5 Key Benefits of Backbends
- Zohar
- Sep 24, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 20
Backbends, if practiced correctly, they are very healthy - they can even be key for your physical and mental wellbeing. In today's post I will share my own experience starting to train backbends on my late 20s, and we will explore the 5 key benefits of backbending. If afterwards you feel motivated to work in your backbends, check our classes in the YouTube channel or sign up to our 30-Day Backbend Challenge.
5 Key Benefits of Backbends:
Relieve anxiety and stress
Energize your nervous system
Build self-confidence
Build a strong and flexible back
Improve your digestion
Bending backwards, what an experience when you first try it. I would dare to say that either you love it or you hate it - at least at the beginning. When you are used to be hours long hunched forwards, doing a backbend can feel like "what the heck is going on...." Brain gets usually confused, and it can even create anxiety and dizziness.
I started practicing backbends through yoga already in an adult age. I grew up swimming and afterwards I run half marathons, so not exactly sports where you tend to bend backwards. However, from the very beginning, I never felt anxiety when bending backwards. Instead, I loved the feeling backbends gave me: I felt connecting deeper to myself and opening my mind to the unknown. Through the yoga practice, I progressed and I even started touching my head with the foot, which it gave me a even deeper connection to myself. Yes, I know, it sounds super philosophical - maybe it is because my mum is a philosophy teacher. What can I do... I have it on my blood ;-)
Now, back to business: backbends, if practicing correctly, they are very healthy. Physically, you are mobilizing the spine and all the connected muscles and nerves to it, helping to energize yourself. You are also encouraging the spine to get back to its neutral position after hour longs being forward folded working on a desk.
Psychologically, backbends will open you a new world. From gaining trust in yourself and coping better with fear, to staying calm and breathing deeper in critical moments. Thanks to my advance back bending practice, I found myself much more confident and calm when giving speeches in front of people, or managing tight deadlines.
Nevertheless, I do think you should always consult with your doctor before taking on any backbend practice - specially if you already have a health condition. Keep in mind as well, at the start of backbending you could easily experience dizziness or/and headache. At the end of the day, when you backbend, you are stretching the abdominal region and massaging the organs like never before. Also the spinal cord and nerves get stimulated. So, do not freak out if your body reacts strangely and your friends don't feel anything. We are all different ;-)
The 5 Key Benefits of Back bends
These benefits are based on science-based research plus what I have experienced in my own practice and through my studnets.
Relieves anxiety and stress
We accumulate so much tension in our body. More than what we think! By mobilizing the spine and muscles backwards, we are helping releasing the accumulated stress in the whole region. When backbending correctly, we also compress the chest, bringing direct awareness to our breathing. Hence, through backbends we learn to breath in moments, where we feel our chest tight - like when we suffer anxiety or have fear. In addition, according to research, by compressing the back of the body where the kidneys and adrenal glands are located, we help the body reducing cortisol in the blood, lowering stress hormones on the chemical level.
Energizes your nervous system
When bending backwards, we open our chest and throat, and increase the pressure at the heart centre. At the same time, the adrenals are squeezed and the heat in the body is increased, which activates the sympathetic nervous system (flight or fight response mechanism). This stimulation to the sympathetic nervous system, it can energize the mind and body, instantly waking you up. For this reason, it is recommended not to practice backbends too intensively before sleeping :-)
Builds self-confidence
In line with the two previous points, a backbend helps us going through fear, through the unknown. We also open the torso, where according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is an area where we store a lot of emotions. In addition, in a healthy backbend, you open hips, stomach and heart - additional areas, where we also store negative and positive emotions. Fear and love. Sadness and happiness. Also, just the action of releasing the head backwards and opening the throat can be overwhelming. However, once you go through a backbend - opening the throat and other regions of the body - we develop the sense of "letting it go" and being free. We also feel released from our fears and daily worries, as well as the accumulated daily tension. So all together, it empowers and increases the self confidence and trust on ourselves, on our decisions and attitude towards life.
Builds a strong and flexible back
In our modern world, where we tent to sit long hours hunched forward, we slowly shorten and weaken the back muscles. As claimed by research, over time, the hunched forward posture can lead to shallower breath, digestive issues and pain in the chest and back. Through backbends, we reverse this trend by mobilizing the spine in the opposite direction. We also stretch the chest and upper back muscles, regions that also get shorted and closed due to the hunched forward posture. Furthermore, by bending backwards we don't only keep our spine flexible, healthy and young; but we also keep the back muscles and the abdominal area fit. The more advanced backbends you practice, the more strength you need to develop in order to hold the spine in extreme range of motions. Which it is wonderful! Having a strong and flexible back corrects and maintains the spinal alignment, contributing to a better posture in our daily lives.
Improve your digestion
As other asanas in Yoga, backbends help in our digestion by massaging the inner organs. They also help us detoxifying the abdominal area, while strengthening it. In addition, according to research, with a sedentary lifestyle and hours long sitted, the intestines become stagnant and lose part of their ability to move food through the digestive system and waste out. So by bending backwards, we reverse this trend: we stretch our whole abdominal area, untightening these stagnant areas in the gut.
"But... backbends give me pain"
The truth is, when practicing them wrong, backbends can give you a lot of pain. Like in every sports, if your body alignment is not correct, you will eventually get in pain or injured. In the case of backbends, it is very tricky to get the perfect, pain free backbend: you need to control your limits, balance the flexibility and strength of your back, activate the right muscle groups and much more...
I can't recommend enough working together with an experienced coach in backbends. Also, be careful trying out back bending workouts that you see on social media. There is much more going on underneath the skin than what you may see in a pose. If you are unsure how to progress or move forward (or even from where to start) with backbends, you can schedule a 1-1 consultation with me - read more about flexibility private training here. If financially you are tight and still you would like to start to backbend, you can check out our follow along Spinal Flexibility Routine available in the YouTube channel.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and please do not hesitate to comment below or share your thoughts in the topic! You can read more about flexibility and backbending at Fit & Bendy Blog. Kristina Nekya has some really interesting articles on the topic and I can't recommend enough having a look at them!
Ready to train with me? Check out my weekly contortion class every Saturday in the YouTube channel, or join one of our 30-Day Flexibility Challenges for a deeper dive into flexibility and contortion training. And if you look for a personalized training to speed up your progress, check how I work 1-1 and schedule your appointment by sending me an email to zoharpalacio@zoharyogaflex.com.
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