See inside every yoga pose! With clear, expert instruction and full-color, detailed anatomical drawings, Yoga Anatomy depicts the most common asanas to provide a deeper understanding of the structures ad principles underlying each movement and of yoga itself.

From breathing to standing poses, see how each muscle is used, how slight alterations of a pose can enhance or reduce effectiveness, and how the spine, breathing,and body position are all fundamentally linked.

Whether you are just beginning your journey or have been practicing yoga for years, Yoga Anatomy will be an invaluable resource-one that allows you to use each movement in an entirely new light.

Author Leslie Kaminoff is a recogniized expert and teacher in anatomy, breathing, and bodywork. He is the founder of The Breathing Project, New York Citiy's premier yoga studio dedicated ot the teaching of individualized, breath-centered yoga practice and therapy.

Contents

Acknowldgmens
Introduciton
Chapter 1 Dynamics of breathing
Chapter 2 Yoga and he spine
Chapter 3 Understanding the asanas
Chapter 4 Standing poses
Chapter 5 Sitting poses
Chapter 6 Kneeling poses
Chapter 7 Supine poses
Chapter 8 Prone poses
Chapter 9 Arm support poses
References and resources
Asana indexes in Sanskrit and English
About the author
Abut the collaborator
About the illustrator

This book is as technical as an anatomy book. It has been a long time since I read with a highlighter in hand. I used that highlighter a lot. There is a lot of detail that will require multiple readings to fully understand. I see why this book is so immensely popular. ( )

Very useful book to have. ( )

The book starts with two short chapters on the anatomy of breathing and the spine. The following main part of the book is a description of a variety of yoga postures (asanas). More or less all postures are covered in a systematic/uniform way, which consists of: a) anatomically correct drawings of a person in the posture (in the style seen on the cover), b) a listing of the involved/stressed muscles and joints, c) hints and warnings, and d) notes about the influence of the posture on breathing. On average, each posture is covered in two pages.

I found the first two chapters mostly comprehensible, sound, and interesting. In the main part I found items b) particularly boring/needless and skipped them. This made the whole book rather short, since a) and b) together on average take more than half of the space for each posture. The drawings of a) are nice and give a good view of the postures, but I could not make too much of all the muscles which are drawn into them. Items c) and d) contain some good suggestions.

It was a problem for me that the author uses a lot of anatomical terminology which I was not able to understand; an issue that should have been made clear on the backcover of the book. Nevertheless, despite the deep anatomical background, at times I had to doubt the logical correctness of the observations. For example, towards the end of chapter two the author claims on the same page (p. 36, German edition) that i) a flexion of the spine is related to inhalation and ii) a flexion of the spine results in exhalation. Also, the contact points of the body with earth in Padmasa seem questionable: the author claims that both knees shall touch the ground. This will lead to a skew position of the spine.

The book reminded me of a physiotherapist that once treated me: he always had a deep anatomical and impressive sounding answer to every aliment. Unfortunately, I was never really able to understand/follow his explanation. The cause might well have been my inferior knowledge ... or he did not really understand himself. God knows. ( )

Using this book, along with videos online, I was able to form my beginner's yoga routine. Thank you. ( )