Arm balancing postures and positions such as the Cataranga Dandasana (the push-up) can be very exhilarating. They can energise you by increasing your circulation and they are also good at developing chest, arm and core strength. When done correctly they can really help relieve and prevent back and neck pain and can give direct stimulation to the heart and lungs.

Click on the following thumbnails to open and enlarge the full photographs of Bianca Machliss (Director, Yoga Synergy) demonstrating some arm-balancing postures. (All photos by Alejandro Rolandi)

Often women have trouble doing these arm balancing postures because of relatively smaller chest and arms and larger hips relative to men. Often men can only do these poses out of brute force, but when you understand and adopt the following tips strength is not as much of an issue and more people especially women can begin to enjoy and benefit from arm balancing postures.

Simple Tips to help to Arm Balancing Postures and Push-up positions:

• (note that every position that takes weight on the arms has specific details that may not be mentioned here)
• have the palms flat on the floor but grip with your finger tips
• press more on the inside (thumb-side) of the palms for better force transfer from the forearms to the wrists
• squeeze the heel of the palm inwards (as if trying to turn the palm out) in order to stabilise the elbow
• tighten the underarm muscles by pressing the arm pits in the direction they are pointing
• generally bring the shoulders over the over the finger tips (for most arm balances)
• spread the shoulder blades and lengthen the skin between the shoulder blades in the upper back
• push the sitting bones and lower trunk toward the same direction the navel is pointing until the front of the abdomen becomes firm without sucking the navel to the spine
• breathe into the firm abdomen to give you relaxed inner power that can be maintained for a long time without stress
• don’t do anything that feels painful or is potentially dangerous for you