Benefits Of Balance Poses
Balance is the ability to control your body’s position, whether stationary (i.e. a complex yoga pose) or while moving (e.g. playing golf).
Balance is a key component of Yoga, along with strength and flexibility poses.
Top 5 benefits to of balance poses...
1) Body Awareness – Body awareness is the sense of how your limbs are oriented in space, also known as proprioception. Balance training improves body awareness, which decreases the likelihood of injury.
2) Coordination – Balance poses requires your entire body to work in harmony, otherwise you will fall or stumble. Improved coordination during balance poses will be transferred into coordination in everyday life.
3) Joint Stability – Balance poses promote stable knees, ankles, hips, and shoulders. This can prevent a multitude of injuries including sprained ankles and knee problems.
4) Reaction Time – Balance poses can improve your reaction time. If you happen to slip or stumble when performing balance poses, your body needs to re-balance immediately or you will fall. This in turn will improve your reaction time in everyday life.
5) Long Term Health – Adding balance poses into your Yoga session helps to maintain or improve your balance, which is needed to prevent falls and fractures. As we age, our balance can deteriorate. Yoga balances will help delay that deterioration.
Benefits Of Twist Poses
1) Spine Mobility – Twists rotate the spine and stretch the muscles of the back. This helps to restore and retain the spine’s natural range of motion. If we don’t employ our natural range of motion we run the risk of our joints hardening and fusing. The surrounding supportive soft tissue can also become short and dysfunctional. By extending the muscles to their full length regularly with twists we can help to prevent this.
2) Energising – In twists you work with the spine and the action of ‘lengthening’ is to create space between the vertebrae. When there's a lack of space our spine tends to slump or get stuck and our energy levels drop. Through twisting we lengthen the spine and get space between the bones. Then our energy can flow better. Twists give us an instant energy lift and decompress the vertebrae in a safe healthy way.
3) Neutralising – Twists are neutralising poses, so they’re good to include if you’ve been doing lots of strong back bends or forward bends. Twists incorporate the centre of our body, working the abdominal, obliques, the muscles that support the movement of our spine, shoulders, pelvis, and neck.
4) Aid Digestion – Twists are great for creating movement in and around our organs, including our digestive system.
