Practising yoga during pregnancy can be beneficial for both, your body and your mind. It offers gentle stretches, relaxation, and strength-building that prepare the mother for birth.

Certain poses and movements, however, must be modified, or avoided altogether to ensure safety and comfort. Here is a trimester-by-trimester guide to safe and supportive yoga poses during pregnancy.

First Trimester: Building Strength and Releasing Tension

In the first trimester, you can maintain your usual physical activity, you make minor modifications for safety. Focus on strength-building poses to support your back and hops and avoid any fast or intense movements.

Head-to-Knee Forward Bend

Sit on a cushion or folded blanket with your left leg extended

Place the sole of your left foot against your inner right thigh

Inhale as you reach your arms overhead, then exhale to fold forward gently

Hold for up to one minute, then switch sides

Modification Tip: Place a cushion under your knee for support and use a strap around the ball of your foot to ease the stretch.

Cat-Cow Pose

Begin on all four limbs

Inhale as you arch your spine, lower your belly and look up

Exhale as you round your spine, tuck your chin to your chest

Repeat for up to one minute

Second Trimester: Embracing Flexibility With Caution

The hormone relaxin in this period increases flexibility by loosening ligaments. During this period, it is best to avoid deep twists, intense backbends or hot yoga.

Bound Angle Pose

Sit on the edge of a cushion, and press the soles of your feet together

Bring your feet in toward your hips to deepen the stretch

Hold this position for up to one minute, and repeat it 2 to 4 times

Modification Tip: Place a cushion under your knees for added support, or recline back on a cushion to reduce pressure on the spine.

Child's Pose

Start on all four limbs, bring your big toes together and spread your knees wide

Lower your hips back onto your heels and reach your arms forward

Hold for up to one minute, breathing deeply

Third Trimester: Moving Mindfully

As the baby grows, it might be more challenging to move with ease, thus practising mindful movements with breaks as needed could avoid intense twists.

Warrior II Pose

Step your left foot back, aligning it with your right heel

Open your hips to face the side and raise your arms parallel to the floor

Bend your front knee, making sure it stays aligned over your ankle

Hold for 30 seconds, then switch sides

Modification Tip: Perform this pose next to a wall for support, or place a chair under your front thigh for added stability.

Easy Pose

Sit on a cushion, crossing one leg over the other

Place your hands in a comfortable position and close your eyes, breathing deeply

Hold for up to one minute, then switch leg positions

Modification Tip: Use cushions under your knees or sit with your back against a wall for extra support.

Disclaimer: This is not a medical advisory, to ensure complete safety while practising yoga during pregnancy, please consult your doctor and trainer.

Seeing kids grow up is a rewarding feat for parents. The kids who used to be no taller than your legs seem to grow up too soon. While kids are biologically bound to grow taller, many factors can affect it. We are often reprimanded for slouching and sitting in a bad posture, however these often fell on deaf ears. However, these are very important factors to consider, not just for height, but also for your back health.

Many times, your posture prevents you from reaching your true height potential. When you slouch and compress your spine for long, you are bound to shorten your height. The Cleveland clinic explains that doing yoga can help you strengthen your posture and express your height properly.

For children, exercise plays a big role in their height growth. Other factors include what kind of food they eat and their lifestyle choices. Certain yoga poses are believed to stretch the body in ways that can potentially stimulate growth hormone production and improve posture, contributing to a taller appearance. Additionally, yoga is known for its relaxing properties, helping to alleviate emotional and mental stress, which can indirectly support overall well-being. Here are some you should try.

Yoga Asanas Children Should Do To Grow Taller

It is important to note that all the yoga postures (asanas) and breathing exercises (pranayama) described below should be practiced under the careful supervision of a certified yoga instructor. They can provide personalized guidance, ensure correct alignment, and help you avoid potential injuries.

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

This standing pose stretches the whole body, from your feet to your fingertips. This lengthening action feels good and is thought to encourage the body to produce more growth hormones. Stand tall with feet together, raise arms overhead while inhaling, lift onto your toes, stretch upwards, and then gently come back down.

Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)

Lying on your stomach, this pose stretches your lower and upper back, along with your abdominal muscles. It can also help reduce fat around your waist. By lifting your upper body using your arms while keeping your lower body grounded, you lengthen your spine, which is beneficial for increasing height.

Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)

Sitting with legs straight out, bend forward from your hips, reaching for your toes. This stretches your hamstrings and spine. Practicing on an empty stomach, ideally in the morning, is recommended. Besides stretching, it's believed to aid digestion and stimulate organs involved in growth.

Vrikshasana (Tree Pose)

Standing on one leg with the other foot placed on your inner thigh, raise your arms overhead with palms together. This balancing pose is thought to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is key in producing growth hormone. Hold the pose steadily, focusing on balance and a gentle neck stretch.

Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)

Standing with feet wide apart, bend sideways, reaching one hand towards your foot while extending the other upwards. This pose strengthens your legs and core, stretches your hips and hamstrings, and helps align your spine. Proper spinal alignment can contribute to a taller and more upright posture.

When you're a consistent runner, it feels like it's leg day, every day. Your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves are working hard — taking you up steep inclines, powering you through speed intervals, and carrying you to the finish line. So you naturally want to know: if you're running regularly, do you no longer need to do lower-body strength training?

The quick answer, not exactly. While running definitely makes your legs stronger in certain ways, it doesn't entirely substitute for the special benefits that result from traditional strength training. Here's what you need to know about how running develops strength, why strength training is still important, and how to strategically balance both for peak performance and injury prevention.

How Running Strengthens Your Muscles?

Running creates a specific kind of strength called strength endurance. This is the ability of your muscles to produce force repeatedly over a long time. Each time you take a step, there's repetitive muscle contraction building you up for sustained effort, much like performing a high-rep, low-weight exercise. Rather than lifting dumbbells, you're lifting your own body weight step after step.

In addition, running — especially when involving hill sprints, speed intervals, and strides — can create a bit of explosive strength, or the capacity to produce a large amount of force in a short time. If your runs, however, consist primarily of steady paces on flat surfaces, you won't be tapping into this kind of strength.

What running does not effectively build up is maximal strength — your capacity to generate the most force during one effort. Maximal strength training generally demands that you lift heavy weights for few repetitions, a stimulus running by itself just cannot offer, regardless of distance or speed.

Why Strength Training Still Matters for Runners?

Developing various kinds of strength depends on the idea of progressive overload: progressively putting more demands on your muscles by using heavier loads, more repetitions, less rest, or harder movements. Although running can incorporate some progressive overload — say, by adding mileage or hill sprints — there's a real-world and biological limit to how much you can push this.

Amplifying run volume significantly heightens your vulnerability to overuse injuries. Higher increases in training load were also associated with a greater incidence of injury among runners training for the New York City Marathon, a 2022 British Journal of Sports Medicine found. Not every athlete can or should go from 30 to 60 miles per week attempting to add greater strength — too often, risk just isn't worth the potential reward for many athletes.

Conversely, traditional resistance training provides a safer, more targeted, and more effective means of gradually increasing your muscle overload. Through lifting heavier weights, varying rest times, experimenting with tempo, and doing compound exercises such as squats, lunges, and deadlifts, runners can enhance maximal strength without having to significantly boost their mileage.

This additional strength translates back into your running: stronger muscles mean greater running efficiency, better injury resilience, and the ability to maintain good form even when fatigue sets in during longer distances.

Finding the Right Balance Between Running and Strength Training

If you’re wondering how to fit strength work into your running routine without feeling perpetually sore or exhausted, the key lies in smart scheduling and recovery.

Begin with strength training once or twice a week, preferably on hard run days to make your easy days really easy. Focus on full-body strength sessions, but pay particular attention to the lower body, core, and posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings, back). Most importantly, prioritize proper form and controlled movements over lifting as heavy as possible from the start.

Let your body adjust slowly. Sure, you may be a bit sore initially — especially if you haven't been doing much strength training — but eventually, your body will learn to cope with the increased stimulus. In the long term, the reward in enhanced running performance and decreased risk of injury is well worth the initial investment.

Is Running by Yourself Leg Day?

While running does develop muscular endurance and some explosive power, it doesn’t provide the maximal strength benefits that structured resistance training delivers. Therefore, if you’re serious about being a stronger, faster, and healthier runner, running alone shouldn’t be your only form of leg training.

