I need some advice for variations of asanas for obese people please. namaste
Our facebook friends had these suggestions - do you have others?

Yasmine: I would recommend halasana,sarvangasana(highly recommended),supta vajrasana,janu shirshasana,paschomottanasana,(for tummy fat)ushtrasana

Manisha: Trikonasana, is effective and not difficult. Bhastrika pranayama is effective but has many contra indications.

Mei: for bigger practitioners, i think just work with the breath and the movement. one breath one movement. just get the confidence of being in asanas, then later work on the technicalities. it doesnt matter if the breath gets u there but so long as it gets u somewhere, u can work on that. it's the movement that counts. forget about alignment. just work on the confidence on getting u in an asana. when u get the confidence of being in an asana, only then do u work on alignment.

Vanessa: I agree breathing comes first and try using props to help! :)

Yenny: before practicing any asanas, always do suryanamaskar. This helps to lose weight.

Sumit: Thats right. SURYANAMASKAR is the 1ST asana you do before any other asanas. All asanas in proper sequence will help you lose weight. Take the help of a Guru.



Sita: You can do a lot of the same asanas as other people by just making a few variations.

For example, seated forward bend, standing forward bend and during sun salutations keep your feet spread apart.

For shoulder stand you may want to come up w...ith assist from the wall, or by coming into bridge first. If this is not possible you can substitute the bridge.

For headstand you can just do the dolphin exercise if it is not possible to come up all the way. Or else half headstand.

For sun salutations you can substitute the pregnancy variations. There are several videos on youtube. For many other postures the pregnancy variations are also good.

For some other postures like crow or half spinal twist you can just do the beginners version, meaning for crow don't bring your feet off the ground, for half spinal twist keep the leg straight.

I have worked with more than one severely obese student in my Sivananda style classes and they were able to manage the entire class with just these few variations.

For other styles of yoga there may be different things you can do .



Lakshmi: an breath;]

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