Yoga practice is always challenging for you, whether it is off or on the mat. One aspect of yoga that is the hardest thing to get your head around is Inverted Yoga Poses. Yoga inversions or Inverted Yoga Poses are inverted postures that require you to find your balance on your heads or hands, that helps redefine your sense of gravity and challenge you to upgrade your abilities.
Inverted yoga poses offer more benefits if practiced safely. They can have a profound effect on your mental and physical well-being. It also helps build your balance, strength and flexibility in your practice.
In this article you will find essential guidelines about yoga inversions. This guide has broken down the meaning of yoga inversions, their benefits, risks, and types of effective inverted yoga poses with some modifications for a safer practice.
What are Yoga Inversions?
Yoga inversions are different types of yoga poses that are also known and asanas in Sanskrit. These yoga poses involve your hips and heart above your head. Initially the inverted yoga poses are simple and increase in difficulty over time. That may sound intimidating, but don’t worry, in the most basic sense, yoga inversions are as simple as a forward bend. Experts usually refer to them as handstands.
Inverted yoga poses aim to improve your energy currency, flexibility, blood circulation and even your self-esteem. Although they have many benefits, you may be careful to choose which inversion is right and safe for you.
Popular Types of Yoga Inversions
The yoga poses where your body turns upside down with your head below either only your hips and heart or your legs and heat, are called yoga inversions. These are of two types, half inversions and full inversions.
The most popular and beneficial fully inverted postures include:
- Headstand.
- Handstand.
- Shoulder-stand.
These Poses are slightly hard or tricky, but the good news is, there are plenty of easier beginner yoga inversions, called half inversions. You can try them they include:
- Child’s pose.
- Dolphin pose.
- Downward-facing dog pose.
The important thing is to listen to your body and start slowly. Start your practice under the supervision of a qualified yoga teacher, who may guide you with proper techniques and alignment.
What Muscles are Used for Inverted Yoga Poses?
Inverted yoga poses are the most effective ways to stretch and strengthen different muscles in your body. You use a variety of muscles in your shoulder, back, legs, arms, and core, during inversion practices. These inversions also help maintain your balance, and alignment with a great support to your body weight. Some Of major ,muscles you may use in yoga inversions include:
Leg Muscles
Headstand and handstand inversions engage your leg muscles to help lift your body up and maintain your balance. These muscles involve your glutes, hamstrings, inner thighs and quads. The invented poses also work on major muscles of your body, starting from your legs to your core and arms. Regular inversion practice helps you improve flexibility, build strength and unlock a new dimension of your workout practices.
Neck Muscles
Some types of inversions tend to use your neck muscles to support your neck and head. It’s important to be careful not to strain your neck muscles during practice. Thus, it is suggested that you should go as far as you feel comfortable and always listen to your body.
Upper Body Muscles
Inverted yoga poses also target your upper body muscles, including your chest, arms and shoulders. Crane pose, bridge pose and Headstand are upside down yoga poses that help these muscles to support your body weight and ensure you don’t collapse.
Core Muscles
These muscles help stabilize your body during yoga inversions. They also maintain a strong and stable base, which is the major requirement to practice some amazing inversions like the Forearm Stand. Your core muscles comprises of transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis and obliques.
Health Benefits of Yoga Inversions
Yoga inversions are associated with many health benefits,including:
Increases Circulation
Inversions are popular ways to increase your lymphatic drainage and blood circulation that results in efficient delivery of nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. Efficient circulation is also necessary to remove waste products. Inverted poses also help stimulate venous blood flow from your pelvis toward your heart. Then the blood is easily sent to your lungs to be oxygenated. These poses also help lower your heart rate that allows better uptake of oxygen into your blood.
Increases Energy Levels
Alertness and energy levels can also be increased with inverted poses. Research concluded that inverted poses may reduce fatigue and increase the nutrients and oxygen uptake in cells releasing endorphins, such as serotonin, dopamine and nor-epinephrine, that are essential to improve your mood and increase your attention and concentration.
Moreover, upside down poses require improved focus that over time, helps improve your ability to focus on any situation you experience your way.
Improves Strength and Flexibility
Yoga inversions are famous for their ability to improve strength, balance and flexibility in all age groups. In addition, inversion poses need more mind-body-awareness and strength to hold your body in a stretched position against gravity, which results in increasing your flexibility, muscle strength, and endurance over time.
Moreover, each pose of inversions tried to target different muscle groups, leading to improved strength, range of motion and limb flexibility.
Boosts Brain Health
Invented yoga poses are popular yoga practices that supercharge your brain. These renowned poses keep your body invented, gravity force causes the blood flow in the opposite direction, towards the head. This practice increases the blood flow towards your brain and improves cognitive function. They also help counteract the symptoms of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. In addition, inversions may also hold the power to cease the aging process of the brain and even help delay dementia.
Aids Digestion
Do you know, inversions are good for digestion? Yes, different types of inverted postures in yoga like Headstand, Shoulder Stand and plough pose help better digestion and maintain gut health. These movements, when practiced comfortably, activate the digestive mode and release pressure of gravity on the colon. These inversion also help massage the visceral organs and flow new blood to this area.
