Every day, I try to do five minutes of yoga when I wake up. I tend to focus on a single pose at a time, depending on where I’m experiencing pain or stiffness in the mornings.
While doing a single pose at a time isn’t a traditional yoga method, as someone who suffers from an energy-limiting illness, I’ve found these bite-sized sessions are much more manageable for me.
I can often feel overwhelmed first thing in the morning and taking a little chunk of time for myself allows me to breathe, wake up my body and soothe any anxious thoughts before they can take over.
One of the poses I choose now and again is triangle pose (Trikonasana). This time around, I decided to do it every day for a week to see how it would make me feel.
How to do triangle pose
I followed this demonstration by Yoga with Adrienne until I felt confident enough to do it without guidance. I did it every morning, making sure to work both sides. Here’s what I found after a full week.
It engaged multiple muscle groups
“This exercise works the muscles of the hamstrings, quads, glutes, abdominals, hip flexors, upper back, arms and shoulders,” says yoga instructor Gwenn Jones, founder of Auburn Yoga & Fitness.
I could definitely feel it in my core, which came as a surprise because it’s never struck me as a core-focused pose. But in order to keep my balance, I could feel my core muscles engaging, particularly when I raised my arm and looked up. It also gave my oblique muscles, which run up the sides of the torso, a nice stretch.
It loosened my tight back
I tend to wake up with a stiff back and morning yoga has helped me no end. The rotational aspect of this pose allowed me to stretch my mid back, which can be a little difficult to do with standard stretches. I find it easy to release tension in my lower back and shoulders, but my mid back tends to be a bit harder to reach.
Poses like triangle and seated twist have helped me to regain some of the spinal mobility I’ve lost over recent years.
It relieved tension in my hips
I love a deep hip flexor stretch because I have tight hips from working at a desk, and the wide stance of the pose helped relieve the tension in that area.
I made sure to pay attention to each part of my body where I felt the stretch, breathing deeply into each area and leaning into the sensation (without compromising my form).
It gave my legs a proper stretch
Triangle pose features a controlled straight-leg position, which gave my hamstrings a really good stretch.
I tend to neglect hamstring stretches, focusing more on areas that cause me pain such as my hips. I often don’t realise just how much I need to stretch my legs until I actually do it and feel the difference.
My balance improved
Oddly, my balance on one side started off better than the other. I had the mobility to touch the floor on both sides, but when I looked up to my right (dominant) arm, I found it much harder not to wobble.
To begin with, I just looked straight ahead to avoid any teetering, but after a couple of days, I felt more confident turning my head and deepening the stretch in my shoulders. I did have to catch myself with my supporting hand a couple of times, but by day seven, I could confidently perform the full pose correctly on both sides.
