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Bridge, Half Wheel
Also Known as Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
About the Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
This is a supine type of asana and it makes you perform a back bending exercise. It is not difficult to perform. With you in this pose, your back looks like a half wheel and your thighs form a bridge-like structure.
Benefits of Half Wheel/Bridge Pose or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
* It helps reduce mild depression and stress.
* It helps calm the mind.
* It forms a good relaxing exercise for tired legs.
* It helps to stretch the muscles in the neck, the spine, and in the chest.
* It forms as a sort of balm for headache, and reduces anxiety, backache, tiredness, and insomnia.
* It is a good therapy for osteoporosis, sinusitis, high blood pressure, and asthma.
* It invigorates the abdominal organs, the thyroid gland, and the lungs.
* It also helps the digestion of food in the stomach and improves it slightly.
* It acts as a palliative mechanism in respect of menstrual discomfort.
* It acts to make the symptoms of menopause more tolerable.
How to do Half Wheel Bridge pose?
Step 1 - Lie completely supine on a mat on the floor.
Step 2 - Now bend your legs at your knees so that the soles of the feet are in complete contact with the mat. Both your feet should touch each other and both your knees need to point vertically upwards. Also, the back of your heels need to be as close as practically possible to the seating bones in your buttocks.
Step 3 - Now clasp both your hands, one on either side below your pelvis. Exhale your breath and pressing your inner arms and feet into the floor, lift the buttocks off the floor. The key to lifting the buttocks lies in pushing your tailbone upward so that it points towards the pubis.
The buttocks need to be kept firm, but you need not try to harden the muscles in your buttocks consciously. Keep lifting your buttocks till your thighs become parallel with the floor below. Remember also to extend the arms while you clasp your hands below the pelvis so that it helps you stay up over on your shoulder tops.
Step 4 - At this stage, you need to ensure that your knees are directly above the heels. Then push your knees (away from the hips) forward so that it helps to lengthen the tailbone back towards the back of your knees. Now lift your pubis towards the navel.
Step 5 - Finally, lift away your chin slightly from the sternum and with your shoulder blades taking the weight of your back press the sternum top downward toward your chin. Now firm up your outer arms and broaden your shoulder blades. The idea is to lift the space between the shoulder blades at the base of the neck up into the torso.
Step 6 - Stay in the pose from about 30 to 60 seconds. Then release by exhaling your breath and bringing down your buttocks slowly to touch the mat again.
More about the pose
Beginners can use a block of wood under their sacrum to allow their weight to rest on it. An advanced variation of the pose is to lift one leg up toward the ceiling as part of Step 6.
A word of caution
To protect your neck from injury especially if you are a beginner use a folded blanket under it while performing the pose. If you are already plagued by a neck injury, you need to avoid doing this asana as it might aggravate the injury.
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