When yoga is touted as the most effective exercise for weight loss, most of us wonder how just chanting and doing stationary poses can help in losing weight. The truth is, yoga asanas, especially vinyasa flow yoga is quite effective in helping you lose weight. Before proceeding with poses, we must first understand what vinyasa flow yoga is. It is a style of yoga which comprises Sun Salutations moved through quickly so that your heart rate increases and calories are burnt. Weight loss is thus achieved.
Vinyasa flow yoga is a total body workout that stimulates your core muscles, tones your arms and helps you burn as many as 450 calories per one-hour session. Many positions performed during vinyasa yoga require you to support your body weight against gravity, targeting more muscle groups from the upper body, back, and abdominal muscles than what running or biking does.
Let us now learn how to do vinyasa yoga for weight loss. It comprises the following poses:
Parvatasana or Downward Dog Pose
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- Stand on all fours on a yoga mat. Exhale and push the floor away from you, lift your hips and push yourself back into an upside-down V pose
- Then, straighten your legs, while you maintain the length of the spine and take the top of your thighs and knees back
- Press your upper arms towards each other, shoulder blades down along the spine, but keep space across the tops of the shoulders. You should hold this pose for five normal breaths
Bhujanga Asana or Cobra Pose
- Place your palms on the ground, beneath your shoulders. Now, lift your chest up off the ground by straightening your arms
- Stare upwards and keep your abdominals engaged. You must place your hands next to your chest and engage your glutes and back muscles as you curl the chest up away from the floor
- Hold this pose for five normal breaths
Kumbhakasana or Plank Position
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- Bring yourself to the downward dog position, lower your torso while bringing your arms perpendicular to the floor so that your shoulders and chest are directly over your arms
- Feel your stomach muscles tighten; return to the downward dog pose and hold it for five normal breaths
Vinyasa flow yoga isn’t just effective in helping you lose weight but also in providing mindfulness benefits and reducing stress. A 2005 study found that people in their 50s who practiced yoga regularly gained less weight over 10 years than their counterparts who did not practice it.
It also makes you aware of your eating habits, sensation of fullness, and implications of weight gain on your body and daily life, say researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. However, vinyasa yoga alone may not be enough to make weight loss possible. A calorie-burning cardio activity along with it and modified eating habits could do the needful. If you think vinyasa yoga for weight loss doesn’t work for you, you can find another yoga form that does. Options are unlimited.
Image Courtesy: Getty
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