I was at work the other day and a co-worker of mine who
takes Yoga classes suddenly started pumping a 20 pound
dumbbell he had nestled in his cubicle.
Being that he does this rather frequently, I asked why and
his response was
“Oh, my yoga classes don’t do anything for my arms.”
I looked at him puzzled and luckily for me, I had a draft of
a book with photos of some yoga balancing poses and asked
him if he had tried or even knew of them. Surprisingly, he
said no and was now eager for me to demonstrate them to
him.
This made me wonder, just how many other yoga enthusiasts
are of the mindset that Yoga may be inadequate for building
arm strength.
If you are such a person, nothing could be further from the
truth.
Yoga is fantastic for building strength in the arms and
although you may never see your biceps bulge through your
T-shirt sleeves, I will say you will see an increase in arm
strength and endurance that may not occur in perhaps other
forms of exercise.
Moreover, some basic Calisthenics like Push-ups, the Plank
and the Dive-bombers do borrow heavily from Yoga.
In my opinion, if one is looking to increase strength in the
arms through Yoga, the best exercises to focus on will be
the one and only Sun Salutations first.
From experience, when I was having difficulty holding
endurance building poses such as the Wheel, Bow, Peacock and
Crow Poses-with their variations-for a good enough length of
time (say an average of 90 seconds and beyond), I discovered
by sheer chance that in increasing the number of rounds of
the Sun-Salutations (Exercises) mentioned earlier to at
least 24 straight rounds, I could hold any of the poses
above for a quite a while.
It will be safe to say that is because the muscles are
warmed up by this powerful
combination of systematic poses for the otherwise moderate
to strenuous demands put on them.
In addition, when I started adding Hindu-push ups (a
straight yoga derivative as it’s basically Downward Facing
dog meets Cobra Pose repeated in sequence) for an occasional
source of variety in working out, these same Sun Salutations
increase my endurance to be able to perform a good amount of
this Yoga-esque exercise.
That considered, in addition to the Sun Salutations (24+
rounds) the other poses one should focus on for increasing
strength in the arms would be the following:
1. The Wheel Pose
2. The Inclined Plane Pose
3. The Bow Pose
4. The several variations of the Peacock Pose
5. The several variation of Crow Pose
6. The Side and Regular Plank pose
In addition, to some degree, even the simple shoulder-stand
when performed in conjunction with it counter poses-The
Bridge and Fish pose, can definitely come in handy for using
Yoga for increasing arm strength.
You know what else, each of these poses also come in
extremely useful for toning up the abs and offering in some
cases a deep tissue massage to your visceral organs. Bet you
free-weights can’t do that eh?
So next time you-like my co-worker-think or run into someone
who thinks Yoga can’t do much for their arms, be sure to
tell whoever is applicable to try the poses above, along
with the wonderful Sun Salutations.
This will be a classic case of ‘trying is believing”, so
give this suggestion a shot and you will be almost
guaranteed increase in the strength of your arms using Yoga
that is-in no time.
In Friendship,
Foras Aje
About the Author: Foras Aje is an independent researcher and
co-founder of Bodyhealthsoul.com a natural health and
wellness website. For more information on Yoga for Beginners
visit http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com/yoga.htm