Inversions

Mastering Yoga Inversions: Essential Asanas for Balance and Strength
By Dennis Bluthardt, Namaste Studios

Yoga allows us to turn inward and more deeply connect with aspects of ourselves. By practicing intentionally and consistently, many people have developed a sense of deep peace in their daily lives, experiencing less stress, experiencing more happiness, and finding more meaning in their activities. Yoga is also an excellent way to meet new people and begin friendships based on mutual care and respect. Some pictures come from Yoga Recovery, a friend and former classmate from teacher training.

So, what, exactly, are the physical benefits of yoga?

• Strength. This one is obvious. If you have ever done yoga before, you have probably noticed that you can gain strength!
• Flexibility is another more obvious one. But remember, yoga is not about being able to touch your toes. Even more important than that is learning to accept where you are.
• Stamina. Some poses, such as forearm balance, require physical strength, while others need intense mental focus. Frequent yoga practitioners will likely notice that after a few months of consistent practice, they can carry their groceries around for longer before their arms start to burn (but only if they choose to forego using plastic bags, of course!).
• Toning is one of the many effects of long-term yoga. It occurs when you combine strength and flexibility and will happen gradually over time. The deep integration of your mind and body is also essential.
• Volume Control. As you become more body-aware in specific poses, you will undoubtedly stop caring about the extra weight around your belly.
• Good posture is another aspect that goes hand in hand with body awareness. When you build stronger muscles, you won’t want to slump occasionally. The pain you feel in your legend will give you the motivation you need.
• Weight Loss. While I never lost weight from practicing yoga alone, the metabolic benefits of burning calories can complement other workouts or make you feel better about yourself overall.

Understanding Inversions in Yoga

In yoga, an inversion is any pose with the head below the heart. Inversions include the apparent poses, such as headstands, handstands, and shoulder stands. Still, it also contains downward dog and standing forward bend, and you can modify all these postures to accommodate any skill level.

The word “inversion” refers to inverting, or turning upside down, in which the relationship of the head to the feet and the heart is opposite from normal; this increases circulation drastically throughout the body. To do this, you must be acutely aware of the body’s orientation, which increases proprioceptive awareness (awareness of the body in space and its orientation to other things). By mastering inversions, you can feel what it feels like to be mindful and present.

Everyone knows (or should know) how important it is to train the arms, shoulders, and core for these advanced postures, but do you know why practitioners do them? Besides the points of being calming and causing the endocrine system to pass on favorable hormonal messages to its centers (which severely diminishes feelings of worry and anxiety and promotes feelings of calm and clarity), there is another crucial point: There is a substantial psychological component in these postures. The ability to kick your feet over your head (and then balance there), while the body shakes side to side with excess stress while breathing and being calm, teaches you psychological resilience. Many people are afraid of inversions! If you fear inversions, the only way to overcome this is by dealing directly with the fear these postures teach.

Popular Yoga Poses (Asanas) for Inversions

Inversions are a critical yoga practice that allows for a sense of balance, grounding efforts, solidity, and clarity of mind to remain during challenging times. Some of the most common inversions include:

Downward Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana): Starting from your hands and knees, tuck your toes and push your hips up to the sky. You’ll be in an inverted “V” position. If this is difficult, slightly bend your knees to relieve the tension in your hamstrings. This position strengthens the back, arms, and shoulders. Beginners can benefit from this position.

Headstand (Sirsasana):

1. Start kneeling and interlocking your fingers behind your head.
2. After firmly interlocking your hands, place your noggin on the mat.
3. Raise your legs straight.
4. Engage the core.

It can sometimes take work to stay balanced. Practicing this move against a wall may guide your balance. This move strengthens your core, arms, and legs while enforcing (or training) your balance. It’ll also promote blood flow in the neck and head region to change your perspective.

Shoulder Stand (Sarvangasana): Start laying down on your back, then roll your legs to your head and hold your lower back with your hands. This move will strengthen your neck and shoulder region while promoting your thyroid. Like the headstand, beginners should practice this move against a wall.

Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana):

1. This skill is challenging for a beginner. You will need to develop significant strength and balance before performing this move.
2. While building up strength as a beginner, visit the Crow as a foundation for your journey to this skill.
3. If you try to accomplish this, use a wall or spotter to catch you.

Tips for Practicing Inversions Safely

Good alignment and solid technique can keep you safe during inversions (and possibly save you from a damaging faceplant). Because headstands and other inversions place tremendous negative stress on the shoulder, neck, and spine, the body must be “lined up” for an equal weight distribution.

Precautions will only get you far if you’re actively trying to hold the pose. 

A lot of your success (and the safety of your body during inversions) will depend on how you justify that pose with what else is going on in the body.

Listen to the body and come out if you need to.

If you’re looking for a way to help build subtle, safe strength during inversions or to feel more confident pre-inverting to crow, prepping with strength-based inversion poses can yield some nice results.

Safety tips:

1. Do them in a safe environment (preferably with a wall near your back).
2. Use a small yoga block as a prop (see below) or for added safety.
3. Always warm up before getting after headstands (especially areas like the shoulders, wrists, and core).
4. Build some solid plank shoulder push-ups and dolphin plank things into your session.

Preparatory handstand safety poses to get you started:

1. Downward Dog Safety Pose (Or try the other DD for added difficulty.)
2. Dolphin Pose
3. Tree Plank Pose
4. Star Plank
5. Booty Pro Plank with Miley

The Mental Benefits of Inversions

Inversions like headstands and shoulder stands do wonders for mental clarity and focus. If you turn your body upside down, you won’t be surprised to learn that blood flow to the brain increases. That little boost can get your gray matter going; if you’re stuck on a problem, an inversion may be just what you need to shake it loose and solve it. You will experience improved cognition and concentration and look at things from a different perspective, enabling you to think about problems differently.

Moreover, inversions are monumental for stress relief and anxiety reduction by calming the nervous system and bringing about a profound sense of relaxation and peace. By bringing about such a state, your physiology is better able to resist the damaging effects of psychological stress and anxiety. In many ways, inversions will enable you to perform better under pressure. As many yoga practitioners recount, they love the feeling of stress rolling off their backs during inversions, many of whom often feel a pleasurable sense of “ah” wash all over them like a wave of tranquility and peace.

I have experienced many cognitive benefits from practicing inversions, such as bringing about renewed focus, concentration, and overall performance at work while using a headstand. Canvasing opinions from my students during the writing of this article, I found one practitioner who used a shoulder stand to regain confidence and reduce symptoms of anxiety after a minor psychological breakdown.

Doing inversions can dramatically improve your health and overall well-being. Poses like headstands, handstands, and shoulder stands work to increase strength and balance. Still, they can also optimize circulation, support lymphatic drainage, and encourage improved mental functioning by turning your world upside down and providing a new perspective. The by-product of a regular inversion practice is a deeper connection to your spiritual and physical body.

As you take time to explore different yoga poses, you’ll likely develop a pseudo “crush” on specific inversions. Every person’s anatomy is a little different, and what feels good to one person might not feel the same to someone else. The key to a safe inversion practice is to listen to your body and gradually approach these fun and healing poses — with body awareness and lots of patience. With time and practice, newer yogis will gain the strength needed to do more advanced inversion variations, and everyone will gain confidence in their ability to take their training to the next level.

Blogging, posting to Instagram, or simply sharing your inversion journey with friends worldwide can add value by promoting the practice of yoga to those you know and love. Many of Finland’s most popular yoga studios and exposés offer inversion classes, so participating in these physically and mentally transformative training sessions can improve your “savasana” and get you into the studio more often.