Improves Thyroid Health
Yoga inversion poses can help improve your thyroid issues and reduce associated conditions. Shoulder-stand and plough pose activate the parasympathetic nervous system which reduces stress and promotes the essential thyroid hormones. These positions also may help increase blood circulation to the thyroid glands by pumping oxygen-rich blood to deprived areas through the squeeze-and-release effect.
Regulates Blood Pressure
Inversion postures are renowned for reducing high blood pressure and hypertension. Inversions help stimulate the body’s pressure gauges known as baroreceptors. These help make suitable adjustments in blood pressure by stimulating the receptors. It boosts their responsiveness, which improves the body’s ability to regulate blood pressure. The reverse flow of oxygenation and blood occurs in Headstand and provides your heart sometime to rest and recharge leading to the reduction in risk of heart diseases.
Point to remember that inversions can also increase blood pressure, if you use too much muscle tension to hold yourself up activate the sympathetic nervous system instead, causing blood pressure to rise.
Therefore, if you’re already suffering from high blood pressure, avoid doing inversions, unless carefully supervised by an exact yoga instructor.
Stimulates the Lymphatic Drainage
Lymphatic system is responsible for the removal of toxins and waste from your body. Inversion postures help circulate lymph fluid throughout the body and facilitate the rejuvenating movements. Shoulder Head is a popular yoga inversion that helps compress the abdomen and stimulate the thoracic duct, leading to drain lymph fluid and used blood from your legs.
Calms your Mind
You may consider it opposite to relaxing, when holding an upside down posture for a minute, but actually inversion yoga poses have a calming effect on your mind. These postures work to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is helpful for your body’s digestive and rest responses. In this way, you can relax, quiet the mental chatter and let go of tension deep in your muscles.
Risks associated with Yoga Inversions
No doubt, yoga inversions are highly beneficial for most people.However,sometimes, inversions cause health risks in certain individuals and they belong to yoga-related injuries. People With joint problems, back or neck injuries, or other muscular issues are not recommended to do inversion yoga without the guidance of their physical instructor or professional healthcare provider.
As you know, yoga inversion involves the head being lower than your heart, this can cause blood to rush to your face. So if you’re suffering from glaucoma, circulatory issues or high blood pressure, you are suggested to avoid these postures.
In addition, expats also suggested for pregnant people to avoid difficult asanas that completely invert the body, including Shoulder Stand or Headstand.
Yoga experts also suggest that less intense postures, such as Downward-Facing Dog, that involve four points of contact i.e. both hand and feet, are safer for healthy pregnant people.
However, never forget to talk to your healthcare provider before trying any new exercise during pregnancy.
Last but not least, it is good to start with simple, low intensity poses when you’re a beginner. This may reduce the risk of injury and ensure the safe and correct moves.
Yoga Inversion Poses
Here are some popular inversion asanas that are perfect for beginners to try:
Child’s Pose (Balasana)
This is the most simple and low intensity pose that can cause calmness and relaxation in your neck, shoulder, spine and hips.
- Start on all fours.
- Fold your chest over your knees while sitting your hips back toward your heels and bringing your forehead to the floor.
- Stretch your arms in front of your body while your palms must face the floor. There may be a sense of gentle stretch in your back.
- Hold this posture for 40 seconds.
Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Savannah)
This pose is the most effective asana that targets your back muscles, quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings.
- Start on all fours.
- Place your knees and hands on the floor.
- Keep your hands aligned under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
- Straighten your legs and lift your pelvis towards the ceiling. Press down your hands while your heel may leave the ground slightly.
- Now, the body will be in an upside-down “V” position.
- Lengthen your spine with your knees slightly bending position. Keep your head still between your shoulders facing downward.
- A slight stretch will be noticed in your upper back and hamstrings.
- Try hard to distribute your body weight evenly throughout your body.
- Hold this pose for 40 seconds.
Forward Fold Pose (Uttanasana)
This pose is good for helping stretch your calves, spine and hamstrings.
- Stand on your feet hip-width apart and your arms by your sides.
- Keep your arms straight up over your head.
- Swing your arms gently down to the sides while bending at the hips.
- Place your palms on the floor in front of your feet by using a yoga block.
- Keep your legs straight and bend your knees slightly.
- Aligning with your ankles and leaning forward gently will help bring weight to the balls of your feet.
- Try to engage your thighs and allow the hamstrings to stretch.
- Allow your head to hang and hold the position for 40 seconds.
Once you become familiar with yoga inversions, you can try for more difficult postures, including Handstand, Feathered Peacock, Crow Pose, Wheel Pose and Headstand. However, always remember to get medical clearance from your healthcare provider before forwarding towards more difficult inversion poses.
Conclusion
You may consider yoga inversions as frightening and difficult, but it is associated with many health benefits. Improved self-esteem, energy levels, circulation, strength and flexibility are some benefits you may approach by practicing yoga inversion poses.
Although many yoga inversions are beneficial, some types of asanas may be difficult and uncertain for some people, including those with injuries, circulatory problems, and especially for pregnant people. Furthermore, some poses are not safe for beginners.
So if you’re a beginner, you may speak to your healthcare provider and a yoga expert before trying a new inverted yoga pose. Some yoga inversions are so hard and difficult that they should be practiced only under the supervision of your yoga instructor, even if you’re an experienced yogi.
Moreover, practicing yoga inversions is not suitable for daily movement routine. You can practice them according to the guidelines of your instructor.
