Another great exercise for your back is the Cobra. Bhujangasana or Cobra is a back-bending yoga pose. It not only strengthens your back but many more muscles and it is highly beneficial for your whole body!
BENEFITS OF COBRAS
- Strength: Cobra poses help you get stronger back, arms and shoulders.
- Toned Booty: Helps tone and sculpt the glutes.
- Fat Loss: Maintaining the pose for longer periods of time helps regulate metabolic process and burn more fat.
- Back Pain: Great treatment for back pain and slipped discs. It stretches the entire spinal region and loosens up the muscles that surround the vertebral column.
- Sciatic Pain: People with sciatica should practice cobra pose regularly to lessen the pain and help heal the condition.
- Flexibility: Cobras stretch the back along with the shoulders, chest and abdominals muscles, making you more flexible and less stiff.
- Menstrual Support: Helps regulate menstruation.
- Sexual Health: It is beneficial for the sexual organs and gynecological problems.
- Organ Health: Stimulates organs in the abdominal region, like the kidneys, pancreas, liver, and gall bladder.
- Improved Digestion: Performing cobras regularly invigorates the gastric passages and stomach, helping with indigestion, constipation, and other digestive problems.
- Respiratory Relief: The chest opening during cobras expands the respiratory region, improving blood and oxygen circulation and helping deal with lung congestion and asthma attacks.
- Vision: It seems that practicing this yoga pose enables blood circulation to the eye/nose/throat region, helping clear up those areas.
- Stress Management: Cobra pose soothes the adrenal glands, which produce cortisol, adrenalin, and steroid hormones. Proper release of these hormones make you more apt to deal with stress and release tension and anxiety.
HOW TO PERFORM COBRA MOVEMENTS
- Start by lying flat on your stomach on a level surface. Spread your hands on the floor under your shoulders and hug your elbows against your rib cage.
- Slowly inhale while straightening your arms.
- Lift your chest from the floor, press your tailbone toward your pubis and lift your pubis toward your navel.
- Keep your shoulders broad with shoulder blades low on your back.
- Hold for a few seconds. Then, exhale and lower your body back to the floor.
You can modify the cobra by placing your forearms on the floor – not just your palms, keeping your elbows directly under your shoulders.
If you are in acute pain, have facet joint problems and/or spondylolisthesis, take a cautious approach listening to your pain and allowing it to guide you, or even skip the movement.
In a full cobra pose, you start in a downward facing dog pose, to plank, to the starting position (flat on your stomach). After the cobra movement, you go back to downward dog.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Cobra Movements
Remember, whether you want to lose weight, tone your body, gain strength or size,
all muscles must be trained.
Lift, Burn more Fat, Get Stronger and Live Healthier!
To a Fitter Healthier You,
The Fitness Wellness Mentor
