Featured Review
Life can be stressful, and the prospect of a new baby on the way can at times add to it. Yoga is an activity many have found not only provides exercise and strengthening, but also is an effective stress reducer.
Sara Holliday's new DVD series Prenatal Yoga, provides you with a personal yoga coach especially tailored to expecting moms. There are three videos in the series, each providing a 45 minute yoga routine for each of the three trimesters of pregnancy.
We gave them all a try, and our non-yoga savvy testers had yoga experience ranging from none to beginner level. It's just stretching and breathing right, how hard could that be? Try it yourself and you'll see it's a real work out. You'll use muscles that seldom are called upon by our bodies.
Sara herself is appropriately pregnant in the videos and she progresses with you through the trimesters in the series. The first videos provide a more traditional yoga workout, while later ones really start catering to the pregnancy. Special care is given to poses and positions focusing on those that are safe and achievable with that larger tummy. Especially in the third video, Sara puts an added emphasis on the spiritual connection between mother and child which is a really nice touch.
The other special focus of Prenatal Yoga is to strengthen muscles that will be used during the labor process. Having proper strength and conditioning in these areas can, according to Sara, decrease labor pain and discomfort to some degree. That's a goal worth working towards if nothing else.
Some of our "guinea pig" testers were really feeling the burn well before the entire 45 minute session was done. Especially if you're new to yoga, it's more demanding than it first looks. But as Sara makes clear in her personal instruction, if a position is uncomfortable, you can simply do a simpler version or leave it out of your routine all together. No one is grading you, rather it's about getting the most out of the workout.
To get the most benefit from these videos you will want to use them on a regular basis. After a few times though the same workout you'll be able to hang with Sara through the entire 45 minutes. At the completion you'll have a real sense of completion, inner peace, and a strengthened bond with your unborn child.
The first trimester video was filmed in a studio. But for the second video Sara makes it out to the lake and beautiful surroundings, and the third shoot finds her at the beach. Sara's charisma and connection with the viewer also seems to increase as the videos progress into the second and third installment.
If you haven't tried Yoga, it's an activity you will want to consider. It's something that can be done indoors or out without any special equipment, clothing, or time requirements. And most importantly it's an activity that not only exercises your body but soothes your mind, which is great for the sometimes stressful endeavor of pregnancy.
Learn more about Sara and her Prenatal Yoga DVD series at fitbysara.com.
|
Sara Holliday's - Prenatal Yoga DVDs
