Summary–How to do Chair Yoga
- Accessible yoga for all — chair yoga serves seniors, plus anyone overweight, recovering, or with limited mobility.
- Proper setup matters — sit on the edge of a sturdy armless chair, engage core, breathe slowly through the nose.
- Seven key practice areas — upper body work, twists, forward bends, backbends, balance poses, warrior poses, leg strength drills.
- Simple props amplify gains — use a strap, belt, towel, or light weights or books to deepen stretch and build muscle and bone strength.
- Form comes first — hinge from hips, keep spine long, relax shoulders, and breathe steadily for maximum benefit.
- Balance with safety — stand near the chair for Warriors or single-leg poses, steady your gaze, engage belly and glutes.
- Integrate and learn — cool down with a short walk after a chair yoga session.
- Watch our YouTube video below — let us help you launch your chair yoga routine.
Did you know that you can do yoga in a chair? You can! And that’s especially important for those of us who are older, have a few too many pounds, or have limited mobility.
Offered at senior centers as a way to keep moving in older age, chair yoga is also useful for overweight people who have challenges getting up and down, especially from the floor. And anyone who hasn’t exercised in a while, or who is healing from surgery or an injury, can start to stretch and strengthen their body with chair yoga. They may even graduate to not needing the chair!
When you are doing chair yoga, always remember to sit forward a bit on the chair, which can be any armless household chair, with your belly engaged and your back straight to begin each exercise. Always breathe through your nose with yoga breath once you are holding the pose for a bit. This will enhance the benefits to your mind and body.
Seven Categories of Chair Yoga
1. Upper Body Stretching and Strengthening
You can easily do upper body strengthening and stretching in a chair.
You can enhance shoulder and arm stretches by using a yoga strap. If you don’t have a yoga strap, a tie or a belt or even a small towel will work.
Also, if you use light weights, or a substitute like a book or water bottle, you can improve the isometric benefit to muscles and bones, and, as you’ll see in our YouTube video below, these exercises are also beneficial for the heart.
2. Twists
You can do twists from a chair by (1) grounding into your sit bones (your buttocks), (2) lifting your spine to straighten it, (3) relaxing your shoulders, and (4) slowly twisting from your waist into the upper back, (5) letting your head twist as well, as if you are trying to see the wall behind you, (6) while pulling your back shoulder back and your front one forward. Envision your shoulders lining up front and back in a straight line–even if they don‘t!
Twists are good for digestion, waistline, nerves, and internal organs. Twisting is also the first type of flexibility we lose, if we don’t do it, and it’s fun and easy to find again with practice.
3. Forward Bends
When doing forward bends from a chair, it’s best to work by straightening the leg you are stretching over, so you can work out the tightness in your knees and the backs of your legs.
The important things here are to (1) move from the hip socket, where the stretch originates at the top of your leg, and (2) NOT to round your back too much. Concentrate on keeping your back as straight as you can. Even if you don’t bend very far, keeping your back straight will allow you to get the most out of the stretch.
If you want to add a bit of a inner hip stretch, you can do forward bends with your legs as wide as you can open them.
4. Backbends
You can most easily do backbends from a chair by simply leaning your back onto the chair so that your spine extends. Make sure your low back feels okay, and let your head drop back only as much as is comfortable to avoid jamming your neck. Let your arms stretch back from the side or over your head, which adds the stretch to the arms, shoulders, and chest muscles.
Backbends are important for strengthening your spine–to prevent fractures from osteoporosis–and your back muscles.
5. Balancing Poses
Balancing poses are very important to help us avoid falls. Stand near the chair so that you can hold onto it for stability. If you want to do the poses without holding the chair, be sure to have it nearby so you can grab it if you need to catch your balance.
To help you balance on one leg, choose a point to lightly stare at. The floor gaze is the most grounding, the straight ahead gaze is the next level, and an upward gaze is the most challenging.
Start by simply lifting one leg, knee bent, and hold the pose for a bit. If you want to try Tree Pose, take the foot of your lifted leg to the inside part of your standing leg as high as you can place it. Hold for a bit, then repeat with your other leg.
Remember your breath and belly support you here! Engage your standing leg and belly consciously. The standing buttock muscle is working, too.
6. Warrior Poses
Warrior poses may be a little bit more work, but you can stack bolsters or pillows on the chair for support, if needed.
Your body is now facing right or left over the chair as you bend your front leg and extend your back leg. Settle the base of your torso a little bit in front of bottom of your spine (the perineum) on the chair. Use your arms to become stable on the chair. Once you are stablem see if you can reach your arms straight up in the air, stretching elbows and fingers. Gaze forward or slightly up. Feel your ribcage and lungs stretching. Breathe!
Warrior One is both hips facing forward. Warrior Two has your back hip and foot opening toward the front of your chair, and you extend your arms forward and back, parallel to the floor over the corresponding leg. Be sure to feel your legs strengthening. Engage your legs.
7. Leg Strengthening
Leg strengthening while sitting in a chair might be the first step for those not ready for Warrior or Tree poses.
Simply sit forward a bit in the chair, brace yourself with hands on the sides of the chair by your buttocks, if needed, and sit tall, with your shoulders away from your ears. With your knee bent, lift one leg off the floor as high as possible, and hold it there as long as you can. Feel the big muscle above the knee, four muscles in one called the quadriceps, working and getting stronger.
Strengthening the legs like this helps protect the knee, which takes a lot of weight as we walk around.
After a Chair Yoga Session?
After you’ve finished your chair yoga session, if you are up for it, take a nice walk. That will help clear your mind. Be sure to swing your arms and feel all your body parts working in coordination together!
Watch our YouTube video about chair yoga for older, overweight, or limited mobility people to start your chair yoga adventure!
