How To Do Tadasana-Steps, Benefits And Precautions

Meaning of mountain pose

Let’s know what is mountain pose. Mountain pose or Palm tree pose is the base of all the standing yoga poses and one of the effective yoga asanas that give full stretching and relaxation from toes to fingers. There are few yoga poses that ensure full muscular movement and stretching to the entire body like mountain yoga. Along with muscular movements; nerves stretching are also uniformly distributed while practicing this yoga. The easily explained steps, benefits, precautions, images, and videos of mountain pose-Tadasana will help you to understand the heavenly yoga more systematically thereby extracting maximum benefits of it.

Different names of Mountain pose

Palm tree pose

Tadasana

Heavenly yoga

Base of all standing yoga

How to do the mountain pose step by step

First of all, one has to stand erect on the ground with 10 cm apart between the legs.
Initially, keep your arms besides your thighs.
Now, inhale, and raise your arms above your head.
Both the arms should be besides your head. It should be straight and stretched.
Feel the stretching from toes to fingers.
One can come on toes by raising the heels and feels the stretching evenly distributed to the entire body i.e. from toes to fingers.
One can also interlock one’s fingers while making the arms stretched upwards in the final position.
Maintain the pose as long as you can without movement
Do breathing slowly and deeply.
Exhale; slowly come to the original position.
This is one round.
One can perform 2 to 3 rounds as per own convenience.

To extract maximum benefits of a particular yoga pose, the breathing mechanism and awareness of inhaling-exhaling is utmost important. The same breathing rule is also observed with mountain yoga pose. Inhale slowly and deeply while raising your arms and coming on toes. While maintaining the pose, do inhaling-exhaling slowly. Deep exhale, bring your arms down and come to the original position slowly.

The muscular, especially the finer muscular movements are important in practicing yogic practices. Tadasana ensures adequate stretching from toes to fingers, which ultimately stimulates the finer muscular movements too result in soothing stimulation in the nerve regions.

How Mountain pose to practice in different schools of Yoga

The main motto to practice Tadasana by different schools of yoga is to having suitable stretching in the entire body thereby getting maximum benefits. However, there are some differences in practicing the palm tree pose in different schools.

Iyengar yoga: Here, the hands are being kept above the head or having them by the side of the thighs.
Vinyasa Yoga: The yoga pose is performed by coming on toes.
Ashtanga Yoga: It is the beginning and last yoga of Suryanamaskar (Sun Salutation).
Baba Ramdev yoga: Practicing by raising hands above head.
Power yoga: Here stretching, maintaining, and rigor of the posture are given importance.
Bikram yoga: It is Virksasana where hands are in namaskar mudra, standing in one leg and another leg is folded at knees and toes are touching to the upper part of other thigh.
Hot yoga: It is similar to power yoga but more strenuous in nature.

Top 10 benefits of mountain pose

There are many benefits of heavenly yoga pose. Some of the important benefits are being mentioned here.

Height increase: The pose helps to increase height at a younger age, especially up to the age group of 18-20 years. If you want to increase your height, do it on regular basis. The maintaining time of the pose should increase gradually. While stretching to the body from toes to fingers, feels it on every part of the body and also ensures no movements of body parts.
Weight loss: The suitable stretching to the entire body helps to shed extra fat from toes to fingers. But for this, one has to maintain the pose on regular basis for an appropriate time. It helps to give a slim and smart body.
Pain killer: To a larger extent, it helps to reduce pain, especially muscular and neurological pain. To have a soothing effect in pain, it is advisable to practice the pose slowly, calmly, and overall for a longer period of time. The asana is quite beneficial for back pain, lower spine, and pain from toes to fingers.
Helps in walking: According to great yoga guru Dr. BKS Iyengar, more than 90% of people don’t know how to walk therefore having problems in soles, heels, toes, knees, thighs, legs, back, etc. But practicing this asana with regularity, one can learn how to walk properly accordingly prevents many problems related to legs and thighs.
Sciatica: Sciatica is a very acute condition. Selective yoga is required to treat the condition. One of the important yoga poses is palm tree yoga that helps in treating sciatica. However, it is suggested to practice under the supervision of a yoga expert.
Healthy nerves: It provides suitable flexibility to the nerves of the entire body thus prevents you from many nerve-related problems.
Concentration: It is good to increase the level of concentration. Therefore, this yoga practice must be performed by the students who lack the level of concentration.
Legs strengthening: It is good for legs i.e. heels, ankles, knees, and thighs. It not only strengthens but also prevents deformities in the leg region. It is also good for hips mobility.
Spinal elasticity: This is one of the best yoga poses for spinal health and elasticity.
Flat feet: The regular practice of this yoga pose helps to prevent flat feet.

Mountain pose contraindications

Some of the few precautions/limitations of Tadasana are:

Pregnancy: Don’t practice it during pregnancy.
Varicose vein: Avoid practicing in case of varicose vein.
Dizziness: It should be avoided in dizziness.
Low BP: Skip it as blood tends to accumulate in the lower region of the body.
Headache: Don’t maintain for a long time.
Insomnia: It should be maintained for a brief period.
Knees: Do with care in case of knee problems.

For beginners, it is a little bit tough to perform with accuracy. Initially, perform it by keeping hands beside the thighs. In the second stage, raise your hands beside your head and feeling the stretching upwards. In the third and final stage, raise your heels and come on your toes and keep your hands above by interlocking your fingers, which needs more balance, practice, and stamina. While performing the pose, try to focus your mind on the stretching of your body, especially with the finer muscles.

Mountain pose has many variations.

In the simple case, one has to stand erect by keeping the arms beside the thighs.

In some schools of yoga, it is performed by raising the arms above the head and interlocking fingers. Arms are also kept parallel to each other and should be straight and stretched above the head.

The pose is performed on toes and interlocking fingers above the head by some school of yoga.

In some cases, namaskar mudra is also maintained.

There are some mistakes, which must be avoided to gain the maximum benefits of this yoga pose.

While maintaining the pose, movement should be restricted or there should be no movement at all.
Having pain in the legs, it shouldn’t be practiced.
During performing the asana, you have to focus and concentrate at a particular point to attain stability thereby getting maximum benefits of the same.

Tree posture (Vrikshasana )

Warrior pose (Virbhadrasana)

Headstand yoga (Sirsasana)

Shoulder stand pose (Sarvangasana)

Standing forward bend (Uttanasana)

Stick asana (Yastikasana)

Sirsasana
Sarvanasana
VipritKarni

The very base of anatomy, physiology and movement of finer muscles due to this yogasana ensures to perform correctly all the standing yoga poses. The various muscles of the body i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the feet, quadriceps, iliopsoas muscles, abdominal muscles, etc. involve in this yogasana. The knees are balanced by quadriceps femoris, ischialtuberosites. The abductor muscles hold the thighs together. If the hands are raised upward, the thoracic muscles are involved.

The video will help to understand better the pose.