Steps and Benefits of Standing Forward Fold Pose (Uttanasana)

By Patricia | November 4, 2008
Standing Forward Fold Pose For The Spine

What Is Standing Forward Bend

How you stand, how you walk is very, very important and can determine your health in the future. So perfectionist a science is Yoga that it takes into account every aspect of a person’s life. In fact, Raja Yoga postulates that how you think is, above all, most important for your physical well-being, too. Unfortunately, man has forgotten many things and has taken many other things for granted. Result: the never-ending diseases that afflict him in season and out of season. Here we take a look at how the standing forward bend (Uttanasana) affects our life and physical health and what we ought to do to firm up that midriff, both front and back.

Various Steps Regarding Standing Forward Bend

  1. Start the asana in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) but with both hands resting on your hips. Take a deep breath and, with a deep exhale, bend forward from your hip joints, never from your waist. As you go down stretch out torso from your groins and open the space between your pubis and chest. The emphasis is on stretching the front of your torso as you gradually get into the position.
  2. Next, keeping your knees straight, take your palms or finger tips down to the floor a little in front of or next to your feet. Or you could place hold the backs of your ankles. If you can’t do this, cross your forearms and clasp your elbows. Press your heels firmly into you mat and lift your sit bones up toward the ceiling.
  3. Keep breathing normally and as you inhale, keep lifting and lengthening your front torso little by little. As you exhale bend forward a little more. This way you will find your torso oscillating unnoticeably with every breath you take. Hang your head down from the root of your neck between your shoulder blades.
  4. Retain the pose for ½ a minute to 1 minute. You can use the Standing Forward Bend as a resting pose between standing poses.
  5. Never roll up your spine to come up. Instead take your hands back onto your hips and stretch the length of the front torso. Remember to press your down tailbone and right into your pelvis and return inhaling stretching your front torso as much as you can.

Benefits

  • Standing Forward Fold Pose helps to stretch your spinal column as well as the backs of the legs and the back muscles.
  • It also stimulates the uro-genital, digestive, nervous and endocrine systems while massaging and decongesting abdominal organs through enhanced peristalsis thereby relieving constipation
  • The regular practice of this yoga pose has been know to work wonders in the case of hemorrhoids

Contraindications:

  • Standing Forward Fold Pose is best avoided by patients of sciatica, mostly the acute cases.
  • It should also be avoided during pregnancy since it constricts the abdomen
  • Lastly those with recent or chronic problems in the hips, legs, shoulders or back should avoid this yoga pose.
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