Science of Yoga: Understand the Anatomy and Physiology to Perfect your Practice

Love this book. Much needed. I keep going back to it to check specific postures and make sure the right parts are engaged.

This book is an excellent, concise guide to understanding joint mobility and muscle engagement. I’m hooked - I’ve sat down to read it for pleasure twice already! As an experienced and senior yoga teacher, finding a book I want to read, and return to, is gold dust. The clear illustrations, with color-coded visuals for engaged and stretched muscles, make it easy to see and understand key movements. I especially appreciated the practical tips throughout, which, while familiar, are very useful for teachers looking to share helpful insights with students. Overall, it simplifies complex concepts, concretes the anatomically relevant facts and provides actionable advice, making it a great resource for both personal practice and teaching. I love it!

This book is fabulous! It shows you what muscles are being used and how they are being stretched! A very in-depth book for someone interested in the body and how yoga affects certain parts of the body.

Having practiced yoga for six years at home, attending different classes and watching videos it's become a big part of my wellbeing and mindfulness. So much so, I wanted to learn more before formally enrolling onto a yoga teaching course. While I do enjoy yoga that focuses on the spiritual side somewhat, I was thinking about what my style would be and what I most enjoyed at my local classes. And I really loved the science of it. So, when I came across Ann's book "Science of Yoga: Understand the Anatomy and Physiology to Perfect your Practice" I knew I had to buy it immediately! When it came, I read it quickly from cover to cover and it was absolutely fantastic. After an introduction, it moved into breaking down some of the most loved asanas one by one, first at a glance and then with a closer look. While the science behind yoga is still very much being explored, the book explained simply yet comprehensively what each asana does to the body scientifically. The diagrams are colourful and clear, and this really should be a book that every modern yogi or yoga teacher has in their book shelf. I highly recommend it.

Extremely detailed book.

If you want to see the anatomy of what yoga can do to the body this is the book for you. Clear well drawn diagrams and quite informative.

Love this book I am new to yoga so also bought a beginners book but this book shows you every single muscle, tendon, ligament that is being used when in each pose, I have arthritis at the C vertebrae of my spine and it causes pain in my neck, shoulders and back this book shows you which poses will stretch/ strengthen the muscles to help ease the pain, quite technical but helps you identify where the pain can be coming from, very good book would absolutely recommend

This book is so clear, concise, easy to navigate and understand. Being a visual person, the colours and layout really appeal to me. I have always been so curious when in yoga class as to why a certain pose is good for me - this book gives great insight into these benefits. How alignment, breath and variations are set out in the book and all the other interesting pieces of information on any given page are really well placed. The ‘Closer Look’ aspect really compliments ‘The Big Picture’. As someone who doesn’t have a background in anything related to anatomy, this book has given me a great foundation to work from and a new dimension to my yoga practice. I think the biggest compliment I can give this book is that my 4 year old son often asks to look at it or read it .

Unfortunately I returned my copy because I received it damaged. I can only talk about my first impressions. At first glance the way that knowledge is presented seems a little too general, the layout is a like a chaotic school textbook too. That may be appealing for some but me personally, I like simple, old-fashioned books where the knowledge is condensed in an organized manner. I could probably still learn from this book as it approached many different subjects. Now, the illustrations are fantastic. Too bad they decided to put those detailed, beautiful illustrations split across two pages, which makes them almost useless. You can't even read some descriptions. This is a huge flaw in my opinion. Possibly in the future the format could be slightly bigger, and some illustrations smaller, so one would fit on a single page. That, I would reorder.

解剖学的な視点から英語の勉強も兼ねて身体を把握したくて購入。満足です。

This fascinating book combines impressively simple explanations of how yoga impacts your body and how to perform each yoga pose with the in-depth illustrations for which DK books are known. I say “impressively simple” because the author, Ann Swanson, managed to condense a large amount of yoga research and anatomical information into a compact, highly readable format. The book begins with a primer on human anatomy and physiology – there’s a two-page spread on each of the major systems of the body, such as the digestive system and the skeletal system, along with details about how yoga can impact each system. As someone who hasn’t taken an anatomy class in about 18 years, I really appreciated this refresher! Next, there are two-page spreads on each yoga pose, or asana – the asanas are organized into the seated asanas, standing asanas, inversion asanas, and floor asanas. The incredible full-body illustrations of each pose show which muscles are engaged and/or stretched by each pose. As a newcomer to yoga, I especially appreciate the alignment diagram for each pose, which provides detailed instructions on exactly how you should position your body to perform the pose safely and effectively (i.e. forearms should be rotated inward). Speaking of safety, there are variations suggested for most poses to accommodate injuries and preferences. The third part of the book, the Q&A section, covers topics from “Stress,” to “Cautions” (poses to avoid if you have certain medical conditions), to “On the frontiers of science” (a lovely summary of the process of health research and how to evaluate any yoga studies you hear about in the news). Finally, I love that the author included a bibliography, which is organized by chapter – Ann Swanson provides the full citations to the scientific studies she references in the text, so you can easily look up the study yourself if you want more information. Overall, this is a beautifully done book, which I recommend highly to everyone from yoga newbies to yoga teachers!

Detailed and informative. Happy to have it in my library.

Great book - informative and easy to follow with great drawings