The bad news is that you already practice yoga, so stop thinking you’re too masculine for it. You know those planks you include in each core session? When you have a pickup game, do you do yoga? When you’re feeling stressed and need to focus, do you practice yoga? Yoga.

Yoga is great for everyone – especially for men. Taking a yoga class or doing a few pre-workout poses each week can increase endurance, build strength, prevent injuries and even stave off heart disease.

We’ll introduce you to yoga poses for men. Read on!

Yoga Benefits for Men

Men’s general health benefits from yoga workouts. Our bodies will be strengthened and our muscles will be toned as a result of it. It’s no surprise that it’s gaining international acclaim. Some people, mostly men, are still skeptical, though.

Increases Body’s Flexibility

A crucial component of yoga practice is engaging your core muscles. The range of motion is increased as a result of the body’s improved balance, agility, and mobility. Because yoga lengthens the muscles and connective tissues, more blood can flow through them.

Stretching your extremities in ways you couldn’t before is possible as you become more flexible. We improve our pelvic muscle tone and physical toughness through yoga and other meditative exercises. Additionally, you will increase your mobility and range of motion, enabling you to excel in a variety of other physical activities like sports, acrobatics, combat sports, and more.

It Prevents Injury

Since they frequently participate in strenuous physical activity, men are more likely to get hurt. Your body would feel sore and painful after engaging in physical activity, going to the gym, or even just sitting at work all day.

Yoga can either help you prevent injury or maybe even help you recover from it. Yoga helps you build, relax, and strengthen your muscles, which increases your body’s resistance to injuries.

It Relieves Stress

We can also benefit from yoga classes if we suffer from mental health issues. The majority of us are stressed out at work or in our personal affairs. When you’re constantly agitated and anxious and it affects those around you, it’s difficult to function. Thankfully, yoga’s meditative aspect aids us in combating this.

It Improves Breathing

As we all know, breathing in is essential for this workout. Yoga teaches you how to use your breathing to improve your overall health, which is one of its most advantageous aspects. The deep breathing techniques you’ll learn here are necessary for yoga postures.

Yoga offers a deep and controlled breathing technique known as “pranayama,” which expands and trains your lungs while training and allows them to transfer more oxygen through the body.

5 Yoga Stretches for Men

Forward Fold

Direction: Stand with feet hip-width apart, gently hinge forward at the hips and lower the torso toward the floor. Bend your knees generously to take any pressure out of the low back and hamstrings. Take hold of your elbows across from each other or your ankles. Allow gravity to pull the body toward the ground while taking deep breaths. Your torso, shoulders, neck, and head should all be relaxed. Shake your head or sway your torso slowly. After holding for a minute, stand back up. 



Benefits: Any workout would benefit from using this exercise as part of the warm-up.

A buildup of tension in the head, neck, and shoulders can lead to headaches, insomnia, poor circulation, and a reduction in lung capacity, but we frequently struggle to recognize when we are doing so. This pose can gradually lower your blood pressure if you also practice slow, steady breathing.

Utkatasana Or Chair Pose

Direction: Begin standing at the top of your mat with your feet hip-distance apart. As you exhale, bend your knees and lower your pelvis to the ground as if you were sitting on a chair. Inhale with your arms raised in the air. Maintain a tight core and relaxed shoulders while shifting the weight to the heels. Arms can extend overhead or forward and parallel to the ground with palms facing down, or they can stay at the center of the chest. As you hold this pose, remember to breathe normally.

Benefits: Even for a very fit male, the Chair Pose or Utkatasana can be challenging. Ankles, shoulders, quadriceps, and glutes are strengthened in this pose. This yoga position is excellent for increasing stability and energizing the abdominal organs.

Upward Facing Dog

Benefits: Urdvha Mukha Svana, which strengthens the back and arms while opening the chest, can be helpful. This posture will help anyone who sits behind a desk or a wheel for far too many hours each day by opening the abdomen and hip flexors.

Upward Facing Dog is a fantastic way to warm up and get the blood flowing for men who also enjoy more demanding forms of exercise before expecting the body to go all out. Anyone experiencing breathing problems can benefit from Up Dog as well.

Chair

Direction: 
Put your big toes together and stand tall. Take a deep breath in and raise your arms straight up toward the ceiling, palms facing one another, next to your head and neck. As you lengthen through the neck, let your shoulders fall down your back. Exhale and then squat with your feet together, bending your knees as you do so. Limit the distance between your knees and your toes. Lengthen the spine with each inhalation. Sit a little bit more deeply in the chair with each exhalation. Your thighs will eventually be parallel to the floor. Drop your tailbone down toward the floor to take any stress out of your lower back. Your knees and thighs should remain firmly pressed together as you maintain your core muscle engagement. Hold for 30 seconds.



Benefits: Chair pose strengthens thighs and legs without the need for a gym, burns belly fat, and tones the midsection.

Uttanasana Or Standing Forward Fold

Direction: Begin standing at the top of your mat, inhaling arms overhead. Exhale, hinge at the hips and bend forward – allow your head to hang between your arms If the hamstrings are tight – keep the knees bent and rest your torso over your thighs as you hold opposite elbows, or place a yoga block under your hands In either variation, be sure to keep the upper body completely relaxed and heavy, which creates a deeper opening of the back body

Benefits: Uttasana promotes stress reduction, blood circulation improvement, and muscle stretching. Active men can take care of themselves and find their center in this yoga pose. A Standing Forward Fold invites the back body to open including the hamstrings, calves and knees. Additionally, this position can help with digestion and ease tension in the neck, back, and spine.

Summary

rAs you can see, there are many benefits to men doing yoga too! Now let’s get started with some yoga! Start with these five yoga poses to stretch your tightest areas such as your shoulders, hips and groin. Your challenge is to keep coming back to these poses and continue to deepen your practice so you can experience the tremendous physical and mental benefits these poses bring to you.