Consider running and strength training as two pieces of a larger, holistic fitness puzzle. Both play a distinct but equally valuable role in supporting your performance, longevity, and athleticism.

Why Daily Running Provides More Benefits Than You May Realize

Daily running, when approached thoughtfully and with proper recovery, can provide a wide range of physical and mental health benefits that go far beyond cardiovascular fitness.

1. Enhanced Cardiovascular Health

Regular running makes the heart stronger, enhances blood flow, reduces blood pressure, and minimizes the risk of heart disease.

2. Better Mood and Mental Well-being

Running increases endorphins — the "feel-good" hormones — and has been associated with lower depression and anxiety rates.

3. Increased Muscle and Bone Strength

Consistent weight-bearing exercise such as running builds bone density and preserves muscle mass, particularly useful with age.

4. Improved Weight Control

Running burns a large number of calories and can aid in maintaining a healthy weight or losing weight when combined with well-balanced eating.

5. Longer Life

Several studies indicate that consistent runners have decreased death rates and longer lives than do non-runners.

6. Sounder Sleep

Consistent exercise such as running aids in keeping your sleeping cycle in check, thus falling asleep and sleeping better.

7. Cognitive Advantages

Running has been proven to improve cognitive ability, memory, and even induce neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells.

However, it's crucial to listen to your body. Adding in easy runs, cross-training, strength training, and some rest days will serve to avoid overuse injuries and have you running well for many years to come.

We have seen many actors often undergoing rigorous physical training to prepare for demanding roles. They also push their bodies beyond usual limits. One such star currently making waves for his dedication and fitness regime is Ranbir Kapoor. He is undergoing an intense training for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's upcoming film Love and War, which is set to release next year. The film also stars Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal.

A glimpse from Ranbir Kapoor's workout was shared on the Instagram, which left many fans and fitness enthusiasts in awe. His trainer, Nam, shared the behind-the-scenes image of the actor performing a front lever- one of the most challenging calisthenic exercises. The image also showed Ranbir's core strength, balance, and control. It also inspired many to push their own workout limits.

What Is A Front Lever?

The front lever is an advanced calisthenic exercise where the body is held parallel to the ground while suspended from a bar. It is a full body challenge with the only point of contact being the hands gripping the bar.

How can you perform a successful front lever?

Core Strength: The abdominal muscles and obliques work intensely to keep the body straight and stable.

Back and Shoulder Engagement: The latissimus dorsi (lats), traps, and deltoids support and control the body’s position.

Grip and Arm Power: A strong grip and enduring forearms are essential to maintain the hold without sagging.

Full-Body Coordination: The front lever is a compound movement, requiring synchronized muscle engagement for balance and stability.

In the shared image, Ranbir maintains a flawless posture, holding his body completely straight and parallel to the ground. His execution reflects immense strength, remarkable control, and serious commitment to mastering his physical abilities.

What Are The Benefits of Front Lever Exercise?

Full-Body Strength: This exercise activates multiple muscle groups simultaneously, making it an excellent full-body strength builder.

Enhanced Core Stability: With continuous core engagement, it helps improve overall balance, posture, and athletic performance.

Upper Body Power: Strengthening the lats, traps, shoulders, and arms helps improve other key exercises like pull-ups, muscle-ups, and deadlifts.

Grip Endurance: Holding a front lever builds serious grip strength, which is useful not just for workouts but for daily activities.

Functional Fitness: It improves body awareness and control, skills that are important across various sports and everyday movements.

What Does Ranbir Kapoor's Fitness Regime Look Like?

Ranbir Kapoor's fitness journey has progressed steadily and many have witnessed it, including people who have seen the recently shared post by his fitness trainer. Hie trainer Nam had been sharing glimpses of the hard work Ranbir is putting into his regime.

It started about four months ago, where a video showed Ranbir performing pull-ups with an advanced clap variation. It also showed his agility and upper body strength.

Furthermore, the post had made it clear that his transformation for Love and War is more than just looking good on the screen. It is about his intense training regime, and the unwavering discipline that he has also encouraged to his fans to follow.