains that inverted poses work best. “Reversing the body's relationship with gravity allows blood to flow back to the heart without the heart having to work nearly as hard to pump it there, which is great for circulation,” Blaine says. What’s more, these inverted and half-inverted poses get your muscles working and pumping blood more efficiently.
To get started, try the half-inverted Half-Dog pose. Once you’re comfortable with it, challenge yourself with a fully inverted Forearm Balance. Blaine also recommends integrating these poses with a series of Sun Salutations. Watch the video to learn. Sun Salutes will fully engage your whole body, helping blood flow even more freely through your system. (Watch the video to learn Sun Salutes.)
Half-Dog (also called Dolphin pose)
1. Start on your hands and knees. Use a block between index fingers to keep hands and elbows straight and shoulder-width apart. If you don’t have a block, put your two fists together to imagine the width of a block and place hands outside that space. Middle fingers should align with shoulders.
2. Curl your toes under and straighten your legs as you would for Downward Dog, while lowering elbows to flatten forearms onto mat. Keep hips lifted up and back to help forearms stay balanced and upper back wide and open.
3. Once pose feels comfortable or you’d like to try a full inversion, move onto a more challenging pose such as Forearm Balance.
Forearm Balance (also called Elbow Stand)
1. Move into Half-Dog pose about 6 inches from a wall, keeping head and fingers pointing toward the baseboard while keeping your hands that block-width apart.
2. Kick one leg up at a time toward the wall and rest heels against wall. Slide heels upward on the wall, stretching as if trying to stand on ceiling while gazing at thumbs.
(This reaching with your heels while pushing up with forearms should prevent injury. “The more you lift your legs,” explains Blaine, “the less stress you put on your lower back.” Blaine also recommends alternating which leg you lift first to help improve your overall balance.
3. Aim for 30 seconds, but if upper back and shoulders begin to feel exhausted, lower legs to floor. Eventually, you’ll want to hold this pose for a full minute or longer.
To learn Forearm Balance, check out this video lesson.
NOTE: Avoid full inversions if experiencing glaucoma, inflammatory diseases in the head region, severe hypertension, recent or chronic injury to the head, neck, or spine, headache, menstruation, heart condition, and high or low blood pressure.
