Yoga-oefeningen vanuit huis - Beginnersgids

Yoga training is good for both body and mind, where it focuses a lot on breathing, balance, flexibility, and controlled movements that will increase your strength and mobility over time. During a yoga session, the intention is for all the exercises to flow naturally and combine as they glide over one another in a holistic and coherent session. Here we pick out and explain some of the simplest and most common exercises you can easily do anywhere. So that you can get a taste of this amazing yoga universe.

Mindfulness is a state of mind that can enhance the experience of yoga and meditation. Check it out here!

Read also: How to get started with training

Mobility Training

If you sit a lot, it can tighten muscles, lead to poor posture, and strain your back. Training mobility and flexibility gives you a body that better withstands everyday movements and reduces the risk of back, neck, and shoulder problems. At the same time, mobility training helps improve technique in strength exercises and better range of motion.

Read also: injury prevention training

What is good mobility?

In the body, we have many muscles that are actively used to bend and stretch joints. If one is stiff in these joints, it can lead to less stability and balance.

Mobility mainly concerns the ability to move one or more joints. In other words, to move without pain. Exercises within mobility training include all forms of stretching. The more mobility you have, the more agile you can perform activities.

Read also: Why stretch after training?

Movement training is something one should introduce if one has stiff muscles during a normal day. This may be due to inactivity and not using the muscles sufficiently. See simple tips to increase mobility in daily life.

Yoga Exercises for Beginners

When you first start training yoga, it is important that you have comfortable and flexible workout clothes that allow you to move freely and do not squeeze in uncomfortable places during the session. Read here about Famme's best yoga clothes for women to find the right yoga pants, yoga leggings, and yoga sweater or top.

Read also: Training at the office and home

Seated Position

The vast majority of yoga sessions start in a seated position with the legs crossed and the wrists resting on the knees. From there, you work your way up to standing positions with other yoga exercises. In a seated position, you practice breathing and often do some lovely stretching exercises.

Procedure:

• Sit cross-legged on a yoga mat. Cross your legs in a comfortable way for you.
• "Head over heart, heart over pelvis". Stretch the chin over the heart, and lift the chest so that it sits over the pelvis. This mnemonic helps you sit with a straight back.
• Feel free to sit on a cushion or a folded blanket to lift your hips to straighten your back more easily.
• Relax all muscles and nerves, including your face. Often you don't realize that you are frowning and tightening your jaw, but try to relax all the nerves here too!
• Breathe.

Cat/Cow

From a seated position, you often move (slowly) to a position on all fours. A position where you are on your knees and stretch your arms straight down toward the floor.

Procedure:

• From this position on all fours, you stretch, on in-breath, the stomach and back down toward the floor and lift the chin up toward the ceiling. This is the "Cow" pose.
• On out-breath, you stretch the stomach and back up toward the ceiling while you bring the chin down toward the floor, preferably toward your chest. This is the "Cat" pose.
• Position yourself in such a way during these stretches that you feel something stretching in the shoulder blades and lower back.

Downward Dog 

From a cat/cow position, you often transition into a downward dog position, for a good stretch in both arms, back, and legs. Don't forget the breath! All exercises should be performed controlled on the in-breath and out-breath.

Procedure:

• From a bridge pose, where you are now on all fours with a straight back and neck, curl your toes toward the yoga mat. Breathe in and lift your knees off the mat.
• Point your nose forward and draw a line down toward the floor. Breathe out while pushing your hips up with your legs and arms.
• Stay in this position, feel where it stretches, and then adjust while taking some long and good breaths.

Mountain Pose 

When you feel done in downward dog and ready to move on, we want to stabilize and ground ourselves in a mountain pose.

