Yoga Anatomy

by Leslie Kaminoff, Amy Matthews (Contributor), Sharon Ellis (Illustrator)

The best-selling anatomy guide for yoga is now updated, expanded, and better than ever! From breathing to inversions to standing poses, see how specific muscles respond to the movements of the joints; how alterations of a pose can enhance or reduce effectiveness; and how the spine, breathing, and body position are all fundamentally linked.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Reference, Fitness, Science, Spirituality, Self Help

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are curious to understand exactly what your body is doing when you practice yoga, a book like this one is an invaluable reference. Most yoga books include a brief descriptions of the effect of various asanas on the body, but rarely do they do in great details; “Yoga Anatomy” focuses specifically on the effects of yoga on breathing and spinal health, but they also give detailed information on all the musculoskeletal actions, as well as plenty of notes on how to get into the poses and work on them safely.

It must be said that the first 70 or so pages of the book are extremely technical: if you aren’t familiar with anatomical terms, it can quickly get overwhelming. While reading that part of the book, I often probed my back or flexed my arms and legs in order to identify the vertebrae or movement described so I could understand the explanations a little bit better. I also thought the image of “an accordion on top of a water balloon” to understand how the thoracic and abdominal cavities work when you are breathing to be really helpful to keep in mind during practice. But once you are over that section, the fun begins!

Asanas are organized by “base” (standing, sitting, kneeling, etc.), and each pose has a detailed illustration (or a few, to show you what the body is doing from different angles) showing you which group of muscles and joints are working and how. I found the accompanying notes and breathing technique recommendations very useful to get a more complete understanding of what exactly it is that I am doing when I am working on crow pose.

Of course, they had to choose which asanas to explore, so the ones featured in this book are the basics and the classics – but the information can help anyone make educated and informed guesses about what the body is doing when working on funky variations. And as mentioned, the information is limited to the muscles, joints and skeletal actions, so there isn’t a lot of details about the effects each asana has on inner organs.

Nevertheless, serious yoga students should definitely take a look at this book if they wants a more thorough understanding of the physical effects of their practice.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess I’m one of those people that likes to understand the how and why of everything I do. Therefore, whenever I workout, I find myself wondering about the purpose of each particular exercise. Am I actually working, strengthen, or stretching my muscles in a way that is beneficial to my body or am I just wasting my time? Am I doing the exercises correctly or am I setting myself up for an injury? Perhaps that’s why I love the Anatomy series from Human Kinetics. They have a number of different books that take a deeper look at Stretch Training, Stretching, and Yoga exercises. 

Yoga Anatomy has full coloured pictures of the body for a wide variety of movements: breathing, standing poses, sitting poses, kneeling poses, supine poses, prone poses, and arm support poses. These pictures show which muscles are in use during a particular motion. Extra information is then included about which joints are involved and which muscles are lengthening and working during the process. Each entry also notes proper breathing as well as information on any challenges associated with the pose.

In this way, there is no guess work involved. I know exactly what each posture is meant to do, which muscles I’ll be working, and how to prevent injuries. I can then take full responsibility for my health and fitness.

[Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a yoga anatomy book, I expected to learn proper alignment and details of challenges to getting into the poses. Instead, I found the book just listing muscles that are involved in the pose with the diagram. I was not impressed.

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it looks like a textbook and it smells like a textbook, it is a textbook. For better or for worse, Yoga Anatomy has become a popular text for numerous reasons. One of them being that the book takes photographs of yogis in poses to show the joint actions of bones and muscles in each pose. It is important to remember that everybody's bodies are different and that impacts how we come into an asana pose, so these are general benchmarks.

Another source of its popularity lies in the introductory chapters that discuss the dynamics of breathing, yoga and the spine and the skeletal and muscular systems. I particularly enjoyed the new chapter on inside the asanas that provided further context into how the authors decided to analyze the asanas.

I enjoyed this but it's not the most accessible textbook for those that do not read scientific articles or texts. That being said, anatomy is important for yoga teachers and curious students, so I will most likely return to this as a resource when building class sequences.

[Imran Pasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5!! 😬 I was expecting little bit more like biological mechanisms behind yoga posses..

