Chair yoga
Chair yoga for beginners: what a first practice looks like
No experience, no floor work, and nothing to buy. A first chair practice, what to expect from it, and how to tell it is going well.
What you need, which is almost nothing
A stable chair with four legs and no wheels. Clothes you can move in. A wall or a clear bit of floor beside the chair for the standing part. That is the whole list.
Set the chair on a surface that does not slide, sit forward so your back is off the backrest, and put both feet flat on the floor. If your feet do not reach, a book under each one is the fix.
How to sit, which is most of the technique
Sit tall enough that there is length between your hips and your ribs, and no more effort than that. Shoulders down, jaw loose, hands resting on your thighs. Almost every seated movement starts from here, and the quality of this position decides how much the rest of it does.
Breathe through the nose if you can, and let the movements follow the breath rather than the other way round. If you find you are holding your breath in a position, that position is asking too much, and the answer is to make it smaller.
How to tell it is going well
You should finish able to do it again tomorrow. Effort is fine, and a movement that leaves you needing a day to recover was too much. Stiffness that eases as you move is normal. Sharp pain is not, and neither is anything that travels down an arm or a leg.
Range is not the score. A chin tuck of a centimetre done properly is worth more than a big one done with the neck. The same is true of every movement here.
What the research recommends
The WHO's 2020 guidance asks older adults for multicomponent activity, meaning balance and strength together, on three or more days a week. A first practice does not have to hit that on day one, and it is worth knowing what the target is, because it explains why the sequence below finishes standing up with a hand on the chair rather than staying seated the whole way through.
A randomised controlled trial of chair yoga in older adults with lower extremity osteoarthritis who could not take part in standing exercise used twice weekly sessions over eight weeks, and was associated with reductions in pain, pain interference and fatigue and with improved gait speed. Twice a week is a realistic place to start.
Sources
- 1WHO 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour
Older adults should do varied multicomponent activity emphasising functional balance and strength training at moderate or greater intensity on three or more days a week, to enhance functional capacity and prevent falls.
- 2Park et al., a pilot randomised controlled trial of chair yoga on pain and physical function in community-dwelling older adults with lower extremity osteoarthritis (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2017)
An 8-week chair yoga programme was associated with reduction in pain, pain interference and fatigue, and improvement in gait speed, with only the effect on pain interference sustained 3 months after the programme ended.
Where Vinys is different
- The first session is built from a short assessment rather than picked from a menu, so you are not deciding on day one which movements are a good idea for you.
- Every movement carries an easier option and the adjustments the library authors wrote for it, so making something smaller is a built in step rather than giving up on it.
- You can say the day is a bad one and get a different session, which is the difference between a practice that survives a flare and one that ends at it.
- Where yoga meets physiotherapy: the library is clinically authored, so a beginner sequence is graded rather than simply shortened.
A short sequence to try
- 1
Upper body warm up, in the chair · 3 to 4 minutes
Neck, shoulders, upper back and wrists, gently, before anything else. A good first five minutes of anything.
- 2
Cat cow, seated · 60 to 90 seconds
The clearest introduction to moving with the breath, and the easiest place to feel a spine actually moving.
- 3
Seated overhead reach · 30 to 60 seconds
A gentle overhead reach, which is the shoulder movement most quietly lost and the easiest to start getting back.
- 4
Supported forward fold · 30 to 60 seconds
Reaches the back of the legs and the lower back at once, with the thighs taking the weight of the upper body.
- 5
Sit to stand · 8 to 10 repetitions
Strength that shows up outside the session, on stairs and getting out of a low seat.
- 6
Seated rest · 1 to 3 minutes
Finishing properly is part of the practice, and this one does not ask you to get down and back up.
Around fifteen minutes. Twice a week is a reasonable start, which is the schedule the chair yoga trial used. Make anything smaller rather than skipping it, and keep the chair within reach for the sit to stand.
Common questions
I have never done yoga. Is this the right starting point?
Yes. A chair removes the two things that most often stop a first practice: getting down to the floor and standing unsupported. Nothing in the sequence above assumes any experience.
How long should a first practice be?
The sequence above is about fifteen minutes. Sessions in Vinys start at fifteen minutes for the same reason: shorter than that and there is not room to warm up, do the work and finish properly.
How often?
Twice a week is the schedule used in the chair yoga trial and a reasonable place to start. The WHO guidance for older adults asks for three or more days a week of multicomponent activity, so three is something to build toward rather than to begin at.
What if a movement hurts?
Make it smaller first, then use the easier option on the movement's own page. If it is still sharp, leave it out and speak to a clinician rather than working through it.
Do I have to do the standing part?
No, and it is worth knowing what is being left out. Balance is trained standing, and it responds to training at every age, so the standing movement done while holding the chair is the part that reaches the falls prevention half of the guidance.
Use a stable chair with four legs and no wheels, and put it on a surface that does not slide. Speak to your doctor before starting if you have had a fall recently, feel dizzy when you stand, have had a fragility fracture, or have a heart or lung condition. Stop and ask someone if a movement brings on sharp pain, dizziness, or symptoms that travel down an arm or a leg.
Also called chair yoga for beginners, beginner chair yoga, how to start chair yoga, easy chair yoga. Movements are drawn from the clinically authored Vinys library, and the guidance above is sourced to the publications listed. This page is general movement information, not medical advice, and it is not a diagnosis. How the method works.