This entry was published on April 16, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
A strong heart is essential to so many aspects of our daily life. Tend to our basic muscles – abdominals and back muscles – is the heart (so to speak) to our ASANA yoga practice. The most emblematic abdominal strengthening of yoga, the installation of boats (Navasana), can be extremely difficult and often contraindicated for people who start just in the practice of Asana. For this reason, a modified version of Navasana can be a great way to walk in the reinforcement of the nucleus.
Advantages of heart strengthening
Here are some of the advantages of strengthening your heart:
- Promotes a healthy posture
- Improves balance and coordination
- Stabilizes the body, so that injuries such as sprains and strains are less likely
- Reduces back pain
- Promotes deeper breathing
- Makes daily activities such as lifting, soil assembly more effortless
When we think of the nucleus, our minds often go directly to the abs. However, our back muscles are also essential actors in central force. Although Navasana is mainly an abdominal strengthening installation, it also has a secondary advantage of strengthening the back muscles. In addition, as a balancing installation, this helps us develop our balancing skills.
Why change Navasana?
Unlike the photo at the top of this post, the traditional form of Navasana is practiced with straight legs. This version of the installation poses several challenges. First, the recovery of the legs in Navasana requires extensible hamstrings. A practitioner with tight hamstrings will invariably have to flex their lumbar column to an extreme. Second, the right additional lever effect exerts on the body can cause tension.
The third challenge applies mainly to men. The center of gravity for a female body is lower than that of a male body. For most women, the center of gravity is in the pool; For men, it’s in the lower back. This means that the lever effect of the straight legs exerts on the body will make it really difficult for men to find stability in Navasana, especially if it is associated with tight hamstrings.
There are a few paragraphs, I mentioned lumbar vertebral flexion (convex curve) in Navasana. Although it is not healthy to bend the spine at an extreme in Navasana, a little flexion, so that the lumbar column is straight, is correct. In fact, this small piece of flexion will allow the abdominals to engage a little more than if we try to maintain our lumbar curve (concave). In order to maintain a concave curve, we must balance on the front edges of our ischic tuberosities (alias “seated bones”). Have you ever tried this? According to my experience, it is not at all conducive to balance.
How to practice Navasana
- Gather your accessories: a yoga carpet is all that is necessary.
- Start in a sitting position in the center of your carpet.
- Fold your knees and place the soles with your feet on your carpet.
- Place your hands behind you on the ground so that your chest leans back to a diagonal.
- Always on the ground, lift your legs. Fold your knees so that your tibias are parallel to the ground. Your weight should be in your glutes. Avoid trying to balance on the front edge of your ischial tuberosities.
- Breathe or two in this position. This installation can be a prelude useful for the practice of Navasana. He hires the abdominals without producing rear tension.
- If you feel ready, lift your arms and extend them directly to the shoulders. Your palms can face your legs, or face up or down, depending on what you seem best.
- Take 3 to 5, or more, deep breaths here.
- Then release the pose and rest with your feet on the ground, your hands behind you on the ground. Repeat if you wish.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and started teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyding Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. His third book is entitled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Pratitioner’s Guide to Protect of the Hips and Avoid Si Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly chronicle for Catalyst Magazine and is online Yoga U publisher. Charlotte is a founding member of the board of directors of Greentree Yoga, a non -profit organization that brings yoga to poorly served populations. Musician for life, Charlotte plays an oboe and an English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and the Sextuant Folk Red rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy Awards.