Reasons to have them as a part of your workout routine, and the amazing benefits it can serve. This is your ultimate guide to starting your day right.

The Sun Salutations. Surya Namaskara. Since I have been a Personal Trainer in Melbourne, I have taught my clients how to perform them. Anyone who has known me knows how much I promote sun salutations. It is a yogic flow, an asana sequence also known as ‘Suryanamsakra’ in Sanskrit, which literally means ‘salute to the sun’. It is one of the most powerful sequences out of all yoga postures. I am pretty sure that y’all have been doing it in your instructor-led yoga classes, might not know just the name. A hint. It’s normally a warm-up.
Besides being a great way to get yourself into the yoga practice, different ranges of asanas are involved in this sequence. These asanas are designed to open up all the joints and areas of the body leaving you feeling a bit more loose, flexible, open, and balanced by the time you reach the final stretch. From forward fold to downward facing dog, the combination of the poses in a sun salutation is more than enough to give you challenging stretching and a cardio session if you perform them at a certain pace and repeat several rounds of it. Ask any of my clients when I take them through 4-5 sequences of sun salutations every time they have come in late for their session or are in a rush to a meeting after, and don’t have enough time to do a proper cardio routine, and they would tell.
Melbourne has given me an opportunity as a fitness instructor to be able to teach people the importance of such simple movements, and touch base with not just weight lifting, sports, cardio, or stretching, but allowing me to make my client workouts more holistic, which is beyond physical wellness.
When I meet and talk with people in the gym, I notice a lot of wellness and fitness issues they have are due to the modern lifestyle which includes physical inactivity, stress, fast paced life, high fat diets further leading to obesity and mental unwellness. Modern lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery diseases, etc are all caused due to the factors I mentioned. Thus, I believe it is the need of the century that people start focusing on moving in the right way to achieve medical excellence. As a fitness coach I would request people to incorporate activities and exercises in the lives which will prevent them from becoming sick in first place.

Sun Salutation — The Optimum Full Body Workout!

This one style of dynamic stretch or sequence became popular as it made its way to many yoga classes around the world. I was no yoga teacher, but coming from India, I have grown up seeing yoga practices up close to know enough about it. Sun Salutation was part of my morning routine even during my boxing training days. Hence, it also became part of my coaching style when I started personal training in Melbourne.
So why are we doing it? I can give you three solid reasons for it:

1. Dynamic meditation: As a professional boxer and a boxing coach, I can tell that every activity that you do, needs great focus and attention to perform at optimal level. It’s also needed for any work you do to gain utmost productivity. For a lot of people, keeping their focus and attention at one place is quite difficult. In yogic language, it is also called developing ‘ekagrata’, meaning having a ‘one-pointedness of mind’. There is also a meditative state of mind when you practice this. It’s a natural tendency of the human mind to move and fluctuate, that is why meditation is difficult for a lot of people. Now, moving in a certain flow state to perform that one sun Salutation helps the mind and body to achieve that focus. So, while you are performing sun salutations, you are not just dynamically stretching your body, but you are also meditating in a certain way.
2. Building physical strength: My clients when I ask them to perform the sun salutations for the first time, they always look at me with a grain of salt. Like how can this help in building physical strength, until I make them do at least 10 of them. That is when they get exhausted not just cardiovascular wise but also strength-wise. Yogis in India practice 108 sun salutations everyday and this is their only workout (besides the chores they would do during their day in general). So, you just don’t build good mobility, and cardio by doing sun salutations, but also gain a great amount of physical strength when you aim for certain higher numbers of sun salutations.
3. Expanding the awareness and intensity of energy: Sun salutations as I mentioned are not just a great tool for gaining physical strength, but are also a great tool for expanding the awareness of mind and surroundings with the body. It might be a fairly recent addition in the gym style of contemporary yoga training, but has been around for more than thousands of years. Thus making it a very useful tool to incorporate within your daily movement, just to expand that awareness of mind and body and attaining a certain meditative level, that sets up your intentions for the rest of your day.

Talking about the physical benefits of yoga in general, if you perform this series of powerful yoga poses, it will have a great impact on the health of your heart, throat, stomach, liver, intestine, bowels, and legs. It also helps purify blood by improving its circulation to the major body organs, further ensuring a proper functioning of the nerve center. And like I always tell my clients that you are working on your physical strength when you attempt to perform these challenging chaturangas, especially in your arms, waist, hip, spine, legs, etc.

So, when do you perform the sun salutations?

They are traditionally performed in the morning (as the name says), as it is a way of greeting and showing gratitude to the new sun. However, they can be performed at any time of the day too, as the sun won’t judge you if you don’t wake up early to salute it. When I am the Personal Training or even training my clients in a group class, or before starting a boxing class, I make sure they all begin with at least 4-6 flows of Surya namaskar. So, no matter when or where you perform them, it is a great way not just to connect and invigorate the mind, body and spirit, but also a great way to bring focus to the activity performed at that time.
Based on my personal experience as a yoga instructor, a fitness enthusiast, and a fitness coach, I can confirm the following benefits one can achieve by simply performing these sets of dynamic stretches every day, whether it is your workout day or not:

