Friday Q&A: Back and Inversions for Chair Yoga

This week, we have a follow-up question to our Friday Q&A on chair yoga (see Friday Q&A: Chair Yoga) from one of our readers who actually teaches a chair yoga class

Q: I teach a chair yoga class which cannot go to the floor for healthy aging. How can I do a safe inversion or back stretch that does not stress the osteopenic back?

A: If you teach chair yoga, many students are older or infirm and not able to transfer from standing or sitting in a chair to the floor, where you might have them do any number of reclining poses that could stretch the back or approach an inversion, like Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani). 

If by “back stretch” you mean a forward bending action of the spine, like in Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana), in light of possible osteopenic or osteoporotic spine, you need to be careful with most forward folding positions (see What is Ostepenia and How Can Yoga Help?).  It is not hard to do a seated version, however, if that is what you are looking for. One of my favorites that is fairly shallow and would not create too much force on the vertebrae of the spine would involve placing a second chair in front of the first, facing it away from you. Then ask your students to tip as much as possible from the hips and place their crossed forearms on the top seat back of the chair in front of them. This is similar to seated forward fold we showed for our Office Yoga series (see Featured Pose: Chair Forward Bend).

If, however, by “back stretch” you are referring to a back-bending action, then there is a bit less concern of hurting the spines of students with OP.  In seated Cat/Cow pose, the Cow variation is a nice, easy backbend shape that most could do in the chair. (See Featured Pose: Chair Cat Pose.)

Or, have the students stand behind the chair, use the top back rung for their hands for balance purposes and do a gentle standing backbend from Mountain pose (Tadasana).

As for inversions, this may be a bit tougher. You could have them put their chairs against the wall, and if they still have good hip mobility of rolling the pelvis over the femur bones, you could do a Downward-Facing Dog version with the hands on the seat of the chair, walking the hips and feet back into this higher version of regular Downward-Facing Dog, but with a slight downward slant from hips to hands. Make sure they bend their knees as they walk forward towards the chair at the end of the pose, and rise up slowly monitoring for any lightheadedness or dizziness. (See Featured Pose: Downward-Facing Dog (Chair Version)).

And you could show the class how to do Legs Up the Wall pose on the ground, demonstrating it for them, and suggesting they try this at home in their beds, swinging the legs up the headboard side of the bed if the bed is up against a wall. I’d have them only stay for 2 minutes or so at first, as you will not be there to monitor them. Of course give them all the usual precautions regarding inversions and high blood pressure and glaucoma, as the older your crowd, these conditions are more common. I hope these suggestions give you things to consider. And armed with the information from our posts on OP, you can be creative in your approach to working with your chair yoga classes.

—Baxter

Featured Pose: Chair Seated Forward Bend

by Baxter and Nina

This simple pose is another good antidote to sitting upright in your chair. An excellent hip opener, this forward bend counteracts the tightness of your hips that you develop from sitting with your legs straight in front of you, helping you to maintain mobility in your hip joints. The release in your hips can feel wonderful, and you may also feel a good stretch in your lower back and inner thighs. The pose also helps stretch and wake up your arms as you press them toward the floor.

By changing your relationship to gravity, this pose helps release tension you’re holding in your back, neck, and head. This can be particularly helpful if you’ve spent hours in front of your computer screen or driving, and your neck is stiff or even painful. The partial inversion also stimulates your circulatory system and can re-enliven you if you’re feeling sluggish, stimulates your circulatory system.

Because your knees are bent, this is a very accessible forward bend. If you are unable to enjoy straight leg forward bends, you may find this version pose some of the fabled quieting and soothing qualities that you've heard about but never before been able to experience. Try it sometime for stress or anxiety.

Like the other poses in our full-length office yoga sequence (coming soon!), you can do this pose almost anywhere there is a chair and in almost any attire, though probably not in a tight skirt!

Baxter prescribes this for:

• tight hips
• tension in the spine
• mental sluggishness or fatigue
• weakness in the arms (if you engage the arms)
• substitute for inverted poses for those who can’t do full inversions
• alternative for Standing Forward Bend poses for those who can’t bear weight on their legs
• arthritis (for maintaining joint mobility in the hips)
• anxiety or stress

Instructions: Sit near the front edge of your chair. Separate your feet so your thighbones are 90 degrees apart and position your knees directly over your ankles. Point feet your feet in the same direction as your thighbones, as shown in the photo, and place your hands on your knees. On an inhalation, establish the length of your spine.

On your exhalation, tip from your hips as much as you can to come into the forward fold with a straight back. When you reach your maximum (your pelvis stops moving), carefully allow your spine to round forward and bring your arms down between your legs. You can either push your palms firmly into the floor with your arms straight, lengthening from your pubic bone to your collarbones, or you can press your elbows into your inner thighs to create more widening or lengthening of your inner leg muscles.

Stay in the pose for one to two minutes. Come up on an inhalation, keeping your back relaxed and using your hands on your knees to assist if your lower back feels vulnerable. If you want to use this pose to increase your back strength, you can try coming up with your back straight.

If you have lower back issues or are very stiff in the hips, try a variation of this pose with your elbows on your knees come down about a quarter of the way.

