Paripurna Navasana: Full Boat Pose

The Paripurna Navasana or Full Boat Pose is a great pose for helping to strengthen and tone your abdominal muscles. This yoga pose can improve your digestion and balance, and is said to help stretch your hamstrings. I find it also helps aid in relieving stress and definitely improves my confidence after I complete it. In this post I am happy to bring to you the steps needed to complete the Paripurna Navasana successfully.
STEP 1: With your legs straight out in front of you, sit on the floor. Place your hands on the floor so they sit a little behind your hips with your fingers pointing toward your feet before strengthening your arm. Lean back slightly and lift through the top of your sternum. When completing this, check your back and make sure it doesn’t round. Continue by lengthening the front your torso between the top of your sternum and your pubis. Next sit on your tailbone and sitting bones.
STEP 2: Bend your knees and exhale before lifting your feet so they come off the floor and so that your thighs are angled about 45-50 degrees to the floor. With your tailbone, lengthen it into the floor as you lift your pubis up towards your navel. Slowly straighten out your knees as you raise your toe tips slightly above the level of your eyes. If you can’t do this, don’t worry, keep your knees bent and lift the shins so they are parallel to the floor.
STEP 3: With your arms, stretch them alongside your legs so they are parallel to each other and so they are on the floor. Spreading your shoulder blades so they sit across from your back, strongly reach through your fingers. If this isn’t possible you can keep your hands beside your hips on the floor or hold the backs of your thighs.
STEP 4: Firm your lower belly, but so it isn’t hard or thick. Keep it relatively flat before pressing your thigh bone heads toward the floor to help with anchoring your pose while lifting the top of your sternum. Easily breathe and with your chin slightly tip it so it moves towards your sternum so the base of your skull lightly lifts away from the back of your neck.
STEP 4: Hold this pose for up to 20 seconds before you increase it gradually up to 1 minute. Exhaling release your legs and sit upright while inhaling.