1. Warms Up Your Entire Body
   It is a great way to warm up your entire body as you move from one pose to another in a series of 12 poses in one sun salutations in a flow state, making them a great pre workout stretches or warm ups. It wakes up all your joints, muscles, gets the heart rate up, gets your body loosen up, and ready for the workouts that would follow. It’s like signaling your body that it’s time to workout.
2. Raises Your Heart Rate
   When you perform sun salutation at a certain pace, it tends to push your heart rate up, which is what people aim for when they hit a treadmill or a Crossfit before beginning the weightlifting. So, if you are short on time for your strength training session, instead of skipping the cardio and straight away starting to lift weights, quickly come on the ground, or mat to perform 5-6 sets of sun salutations to prepare your body for a workout. This further reduces the chances of any injuries, muscle spasms, and even soreness. The trick that I teach my clients when they come in late for their weight lifting session or boxing session, is to jump a couple of times on the spot, and quickly perform 4 sun salutations without sacrificing their alignment and attention to detail.
3. Tones Muscles
   The plank, chaturanga, and other poses that are performed as a part of sun salutations works incredibly on toning arms and abs while the standing poses work on leg muscles.
4. Improves Flexibility
   That I call as one of the biggest advantages of performing sun salutations. My clients when they start with me with an expectation of getting their strength game up, do not realize the way I am planning to bring their A game in strength training. People who have a bit of a knowledge of weight lifting would know that having a full range of motion in any exercise is the key aspect to build muscles. So, I help my clients perform weight lifting with their best abilities by working on their range of motion simultaneously. So, when you are in a downward facing dog pose for example, you are stretching the fascia of your hamstrings, calves, glutes, spine, neck, and shoulders, and as you get deeper with your breathes, you gain more flexibility, which can further improve your performance during deadlifts by naturally allowing you to have a better range of motion.
5. Boosts Your Immune System
   When you get your body moving, and your heart working, you also kickstart your lymphatic system. This further helps improve your immune system that keeps you healthy.
6. Motivates You to Practice
   The mindset to workout is one of the biggest challenges that people have and hence the consequences of not working out follow. Now, either you are a full time employee, stay at home parent, an avid gym goer, a mountaineer, or a sports person, you can incorporate sun salutations in your day to kick start the intention of doing the physical activity of your choice with 100% effort. During Covid-19, when no one had a choice to go out and do some physical activity even as simple as walking, they weren’t left with many choices, but to be confined to Netflix and binge eat. And we all saw the results. So, in the morning if you feel a bit lazy, demotivated, or ugh to go to the gym, or outside your home, just come in the center of your room or a hall (wherever there is a bit of space) and just start moving to perform sun salutations. You will see a straight away switch in your intentions to do a workout, and you will end up doing something for sure. Sun Salutations are the answer every time. Always start with it and see where it takes you.
7. Reduces Stress and Anxiety
   As a wellness coach, I have seen a lot of men and women finding it very difficult to cope with the stresses life throws at them. Stress comes in a lot of shapes and forms. A lot of my morning clients are mid age, full time corporate employees with very successful careers, but at the same time highly hard working, and tirelessly giving their best in their jobs while also managing families, kids, and personal lives. But they are all achieving this at the cost of their own sleep, nutrition, and ‘always switched-on’/ restless minds. So, when they come for their sessions in the morning (which they have somehow forced themselves to do) they are so tired, sleep deprived, and have an empty stomach (with maybe a glass of wine a night before in their bellies), their body is already under stress due to lack of rest and nutrition. I feel they are the ones who need sun salutations the most, as it can help them move according to the way the body wants to move without starting with a lot of exertion straight away first thing in the morning.
   I am sure a lot of you would relate yourself to this lifestyle, so if you can’t come to the gym, but definitely have at least 15-20 minutes after your coffee, tea or water in the morning, just perform the number of sun salutations you can in that given time, and you will know what I am talking about. It will take care of not just your stress and anxiety, but will also prepare you for the rest of the day to come.
8. Boosts Energy
   As an active yoga practitioner myself, and being a mid aged woman, I have seen a lot of ups and downs in my personal health and wellness journey, and can confirm that when I move my body engaging myself with my breathes while performing the sun salutations, I see an instant boost of energy, attention, intention, and a positive mindset that gives me confidence to take on rest of my day keeping me less stressed, more focused, and with great energy.

Now, I would agree that you can get all of these benefits through a lot of other exercises too, as I have seen similar gains through regular gym training. In fact, when I was in a gym for straight 3 months in 2021 with a great routine, nutrition, consistency, etc, I gained great muscle mass, lost a good amount of body fat, and have felt at my best with my energy levels. I literally lost 10 kilos without compromising on eating. But for the matter of fact, that not all can have everything per their liking in a day to day routine now post covid, sun salutations are the keepers. They don’t limit you to being in a certain place, everyday, having gym or any pieces of equipment, etc to perform any exercise, you can gain all of these above mentioned benefits too by simply being at your home.

Sun Salutations is not just a yoga flow, but is a sublime workout for anyone who is looking to feel better and get stronger. I personally salute to the sun to stay on track with my physical and mental health. And I hope this article reaches everyone around the world who is trying to move with an open mind and an iron will!

Reach out to me if you are in Melbourne and looking for a personal trainer, fitness instructor, boxing coach, and a yoga instructor, and I will teach you sun salutations and the benefits of it no matter what you choose to do with your mind and body.

References
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Bera TK, Rajapurkar MV. Body composition, cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic power of yogic practitioner. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 1993;37:225–8.

Van Zyls, van der Merwe LJ, Walsh CM, et al. Risk factors for chronic life style diseases in three rural free state towns. S A Fam Pract. 2010;52(1):72–76.