A coworker of mine who takes yoga classes started pumping a 20-pound dumbbell in his cubicle while I was at work the other day.
Since he does this fairly often, I asked him why, and he told me
Oh, my yoga classes don't help my arms at all.
I looked at him and was confused. Luckily, I had a draught of a book with pictures of some yoga poses that required balance, so I showed them to him and asked if he had tried them or even heard of them. Surprisingly, he said no and then asked me to show him how they worked.
This made me wonder how many other yoga fans also think that yoga might not be the best way to get stronger arms.
If you are this kind of person, you couldn't be more wrong.
Yoga is great for building arm strength. You may never see your biceps bulge through your T-shirt sleeves, but your arm strength and endurance will improve in a way that may not happen with other types of exercise.
Also, basic Calisthenics moves like Push-ups, the Plank, and Dive-bombers take a lot from Yoga.
If you want to get stronger arms through yoga, I think the Sun Salutations are the best exercises to do first.
From my own experience, I had trouble holding endurance-building poses like the Wheel, Bow, Peacock, and Crow Poses (and their variations) for a good amount of time (say, an average of 90 seconds or more). By chance, I found that by doing at least 24 straight rounds of the Sun Salutations (Exercises) I could hold any of the poses above for a long time.
It's probably because this powerful exercise warms up the muscles.
The other moderate to hard demands put on them can be met by a combination of systematic poses.
Also, when I started doing Hindu-push-ups as a way to mix up my workouts (it's a straight yoga derivative because it's basically Downward Facing Dog Pose followed by Cobra Pose over and over again), these Sun Salutations helped me get stronger so I could do more of these yoga-like moves.
exercise.
Taking this into account, in addition to the Sun Salutations (24 or more rounds), the following poses are good for building arm strength:
- The different ways to do Crow Pose
- Bow Pose
- Wheel Pose
- The Side Plank and the Regular Plank
- The different ways you can do the Peacock Pose
- The "Upside-Down Plane"
Also, the simple shoulder-stand can be helpful for building arm strength when done with the Bridge and Fish poses.
What's more, each of these poses is also a great way to tone your abs and, in some cases, give your internal organs a deep tissue massage. You can't do that with free weights, right?
So the next time you, like my coworker, think or meet someone who doesn't think Yoga can do much for their arms, tell them to try the poses above and the great Sun Salutations.
This is a classic case of "trying is believing," so if you give this suggestion a shot, you'll almost certainly be able to strengthen your arms—using Yoga—in no time.
