How to Improve Stamina? Try Yoga for Stamina

What is Stamina?

Stamina is the power of endurance of our body. Stamina dictates how strong, tough or resilient we are. It measures our body’s capacity to carry on with prolonged physical, mental or emotional effort. Stamina helps us to endure not only physical activities like sports or work, it also helps us to endure illness, fatigue, disease, and the stress of every day life.

Lack of stamina leads to a feeling of lethargy, boredom and fatigue. This not only makes us less efficient at work, it also makes us more prone to disease and depression.

The level of stamina depends on many factors – our age, gender, and our physical constitution. It decreases with illness and age. But stamina exercises can bring about a lot of improvement. Yoga for stamina has been found to be very helpful.

Exercise for Stamina

While there are various exercises for stamina, yoga has been found to be most beneficial. Many people perform yoga for strength, but it goes beyond that and helps builds up not just physical stamina, but also emotional and mental resilience.

Yoga poses are slow and gentle. When you hold a yoga pose (asana) steadily and without wavering, it is termed as asana jaya, which means victory over the asana (pose). While it is strong respiratory and muscular support which enables you to attain this steadiness, your strong yogic mental ability also plays an important part. This mental ability is also an essential tool in pain management.

Exercise for stamina in yoga involves those in standing, sitting, supine, inverted and balancing poses.

In the Standing Position the relevant postures are:

• Warrior Pose (Veerasana)
• Triangle Pose (Trikonasana)
• Tree Pose (Vrikshasana)

In Sitting Position the relevant postures are:

• Meditation Gesture (Dhyan Mudra)
• Auspicious Pose (Swastikasana)
• Balance Pose (Samasana)
• Lotus Pose (Padmasana)
• Tied Lotus Pose (Baddha Padmasana)
• Lifted Lotus (Utthit Padmasana)
• Mountain Pose (Parvatasana)
• Bow Pose in Sitting (Akarna Dhanurasana – Type 1)
• Bow Pose in Sitting (Akarna Dhanurasana – Type 2)
• Twisted Pose (Vakrasana)
• Half Spinal Twist (Ardhamatsyendrasana)
• Forward Bending (Sharanagata Mudra)
• Thunderbolt Pose (Vajrasana)
• Half Forward Bend (Paschimottasana – Half)
• Forward Bend (Paschimottasana – Full)
• Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana)

In Supine Position, you have to lie on your back, keeping your legs together and extended straight, while your palms rest on the floor. The relevant yoga postures are:

• Leg Raise Pose – with one leg and both legs (Uttanpadasana)
• Inverted Pose (Vipritakarani)
• Horse Gesture in shoulder stand (Ashwini Mudra)
• Fish Pose (Matsyasana)
• Plough Pose (Halasana)
• Boat Pose (Noukasana)
• Pond Pose (Tadagasana)
• Gas Release Pose (Pavanmuktasana)
• Half Wheel Pose (Ardhachakrasana)

A few yoga postures in the Prone Position are also useful for building stamina. In this you must lie with your chest, abdomen and chin touching the floor. Keep your hands next to your thighs and your palms on the floor.

• Locust Pose (Shalabhasana)
• Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)
• Crocodile Pose (Makarasana)

These poses are very gentle. They need not be held for very long. But it is advisable to go through the entire repertoire. Besides building up your endurance and stamina, they will make you more vigorous and will also benefit you respiratory, circulatory and digestive systems.