Popular yoga poses and questions

Actress Chyler Leigh in a half lotus pose, meant for yoga beginners. A popular and well-known yoga pose it brings up the question: yoga looks easy but I need something that challenges my body? When people get around to doing yoga, it dawns on them: my body is sore all over, why's yoga sooo hard?? Yoga is an all round exercise system that builds strength, flexibility, balance, and yes it burns calories and makes you slim. As you get more into yoga, you discover that it also provides mental health benefits, and helps the body to fight diseases.



Redhead actress Amy Davidson in a scorpion handstand pose, while Disney starlet Debby Ryan on the right does a wheel yoga pose. Looking at these girls, beginners may ask: do I need to be flexible for yoga? The wheel pose improves spinal flexibility, makes the arms strong, and stretches the shoulders and chest. The handstand strengthens the core muscles, shoulders, and back, while improving balance.

These poses are for advanced yoga practitioners. When you get to doing them you will have become more flexible from doing all the beginner and intermediate poses. Yoga poses are categorized by the kinds of exercises: whether standing, supine, inverted, backbending, or seated. And all these kinds are grouped by the level of difficulty: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. This brings up the question: can I learn yoga on my own or do I need to join a class?

With all the free information, illustrations, and yoga instructions available on the Internet you can easily learn beginner poses on your own. Checkout youtube videos, buy DVDs or books, and join yoga classes for more advanced poses.

Nicole Scherzinger doing the cow pose, which is for beginners and helps to make the back more flexible while increasing core strength. What are we supposed to wear while doing yoga? Any kind of clothing that is not restrictive, that you're comfortable in. Or you could buy cute yoga pants that are soft, stretchy, and form fitting, costing anywhere from $10 to expensive $100 at Lululemons. There's a whole fashion industry behind yoga wear which sells yoga pants, leggings, tops, tanks, tees, shorts, bralettes. You can even do yoga in swimwear.

The child pose is a restorative pose that provides a gentle stretch for the hips, thighs and back. It can help relieve back pain. Another common question is: where to do yoga? The answer is anywhere you're comfortable. On the beach, in your home or garden, or in a yoga class.

A yoga class doing the upward dog pose, which strengthens the arms, wrists and abdomen, and increases the flexibility of the spine. All this stretching is fine, but how will yoga burn calories and help me lose weight? Yoga is pretty effective at burning fat. All the poses workout your muscles, stretch the joints and ligaments, and increase heart rate. You can feel your body getting sore just doing the beginner poses. When you get better at yoga, you try out a combination of poses in a quick sequence, and that is just like an intense aerobics wrokout! The upward dog is part of the ten poses in the sun salutation exercise. Bikram and Vinyasa Yoga systems probably burn the most calories.

Actress Denise Richards doing the popular warrior pose, which strengthens the legs, opens the chest and shoulders and stretches the arms. Right, TV personality Marla Maples does the triangle pose that makes the legs strong, and stretches the groins, hamstrings, and hips. This yoga pose can help relieve back pain while opening up the chest and shoulders. There are hundreds of yoga poses, so how do we remember them all? The great thing with yoga is that even the beginner poses are beneficial for your body and mind. If you stay interested, you'll find yourself moving to more advanced poses. Otherwise you will just pick out your favorite yoga poses and stick with them.

Australian model Miranda Kerr in the pigeon pose for advanced yoga practioners. This pose makes the back strong, and really stretches the hip flexor muscles, the throat, chest, abdomen, as well as the groin and thighs.

Miranda Kerr has been doing yoga for years and she incorporates yoga poses in her modeling shoots. Seen here doing a variation of the side reclining leg lift yoga pose, which stretches the thighs, hamstrings and groin, and improves balance. A common yoga question is: how long are we supposed to do it? If you're looking to stretch and get toned then 20 minutes is good enough. But if you really want to make changes in your body and burn a ton of calories then take your yoga workout to 60 minutes or even 90 minutes.