An Easy Guide to Chaturanga
Work your yoga practice with our easy guides to great yoga poses.Chaturanga strengthens and tones the wrists, arms, abdominal muscles, and lower back.
Chaturanga strengthens and tones the wrists, arms, abdominal muscles, and lower back. It prepares the body for more challenging arm balances. Like a traditional push-up, it also strengthens the muscles surrounding the spine, which helps to improve posture.
Chaturanga is a very grounding pose and one that enables you to build a lot of strength quite quickly, if you do it regularly.
If you hear the theme tune to Mission Impossible every time you try it be patient - everything comes to he who breathes.
Watch a clip for this yoga pose
How to do Chaturanga, in easy steps
Step 1:
Lie flat on the floor, face down, arms alongside your body.
Step 2:
Place the hands either side of the chest, bending the elbow and keeping them close to the trunk.
Step 3:
Keep the legs slightly apart and tuck the toes under, the soles of the feet at a right angle to the mat.
Step 4:
Slowly lift the head off the floor a few inches.
Step 5:
Exhale and raise the legs and the upper body a few inches off the ground. Firmly push into the toes and hands.
Step 6:
Extend the spine and let the shoulders roll back, away from the ears. The navel and chest are in one strong line, do not let the abdomen sink.
Step 7:
Keep the entire body straight and strong, parallel to the floor, legs active, chin and elbows tucked in.
Hold this pose for 5 to 10 breaths, with deep breathing.
Step 9:
When you're ready, come to the floor and rest your cheek on your palms
Yoga pose category: Weight on hands
Level: 2
The Chaturanga strengthens and tones the wrists, arms, abdominal muscles, as well as the lower back. It is a good yoga pose for beginners and more advanced yogis as it is a good preparation for more demanding arm balances. It also strengthens the muscles around the spine, which helps to improve posture.
Sanskrit words meaning:
Chatur – four
Anga – limb
Yoga pose health benefits:
Like all yoga poses, Chaturanga has many health benefits. Use it to help with the following health conditions:
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Posture
Yoga pose contraindications:
Don’t practice Chaturanga if you have any of the following health conditions:
- Wrist injury
- Shoulder injury
- Pregnancy
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Lucy Edge
is a yoga advocate and writer with three yoga books to her name, including the beloved travel memoir Yoga School Dropout. She writes regularly for the national press, has authored over 150 guides to types of yoga and yoga poses, discovered nearly 250 proven health benefits of yoga through her painstaking classification of 300 clinical studies, and collected more than 500 personal testimonials to the real life benefits of yoga. She is also the creator of our yoga shop – YogaClicks.Store – handpicking yoga brands that are beautifully made by yogis committed to environmental and social sustainability.