Procedure:

• From a downward dog pose, lift your gaze up and look forward with your head.
• While you still have arms and legs grounded on the floor, you choose whether to take short or long steps forward until you reach your palms with straight legs.
• Then release your arms and let your upper body hang a little so you feel that everything stretches down toward the floor by pure natural forces.
• Make sure your feet are solidly and steadily planted on the mat. Either completely together or hip-width apart.
• Breathe slowly in as you roll your back up. Imagine that you have a seed in your lower back that is sprouting upward toward your neck, and focus the energy on all joints until you reach a standing position.
• Breathe all the air out when you have reached a standing position (mountain pose) and take some time to feel how everything feels.

Warrior Pose

From a standing position, the possibilities are endless, but for beginners, it is a simple exercise to move into both warrior pose one and two.

Procedure:

• From standing, draw one leg back with good distance. The foot you lean on points forward in the same direction as your upper body, while the foot behind you points to the side.
• Bend the knee of the leg you are leaning on and move into a one-leg lunge.
• Straighten your back (head over heart, heart over pelvis) Breathe in, and stretch your arms up over your head toward the ceiling. This is warrior pose one. Breathe out.
• To transition into warrior pose two, you breathe in, and stretch the arm that is on the opposite side of the leg you are leaning on, back over your head. Then straighten out your arm to point toward the other leg that is planted behind you, and breathe out.
• Then switch sides and perform the same exercises on both the right and left legs.

Lizard Pose

A lizard pose is perfect for a final controlled stretch before stretching and finishing breathing exercises.

Procedure:

• From warrior two, plant both hands in line with the leg you are leaning on at shoulder width.
• The palm on the same side as the bent leg should be placed inside the foot.
• You decide whether you want to lower the arms for a deeper stretch or whether you want to raise or lower the knee behind. Listen to your body.
• Switch sides after a while and perform this exercise on both the right and left legs.

 

Explore our beautiful collection of yoga clothes for women to give yourself extra soft and comfortable yoga sessions ahead.

Increase mobility in everyday life

To improve your mobility in everyday life and moving forward, you can do three simple things:

• Spend time in the position you want to become softer in. If you want to increase mobility in a squat, you should spend time sitting in a squat.
• Do it often. You achieve better progress by working on mobility by doing it frequently. Set aside 10 minutes each day for mobility training.
• Train strength. By training exercises with a large range of motion, strength training will contribute to increased flexibility.

Read also: Effective strength exercises for the entire body, and Exercises with our resistance bands

Mindfulness

Many may think that mindfulness is a state of mind that requires digging deep to find oneself. It is actually an ability one has to be aware, open, and present in the moment. It can be very beneficial to use mindful techniques during yoga exercises or meditation.

Read also: Pregnancy training

Mindfulness is a subjective experience, and one can experience it anywhere. It is a natural state of mind where you take in what is happening around you - and feel a sort of calm. This ability is easy to lose in a busy everyday life.

Read also: Sleep and training

One way to approach mindfulness is to be attentive to the body, feelings, thoughts, and state of mind. These help you become more aware.

Body

Lie down in a comfortable position:

• Feel each part of the body.
• Listen to your breath. How are you breathing? Where is the breath coming from?
• Feel how the breath moves in your body.

Feelings

 Turn your attention to your feelings:

• Do you have good, bad, or neutral feelings?
• Do you feel cold or warm?
• Is there a tingling in your body? Do you have pain somewhere?
• Feel if these feelings intensify or diminish with open presence.
• Does it change?
• Do not analyze the feelings. You only need to register them, and how they feel.

Thoughts

After having felt and located your feelings:

• Where are your thoughts? Observe them.
• Do not judge yourself or correct them.

Through this exercise, you view yourself from the outside and simply register all thoughts.

Mood

Lastly, feel the experience in your body:

• Where is your attention, your thoughts, and what does it feel like?
• Do you see a connection between how you physically feel your body, what you think, and how it makes you feel?

By being able to see and acknowledge this, you can discover what the thoughts are actually doing to you. It makes it easier for you to know what to do if certain thoughts arise in everyday life. This can help you manage stress and is excellent to carry out together with the yoga exercises.