Yoga has been in the traditional roots since forever. Starting from our grandparents to the generation beyond, yoga has always persisted itself as a lightweight form of maintaining a healthy body while challenging mental disruptions. In the recent years however, yoga has taken a whole new form, reluctantly segregating itself into a brand new category of fitness and exercise. Yoga is not only an enriched form of keeping a mental stability and calmness of your mind but at the same time is a good fitness routine. Among the many today’s yoga posture would be called Akarna Dhanurasana or the shooting bow pose.
How To Do It?
This is a fun posture that derives its name from the pose itself where your legs form a simple bended bow ready to be shot. Even though it might look simple, at all times you should keep in mind that these positions to a beginner might be tough to achieve and when achieved with too much force can result in uneasy muscular pain or nerve pull. This exercise has no proper breathing sequel to it. Through out the exercise the task is to carry out the given pose while coordinating with your body on how to keep the vitals normal through a series of deep breathing.
Start by sitting on a mat, spine and neck aligned and straight while you sit with your legs stretched out in front of you. Now take a deep breath and start bending one of your legs from the knee, bending them outwards as you do so. The inhalation prior to this need not mean you have to hold your breath as you can let it go on the instant. Bending it bring your leg all the way to your face, holding the toe and with the other hand reach out for the other leg which should still be straight and out stretched. Grab on to the toe and lock the position practicing some deep breathing. Your bent leg should be parallel to your ears but don’t bend the marrow completely. When down release your leg to the original position and start with the other side.
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How Does It Help Us?
- The Dhanurasana or shooting bow pose is known for many body benefits, one of them being strengthening of abdominal muscles. Usually when you are sculpting yourself into a bow, pressure is imposed on the abdominal area. Your body combating this pressure helps you keep your abdomen strong. This is how you can help digestive or intestinal problems just by having a strong abdomen.
- This is a good exercise for women suffering from menstrual problems where the abdomen muscle housing the ovary too gets exercised in the bargain. This stretches out the ovary walls making it flexible. However, do not perform this while going through your menstrual cycle.
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- While you cave your body into a shooting bow pose, your marrow and back muscles are being stretched and twisted thereby opening up the knots within the muscles. This way you can ensure a no back pain policy in your body. The stretches and the twists work out well by making the back muscles flexible.
- Lower back flexibility is yet another boon that we can obtain from this asana where the thigh and calf muscles are again put to a test of flexibility.
- If I say this yoga is directly related to lessening your depression over time, you would question the statement. However, we have a proven answer for that as well. The ancient Chinese believed in free flow of qui (chi) which is energy through the body which is directly related to your mental presence. With this asana the knots and obstacles of your body are evaded making sure your qui flows without any hindrance.
See More: Adho Mukha Vrksasana
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