People doing gym thinks that sticks and stones may cause to break bones, but squats will not make you tuff. Squats exercise gets you a good toning workout in a short time. It is versatile and can be done anywhere using, or without any equipment.
This asana also named Garland as it forms a curved outline in the pelvis at a total bend posture. The malasada is a primary workout, which together targets various parts of your body.
Things to know before Malasana
Table of Contents
Beginners always find difficulty in performing Malasana. Remember to keep your stomach completely empty before doing this asana. Eat food before 4-6 hours before doing this asana. Empty your bowel also important to make stomach empty.
You can choose a morning time to perform Malasana. It is the best suitable time to practice without a problem.
How to Do the Malasana
- Start with squatting. As you squat down, place your feet near to each other and use your heels over the floor.
- Push your inner thighs opposite your sides of the lower body. Then, extend your arms outward and turn them over such that your shins fit into the armpits. Check your ankles.
- Be in this pose for some time, breath out, and release.
- Breath out and lean front to get your torso between your thighs.
- Get your palms in the Anjali mudra and push elbows opposite to inner thighs. Performing this will help to stretch your front part of your torso.
Beginner’s Tip
As a beginner, you will find difficulty in squatting. You can try sitting over the chair edge and make your torso and thighs form a 90-degree angle. Put your heels over the ground, so they become slightly over your knees. Bend forward and let your torso come in between your knees. Doing this will take yours slowly into a squat position.
Variations & Modifications
If you would like to lighten and deepen the pose, try doing these simple changes for this variation that works well for you.
If your heel does not reach to the floor, put a folded, rolled yoga mat, or firm blanket or rolled mat under them.
People with experience can step their feet together.
Pregnant women require to follow the below steps:
- Place your hands behind a chair.
- Rest over the hand using a wall toward the body sides.
- Practice this pose against a wall to your back.
- People with more experience can drape the lower body between legs:
- Reach your arms front, then flex your elbows, and get your shins into your armpits.
- Reach your arms back of your body and grasp the heels, and takedown your forehead near the mat.
Benefits of the Malasana
The Malasana helps to improve your posture and ease the tension in people with tight schedules. You can take one step ahead with the intensity of Malasana if you feel comfortable.
Advance variations of Malasana require one twisted hand toward the ground and tightly grab your heel to expand the stretch effect over the spine down. Extend your ankles, and takedown hamstrings, back, and groin. It also strengthens hamstrings, quadriceps, gluteal, calf, back, and core muscles.
Here are the major benefits of Malasana.
Stretch of the Groin
Having poor posture, inactive lifestyle, and sedentary life hinders blood circulation in groin, thighs, and makes them taut. It also limits your hip mobility. Having pain in hips, lower back, knees are warning signs of tissue and muscle tightening of the groin and inner thighs.
Performing Malasana helps to benefit hip extension from the stretch. This asana stretch effectively works on posture pulls at your upper thighs, hip flexors, and deep groin.
Additionally, this posture helps your buttocks for activation. The stretch helps women in the prenatal stage to cope with the delivery. It benefits to build more elasticity in your groin and helpful in birth time.
Fires up Metabolism
Human metabolism is a process of chemicals in the body for generating energy. It happens from the process of food break down and processed by an endocrine system such as thyroid. Yoga is a best-exerting pressure and massage different endocrine glands and keeps them active.
The regular practice of Malasana helps to put significant pressure on glands and ensure to manage weight. It is recommended to practice breathing exercises while doing Malasana. You can do Ujjayi Pranayam and Kapalbhati Pranayama to get a warm and energizing feeling in the body and manage metabolic rate.
Cleans Your System
Performing Malasana benefits to clean your system. This pose relieves and pushes out the all stuff through poop. Flushing out all the remaining will helps restore your puborectalis muscles and internal organs. It helps to get a cleanness sense in your body, and you will positively maintain your body.
Straight Posture
Having poor posture creates a bad impression for a person. A bad posture may affect the awareness of your body. Practicing Malasana helps to constantly remind you to lift higher, manage a neutral spine, and a straight spine. It also ensures to pull back your shoulders. Malasana is short of core engagements to raise your ribs from your hips. It is a great way to correct posture.
Promote a range of motion in knees and ankle
Knees and ankle are two important joints in the body to help in improving balance, securing stability, and successfully perform the variations of asanas. Bone strengthening is another benefit of Malasana in the knee joints, ankle, barring osteoporosis in growing age. It also helps to enhance joint health in advance asanas.
Promotes Connection to Tradition
According to ancient Indian heritage, the Malasana is an important part of Hindu festivals. Garlands of various flowers and leaves and different things for decorating various deities. Additionally, mala beads possess spiritual energy and help in counting mantra.
Malasana is named because of its history of meditative benefits that provide space to promote connection to tradition. This asana helps to calm your body, mind, and spirit. According to international focus over devotion, you can practice Malasana can be performed by chanting mantras and slowly bowing the head.
