Chair Yoga for Seniors: Keys to Maintaining Flexibility

It’s a cruel reality: youth is fleeting.

When we’re young and healthy, we’re too reckless to take proper care of our bodies. And once we wisen up, the damage is often too far gone.

Yoga is a great way to ease pain and stay fit, but arthritis and fatigue make yoga difficult or even dangerous. Getting rid of joint pain can seem like a losing game.

But don’t give up hope just yet. With a little help from your furniture, you can modify many yoga poses to make them easy and safe. And the best part is, using a chair to help do yoga still has the same benefits of unaided yoga.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how you can use chair yoga for seniors to regain your flexibility and reduce pain.

What Is Chair Yoga?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last ten years, you’ve heard all about yoga’s benefits. It increases core strength, improves circulation and breathing, increases flexibility, decreases stress, and can even help you lose weight.

But yoga requires a good sense of balance. Most of the poses require you to hold a position for up to a minute. If your muscles and joints have deteriorated with age, even simple poses can be a challenge.

However, many yoga poses can be done sitting in a chair. This allows you to exercise tired muscles with a much lesser risk of falling over.

What Are Some Good Exercises to Start With?

Just like unaided yoga, there are levels of difficulty in chair yoga for seniors.

You might be intimidated by some of the more advanced poses, but there are a number of easy poses that are easy for almost anyone to try, no matter your mobility.

Here are three easy poses to start with.

Cat-Cow Stretch

Sit straight and tall in a chair, with your feet planted firmly on the ground.

Place your hands palm down on your knees or thighs.

Take a deep, slow breath. Look toward the ceiling and arch your back. Roll your shoulder blades down. This is called the Cow Position.

Slowly breathe out. Bring your chin towards your chest and look down. Roll your back forward and bring your shoulders forward. This is the Cat Position.

Take five slow breaths. Move between the Cow and Cat each time.

Urdhva Hastasana

Sit in your chair with your feet on the ground. Keep your hands down to your sides, with open palms.

Take a deep breath and raise your hands up above your head. Reach as high as you can with your fingertips.

As you exhale, bring your hands back down.

Uttanasana

Sit straight with your feet on the floor and your hands down at your sides.

As you take a deep, slow breath, lean forward as far as you can. Lay your hands flat on the floor if you can. Let your head hang.

Breathe in slowly and return to an upright position.

Is Chair Yoga for Seniors Effective?

In yoga, the weight of your own body offers resistance to your muscles, making them stronger. Some people think that chair yoga reduces the work too much. They think it’s not strenuous enough to do any good.

However, studies have shown that chair yoga for seniors is proven to increase mobility and balance, regain flexibility, and reduce anxiety.

It’s also proven to be safer for seniors with a fall risk, which is good news for our more experienced friends.

Reclaim Your Health

You can’t keep from aging. But with chair yoga for seniors, you can keep your golden years from stealing your health.

For more advice on staying healthy as you get older, follow our blog!

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