Living Large

Hatha yoga isn't just for the slim and slinky. A few basic modifications can make its gifts--flexibility, balance, strength, stress reduction, and increased awareness--accessible to every body.

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

Midway through her first yoga class, Kay Erdwinn wanted desperately to disappear.

Erdwinn had come to the class, not far from her Southern California neighborhood, in search of a noncompetitive, inwardly focused way to exercise. Instead, she found a teacher who demanded that she upend her five-foot-two-inch, 260-pound body into Halasana (Plow Pose).

The teacher hunkered down beside her on his hands and knees, egging her on like an overadrenalized sports coach: "Come on, come on, you can do it," he barked. Each yell made her feel more inadequate and humiliated. Erdwinn, then 23, didn't have enough self-confidence to gently tell the teacher what she was thinking: "I know you want me to do these asanas really well, but I am not here to compete and get really aggressive." She fumbled though the class as best as she could, then ran for the nearest door and never came back. "The whole thing scared me away," she recalls.

But Erdwinn didn't stay scared. She still wanted to find a meditative movement practice. In addition, she had fibromyalgia and had read that yoga might help relieve the muscle pain, sleep disturbances, and chronic fatigue that accompanied it. Erdwinn tried practicing from a book, checked out a few classes in nearby health clubs, and finally, years later, found the class her instincts had always told her must exist.

Unlike her first experience, this class was small and warm and welcoming. The instructor, trained in Ananda Yoga, began each session with meditation, offered advice gently without singling anyone out, and routinely told her students that if any asana didn't feel possible, they should feel free to explore ways they could make it work for them.

Erdwinn felt as if she'd come home. The classes offered her the meditative, spiritual atmosphere she'd been hoping to find. As she practiced, she grew stronger, more flexible, and less easily winded. She didn't lose weight, but she felt much healthier. And, she says, yoga has put her in much better touch with her body. "Being very aware of my body has been a tremendous gift," she observes, noting that this awareness has grounded her, emotionally and physically, and provided a number of benefits in her everyday life, including greater relaxation and better posture.

Today, Erdwinn, who has recently completed medical school and will soon begin a residency in psychiatry, practices yoga regularly and sometimes teaches Ananda Yoga classes she designs specifically to welcome all body types. She is among a growing number of yogis with expansive bodies who are twisting, balancing, and bending. They're exploring this ancient tradition and making it their own.

They are learning that yoga is an equal-opportunity pleasure. The ease, relaxation, power, and joy of settling into a pose are all available to people of every size. Once a few special issues are addressed--some personal and some cultural--large yogis can get the same benefits from a physical yoga practice as anyone else: flexibility, balance, strength, stress reduction, increased awareness, and a better link between mind and body. With 64 percent of Americans now labeled either overweight or obese by doctors, this message has never been more needed. And it is a message that is increasingly being heard.

Fat and Fit

For large folks interested in exploring yoga, it can be helpful to explode the myth that good health comes only in thin packages. Body size is far less critical to overall health than even many doctors realize, says Glenn Gaesser, director of the kinesiology program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health (Gurze, 2002).

In analyzing numerous medical studies, Gaesser found that inactivity and a bad diet contribute more to poor health than weight itself, and that it is possible for large people to lead fit, healthy, and long lives. "The benefits of weight loss have been kind of oversold," he says. It is much easier for a large person to be (or become) fit than to become slim, and the health payoff is likely to be greater, Gaesser adds.

Weight itself--separate from the issue of a sedentary lifestyle--puts relatively few limits on a yoga practice. A heavy yogi's joints will be under more stress and so should be treated more gently. Some asanas may need to be modified to allow for big bellies, backsides, thighs, and upper arms. Finally, for safety reasons, inversions may need to be omitted. In terms of general cautions for heavy yogis, that's pretty much it. Other modifications differ from individual to individual; large people, just like thin ones, vary enormously. They run the gamut from fit to deconditioned, strong to weak, and flexible to stiff.

In fact, many of the preliminary steps on the road toward a personal yoga practice apply to everyone--young or old, big or small. If you're a newcomer, it's important to first determine what you want. Do you mostly want relaxation and help meditating? Do you want to bring increased movement into your life gently, or would you prefer a rigorous, athletic workout? Would you like a tool to help you lose weight, or would you rather accept and value yourself exactly as you are, without any expectation that your weight should change?

It's also important to honestly assess how fit and healthy you really are. When starting any new fitness regime, people should know their health issues so they can practice safely. Erdwinn thinks everyone older than 40 should see a doctor before taking up yoga. In addition, she says, "large people tend to avoid health care, because they hate to get hassled about their weight, so there is a greater risk that they have undiagnosed problems."

Also, people who don't exercise or eat well might have certain health conditions that should be considered when deciding what to include in a yoga practice. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can make positions with the head placed below the heart--including some backbends, some forward bends, and inversions--dangerous. Diabetes can hamper the sense of balance. Holding the breath while inverting can be dangerous for anyone with a history of heart disease.

