Strengthen your upper body with arm balances: Stage 2

When you prepare your body for arm-balancing postures, you need to make sure that you warm up your upper body and loosen up your neck and shoulders. This is particularly important if you do arm balances that place your arms in different positions – in front of you, behind you, and above your head, which places different kinds of load on your shoulders and upper back.

This yoga practice takes you to the next stage of upper body strengthening to prepare for arm balances. We use a sturdy chair to do slightly easier versions of traditional arm balancing yoga poses to continue strengthening and stabilizing your upper body. But even those adapted poses are still quite challenging. You get to decide how much you lean into your arms and how long you hold individual poses.

Please do not do this practice if you have a wrist injury or wrist pain. Arms balances are contraindicated for anybody with wrist problems. You will also have to be very careful if you have shoulder, neck, or upper back tension or injury. Even if you skip all or most arm balancing postures in this practice, you will still loosen up your upper body and increase circulation to your neck and shoulders.

Please give it a try and see how it feels!