Paschimottanasana is one of the yoga positions hardest working stretching your body.

Remember to read carefully the benefits, contraindications and recommendations put you in the end.

Step by Step

1. Sit on the floor with your buttocks supported (can be on a folded blanket), with legs stretched in front of you, lengthening the twins and heels forward. Keep activated feet from the heels, which are firmly planted on the ground. Put your palms or fingertips, with your hips and lifts the top of the sternum toward the ceiling as the top thighs descend.
2. Inhale, and keeping the stretched torso, lean forward from the hip joints, not from the waist. Lengthens the tailbone from the back of the pelvis. If possible take the sides of the feet with hands, elbows fully extended. If you are a beginner in yoga positions and this will is not possible, make a tie with a strap around the soles of the feet, and holds the strap firmly.
3. When you’re ready to go further, do not pull hard in bending forward with either hand or foot strap. Always lengthen the front torso posture, and keep your head up. If you are holding your feet, bend your elbows sideways and separate them from the floor; If you hold the belt a little loose grip and hold it a little more forward forward, keeping your arms straight. The lower belly should touch the thighs, then the upper abdomen, below the ribs and the head later.
4. With each inhalation, lift and lengthen the front torso just slightly with each exhalation release a little more forward lean. Thus the torso oscillates and lengthens almost imperceptibly with breathing. Through regular practice of this yoga position you’ll be able to stretch your arms forward beyond the feet.
5. Remains in the position of 1 to 3 minutes. To exit the position, first separates the torso and thigh stretches elbows again if bent. Then inhale and lift the torso up by pulling the tailbone down and into the pelvis.

Benefits of clip

• Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression.
• Stretches the spine, shoulders and hamstrings.
• It stimulates the liver, kidneys, ovaries and uterus.
• Improves digestion.
• It helps relieve symptoms of menopause and menstrual discomfort.
• Relieves headache and anxiety and reduces fatigue.
• Therapy for hypertension, infertility, insomnia, and sinusitis.
• Traditional texts say that Paschimottanasana increases appetite, reduces obesity and cures diseases.

Contraindications and precautions for this yoga position

• Asthma.
• Diarrhea.
• Back Injuries: just make this position under the supervision of an experienced teacher.

Advice for beginners

In this as in other yoga positions never force your body, especially tilts forward when sitting on the floor. Go forward, as soon as you feel the space between your pubic bone and your navel is shortened to, get up a little, and then continues lengthening again. Often, due to pressure on the back of the legs, beginners can not stretch much your body forward, and may seem a posture sitting up straight.