In addition, those starting a yoga practice should take stock of any existing joint or muscle issues and be aware of potential weaknesses. Carrying a lot of weight puts a great deal of stress on the feet, ankles, and knees. And someone with a big belly might need to modify certain asanas to protect the lower back.

After assessing health, it's time to consider fitness--probably the biggest physical factor in choosing which type of yoga to pursue. Unless you already exercise often and strenuously, you should avoid yoga traditions that stress jumping into and out of poses, because the rapid moves increase the risk of injury. At least in the beginning, you may also want to rule out yoga styles that stick to a set of predetermined asanas, such as Bikram Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. Larry Payne, director of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and coauthor of Yoga for Dummies (For Dummies, 1999), says that "a canned, one-size-fits-all approach" can be inappropriate for people who would benefit more from a practice that puts greater emphasis on modifying poses to suit each individual.

Reza Yavari, a Branford, Connecticut, endocrinologist and clinical faculty member at Yale University, has developed guidelines for matching his patients with the styles of yoga that best meet their needs. Yavari works with five yoga instructors at his Beyond Care clinic to design personalized programs to lower stress and manage osteoporosis, diabetes, weight loss, and other health issues.

He likes to prescribe flowing vinyasa-style sequences, often taught by Kripalu Yoga instructors, for his relatively fit but bulky patients, many of them men. For large patients with less muscle tone, he prefers Kundalini Yoga. "Instead of focusing on strength and balance," he says, "Kundalini focuses on short intervals of repetitive movements. It builds lung capacity and tones the cardiovascular system." For large people with back problems and neck pain, Yavari recommends restorative yoga classes. He does not advocate Bikram Yoga for anyone who is weighty and unfit, believing it leaves the door open to potential injury--although most Bikram instructors disagree, as do some heavy practitioners who swear by the Bikram method.

A Full-Bodied Approach

With a little knowledge, research, and perseverance, aspiring plus-size yogis can find their way to a rewarding yoga practice. Some people, like Kay Erdwinn, run into roadblocks on their journey. It can be hard to feel welcomed in a world where yoga has an image as the exclusive territory of the lean and the limber, where ads glamorize buff yoga bodies, and where teachers aren't always knowledgeable about and sensitive to the needs of large students. For others, such obstacles never arise. Some large yogis move easily into a comfortable and appropriate practice, nurtured by understanding teachers or branches of yoga with traditions of shaping the asana to the individual.

"I was so lucky that the first teacher I tried turned out to be the right teacher for me," says Kevin Knippa of Austin, Texas, who wandered into a recreational class near his house six years ago. He saw quickly that it didn't matter at all to his teacher--or to the essence of his yoga practice--that he weighed 270 pounds at five-foot-ten or that his belly got in the way of forward bends and demanded gentler twists.

As Knippa continued to practice, his flexibility grew. His asthma lessened. His weight remained stable, while his health flourished. Knippa, who has recently signed up for a teacher training program, firmly believes his entry into yoga was smoothed by his teacher's emphasis on avoiding competition and moving toward pleasure, as well as by Knippa's own "as if" philosophy of life. "I act as if I'm supposed to be there," he says. "I act as if I'm comfortable doing something. And I pretty rapidly become able to do it and comfortable doing it."

If you're a large student getting started in yoga, perhaps you'll be as fortunate as Knippa. Maybe you're lucky enough to live in an area where specialty classes with names like Big Yoga or Yoga for Round Bodies can be found. If there is no such specialty class near you and you live a fairly inactive life, classes labeled "gentle" can be more appropriate than those dubbed "beginner," which can be quite rigorous.

After finding some classes that look promising, you can learn a lot by phoning in advance and arranging to speak with the teachers. Ask whether they have experience or interest in teaching large students. Inquire about the age, fitness level, and size of the people in their classes. Ask if there are chairs, bolsters, blocks, or other props available, and if there’s an unmirrored wall that can be used as a prop. If the instructor's attitude about weight and weight loss will be important to you, make sure you discuss those topics.

Once you have found a class to try, go into it with these all-important cautions. First, move slowly into and out of poses. Second, stop any movement that is painful. "Yoga is meant to be something where you challenge yourself but don't strain yourself," explains Payne, who helped create a course in yoga at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA. "You're not supposed to stay in a posture that feels intuitively uncomfortable."

A Practice That Fits

After sizing up your goals and health, finding a yoga style and teacher suited to you, and beginning to practice, you will find yourself confronting the special issues that need recognition. Large students should seriously consider excluding inversions from their practice, or at least significantly modifying them. Inversions can put strain on the neck, and extra weight can be too difficult to balance. A commonly recommended alternative is Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose), in which you lie on your back with your buttocks at a wall and your legs perpendicular to the floor and supported by the wall. All the other elements of a physical yoga practice--forward bending, backbending, stretching the sides, twisting, and balancing--are accessible to large students, although they can present their own difficulties.

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