Cautions: This is a relatively safe pose. However, if you have lower back disk disease or pain in your hip joints, approach the pose carefully. And if the pose aggravates your symptoms, come out immediately, and get advice from your teacher about how to get in and out of the pose safely. If you feel excessive pressure in your head, don’t stay in the pose very long.

In Praise of Chair Yoga

by Nina

Recently we’ve been featuring some yoga poses you can do while seated on a chair, such as a chair twist, backbend and forward bend. We’ve been offering up these poses as “office” or “travel” yoga, for those times when you don’t have the space or option of practicing on the floor. But it’s also true there are many people out there who cannot practice yoga standing up. They may have a chronic disease, such as Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis, may have balance problems, or may be too weak to get up from the floor for any number of reasons. They may even be in a wheelchair.

To be honest, it’s only lately that I’ve come to realize what a godsend chair yoga can be for such people. As I’ve been learning more and more about the aging process, I’ve started to understand how important it is to keep moving your joints through their range of motion. If you don’t, you will continue to lose mobility, and very quickly (I watched my own father go through this when he stopped exercising). But if you do continue with your yoga, even while seated on a chair, you can help slow down your losses (and, maybe, depending on your condition, maintain or even regain some mobility). That was driven home to me this weekend when I took Shari Ser and Bonnie Maeda’s therapeutic workshop “Yoga for Neurological Disorders.” One of the students in the class shared her story with us. She is a middle-aged woman with an inherited form of Muscular Dystrophy who had been a yoga practitioner before she came down with the disease. As a participant in a study of people with the disease, she was told that keeping up with her practice during her illness was clearly helping her slow down the progression of her disease. She seemed both very committed to and very grateful for her practice. She was also an inspiration to others in the class, whether they were currently dealing with a neurological disorder themselves or were just, like me, interested in learning to help those who are.

Cat Pose in a Chair

And although I’ve read many books that talk about the benefits of chair yoga for people with chronic illnesses and even helped produce the photo shoot for one such book (Yoga As Medicine by Timothy McCall), Saturday was the first time I did a full practice of chair yoga myself. I have to say, I was eating a little humble pie during the practice, as some of the poses were more strenuous than I was expecting. One particular pose was a revelation to me. We did a version of Downward-Facing Dog where you sit on a chair facing a wall, far enough away from the wall so you can touch your fingertips to the wall when you bend forward. Start by sitting upright with your feet flat on the floor, hips-width apart. Then bending forward from your hip joints, bring your fingertips to the wall and walk them slowly up the wall, until they are in Downward-Facing Dog alignment, keeping your ears aligned with your arms. What a great shoulder opener and upper body stretch! I thought it would be wonderful for anyone who can’t bear weight on their hands due to hand or wrist problems, and I found it much more effective stretch—at least for me—than Half Downward-Facing Dog at the wall. My partner in the class and I decided to dub it “Quarter Dog,” and I hope to take a photograph of it one of these days.

If you are interested in learning more about chair yoga, Loren Fishman and Eric Small’s book Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey to Health and Healing has some excellent examples (some even done in a wheelchair). And, uh, yeah, Yoga as Medicine also has a number of good ones. If you know of any other resources for these, do let me know!

Featured Pose: Dynamic Arm Circles

by Baxter and Nina

In the coming weeks, we're going to be introducing a set of poses you can do outside the yoga room (such as at work or the airport) or from a chair (if standing is not possible, for whatever reason). We're starting off this new set of poses with dynamic arm circles.

This pose is great for preparing your shoulders for yoga practice, or for any task where you will be using your arms overhead (such as painting a house) or a sport that involves your arms, such as tennis. It’s also perfect for releasing tension after you’ve worked your arms or sat for hours at a desk or on a plane. And moving your arms within the complete range of motion is the best way to keep your shoulder joints healthy.

You can do arm circles standing in Mountain Pose (which is how we will show it) or sitting in a chair. Because you can do them without props and in your street clothes, it’s possible to do arm circles almost anywhere (especially if you don’t mind people giving you odd looks at the airport).

The pose has two variations: 1) front stroke: moving the arms forward, up over head, and back around to the front and 2) back stroke: moving your arms back, up over your head, and down toward the front.

Baxter prescribes arm circles for:

• Gaining flexibility in tight shoulders
• Regaining range of motion after an injury
• Arthritis, lupus, or other diseases that limit range of motion

Instructions. Start in Mountain pose, with your chest facing forward. Then make circles your arms using either in forward stroke or back stroke motions, moving with your breath (for example, moving forward and up on and inhalation, then back and down with an exhalation). Baxter generally recommends about six repetitions.

Don’t try to make perfect circles. If your shoulders are tight, you may have to allow your arms to go slightly out the side. Listen for pops, clicks and discomfort, and try to find a comfortable range of movement.

You can move both arms at the same time, alternate between right and left, or move one arm forward and up while the other is moving back and down, as if you were swimming. Relax and have fun!

Cautions. If this causes an acute or old injury to flare up, stop the movement. If you’ve dislocated your shoulder, proceed with caution, especially with the back-stroke version. If these movements cause pain, have your yoga teacher or a doctor take a look at your shoulders.