Open up Hips Joints
Your hips tell the story of modern life that needs to sit at a 90-degree angle. It will result in the impairment of back pain and spine health.
In contrast to standing, sitting result in putting 40-90% stress on your back and 6886the lumbar region of your spine.95
Malasana helps to relieve your hips muscles and promote mobility in the legs, hips, and back.
The hips are general dwelling region for stifled and extreme emotions to help in unlocking and opening hips. It will release the emotional stress of muscles and improve the balance of body, mind, and spirit.
Malasana also helps to gain strong power in-ground quality.
Strengthens Core
No matter what variety of exercise you do regularly, it requires to strengthen core muscles to support your body. Unfortunately, many people will suffer from sliding core muscles. They include a workout plan of running, lifting some weight, and some sports. Core strength is important for overall fitness.
Your core is more important than your abs, and it helps to support the body. In fact, the core includes the entire torso but your legs and arms. Your core work to support the movement you do for granted.
Exercises that help to stabilize make your body learn about quick reacting over the sport performance of running or jumping.
Having strong core muscles reduces the back pain that occurred by long hours sitting over the desk. People working with keyboard for long hours may get substantial strain in the lower back, especially if the back muscles are not engaged correctly. Building core strength also reduces back pain intensity.
You might like different sports, but having a strong core is the best thing to perform it effectively. Mainly your core is important for twisting, bending, and lifting your movements.
Aging can make it harder for you to manage stability. Even walking over the floor can be harmful as you are unable to balance. However, performing Malasana in early life helps to build the core.
Women in aging or pregnancy lose bladder control and struggle to hold urine while sneezing, jumping jacks, or hard laughter. A weak core causes to leak the urine frequently. Malasana also helps to strengthen bladder health by making a strong core. Women need to have an active everyday life.
Stretches the Hamstrings
Hamstrings are a three muscles group in your back part of the thigh, which runs from the pelvis to knees. Hamstrings may get injuries such as tears or muscle strains. Include hamstring stretching into a regular exercise routine to save your health and tone thigh muscles.
Having back pain is a sign of problems such as strains, muscle tightness, muscle weakness, and fatigue.
Doing hamstring stretch helps to lower the back pain by stretch your thigh muscles. Longer muscles reduce the pressure over the lower back and relieve pain.
Talk with your health expert if you are experiencing chronic back pain and hamstring stretching is not proper after recovery.
Sciatica is a pain you feel from buttocks to the back of your legs. It occurs when your sciatic nerve gets compressed. The sciatic nerve can happen for a temporary time from a one-time injury of any medical condition from herniated lumbar disk.
A herniated disk bulges come out from the spinal column and force over the sciatic nerve.
Malasana benefits to stretch your hamstring muscles. The bulges of herniated disk and spinal column place pressure over your sciatic nerve. Stretching hamstring helps to loosen and lengthen muscles by giving support to nerve compression. Hamstring exercise helps to lower the pain and prevent discomfort.
Stretches the Ankles
Stretch is important for good ankles. Malasana gives a good stretch to your ankles and reduces pain and stiffness. Taking everyday time to increase your flexibility and strength helps to relieve discomfort and promote a range of motion.
You should always heal your injuries with the help of your doctor before starting any workout. Rest is also important to follow the instructions.
Before you can start to do Malasana, try to do low impact exercise for 5-10 minutes, such as an indoor bicycle or walking.
While stretching, make sure to pay attention. If you still feel pain, then it’s time to take a doctor’s help.
Tone the Glutes
Malasana strengthens your glutes and promotes your confidence. You can be able to wear your jeans, a swimsuit and feel stronger while running. Doing glute exercise focus on your entire body and tone butt health.
Working on the large muscles of the body like glutes helps to burn excess calories. It also speeds up metabolism and prevents fat storage. Having strong glutes makes you feel toned and tight with a stable and improved balance of the entire body.
Tightening and toning glutes help to restore the sleek tissue and burn calories.
Cautions
It is considered a simple posture for a beginner. Still, everyone cannot perform it. However, you need to follow the cautions.
People with knee and lower back pain should avoid doing this pose. Ankles and hamstrings also are believed to get stretch from Malasana.
If you experience discomfort and knee pain while doing Malasana, you can place a blanket back of your knees between calves and hamstrings to lower the deepness of knee flex.
Some people use a yoga block to get support if you are not able to squat completely.
If you find difficulty for balancing, try putting your lower back opposite to a wall and keep your hands over stable object or chair.
If you are unable to reach your heel toward the ground, use a blanket below them to lift to the floor and get support.
As you can practice this pose in advance variations, you will be able to perform a deeper version of this pose. Some yogis use Malasana as a change pose in crow pose.
Major Tips
- Avoid separating your knees and lower down to squat into the posture. Save your knees by separating after you have flexed knees completely.
- Stretch your spine and avoid making it round.
- Lean forward but balance your weight over heels.
- Use elbows slowly and spread your knees and push them out.
- Try to avoid quick movements and do not bunce up and down.
- Avoid forcing your heels downward or flexing your knees.