But experts say chair yoga shouldn’t be pigeonholed, because anyone can benefit. “It is a practice that meets you where you are,” says Divya Balakrishnan, a yoga instructor in New York City. “You’re still using your strength and flexibility, just in other ways.”
While students typically crouch, sit, and lie down on a mat in traditional yoga classes, the chair, in a way, brings the floor closer. Some chair yoga classes are done entirely seated, moving through modified variations of classic yoga sequences without ever asking participants to get up. Other classes transition between sitting and standing while holding onto the back for a little extra help with balance, or doing poses like downward dog with hands on the seat instead of reaching to the floor.
Experienced yogis also use a chair for athletic feats that wouldn’t be possible on a mat alone. In particular, the Iyengar style of yoga uses a yoga chair (designed with an open back and a completely flat seat) for advanced postures like an upside-down inversion where the yogi’s shoulders rest on two chairs while their head hangs in between.
The health benefits of chair yoga
Research on the physical benefits of seated chair yoga has found that practitioners tend to improve their functional fitness and experience a decrease in how much pain interferes with their daily life. Much of that research has focused on older adults, who generally have a lower baseline of fitness than younger, healthy adults. It’s unlikely that people who are in peak shape would see as much benefit.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time for more athletic folks.
Although most people assume that sitting makes everything easier, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the challenge just changes: Pate says she actually feels her outer hips working harder in Warrior 2 on a chair than they do when she’s standing in the pose because she’s forced into a more neutral alignment, and bigger muscles can’t take over.
The same is true for breathing. Pate says that the extra support of the chair makes it easier to focus on breathing deeply and intentionally—something that many students forget to do once poses get challenging.
There’s also a simpler reason to do seated chair yoga: It just feels good. The low-key movement can help stretch out tense muscles and get some blood flowing without feeling like you have to do a workout that impresses anyone. Smith says that all the participants in his case series were incredibly enthusiastic about their routine. “You can tell that they really just love chair yoga,” he says.
Seated chair yoga may not build Olympic athlete–level strength and agility. But experts agree it still has plenty to offer, no matter your age or fitness level. “We all can benefit from calming down, observing our sensations in our body, and getting in a little bit of stretching,” Mitchell says.
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