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has several competitors, and so this review will focus on a few of the features that I believe make it one of the best books on yoga anatomy, and the most appropriate for many users. To clarify, H. David Coulter’s “Anatomy of Hatha Yoga” has some advantages over this book, but Coulter’s book is also denser and will send neophyte readers to the glossary / internet / library much more often. On the other hand, some of the other yoga anatomy books fixate entirely on postural yoga and treat it entirely as a matter of skeletal alignment and muscular engagement. While a lot of this book (and any such book, really) focuses on skeletal alignment and muscular engagement, I appreciated the books exploration of breath and the nervous system – topics that are often neglected. In short, this book offers a mix of reader-friendliness and detail that makes it at once approachable and tremendously informative.

One important feature of this book is that it avoids the dogmatism of some yoga texts, encouraging experimentation and recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach to bodies is bound to fail. This can best be seen in the “Cueing Callout” boxes that explore the pithy adjustment directives for which yoga teachers are famous (and often satirized,) advice that is often misunderstood in ways detrimental to a student’s progress.

A second key feature involves keeping anatomy and physiology distinct from the folk science of yoga / ayurveda. While Kaminoff and Matthews do refer to ideas like prana and apana, they do so in a broad, conceptual way that doesn’t conflate said ideas with science. A common problem in yoga texts is conflation of science with folk science such that confused readers are left with a muddle of puzzle pieces that don’t belong to the same puzzle.

Finally, as one who’s found pranayama (breathwork) to be one of the most profoundly transformative elements of a yoga practice, I appreciated that the book not only had a chapter on breath dynamics, but that all the posture discussions included a “breath inquiry” section that encouraged readers to reflect upon the effect of the posture on breathing, as well as suggesting ways in which a practitioner might experiment to improve one’s breathing.

The only criticism I have is that many of the text-boxes in the early chapters seemed to contain random information that could have been incorporated into the text, into footnotes, or edited out altogether. [In contrast to the aforementioned “Cueing Callout” boxes that had a clear and distinct purpose.] If you’re a yoga teacher or dedicated practitioner without a deep scientific background, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than this book for learning about the anatomy of yoga.

[Tara Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was assigned to me as a required resource for Shala, and I credit it for my passing of instructor training today! :) The breadth & depth of the material is amazing. It reflects so much care, work and attentiveness to detail. It really is anatomy for yogis. First of all, the illustrations are absolutely crystal clear (the amazing artist, Sharon Ellis, is a medical illustrator). The drawings show exactly what your muscles and bones are doing in each pose. The coolest part is that we get to see some of these poses from interesting angles - not just the side view and front view - but also from the bottom and top, which really adds a lot. For example, imagine seeing "Bakasana" (Crane Pose) from underneath! You can see the Serratus Anterior and Iliacus at work - two things that may be difficult to view in traditional yoga anatomy books. Anyone who is a serious student or teacher of yoga should own this book.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Felt that there were iffy scientific principles being espoused. Very detailed in their descriptions of the muscles and joints actions for each posture. But also a bit too much detail to the point where it was unnecessary and not valuable. Limited number of postures covered.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Went from a library rental to a purchase in about 18 hours. I’m so glad to have stumbled across this.

[Lady Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 5 / 5

Having read through the dense biology of this book (which I was not expecting) and now using it primarily for different images of what yoga poses look like so I don't have to search up the poses on my phone, I'd say that this book has served its purpose. The reason why it's taken me so long to read when a lot of it turns out to be illustrations?

Well....the last time I took biology was in grade 11. Literally the only exam in my life that I ever stressed out for, as it had a LOT in terms of memorization. I spent 8 straight hours studying for it one day and that's, to this day in my postgraduate studies, the most time that I've ever spent studying for anything. You see where I'm going with this? Biology, though interesting, takes a LOT of work for a non-scientific mind like me, and so it took quite a lot of doing for me to read about the musculoskeletal system even in terms of something that I love, like yoga.

But I did it, and the images that gave me the poses I needed afterwards were totally worth it--especially now that, having read the biology, I understand the facts to back it all up.

So, yes, this is definitely a recommended and great read, but for those of you literati out there like myself, it would help to have a scientific background and a lot of patience to help you get through this.

Myself, I'll be keeping it on a table in a convenient place to be opened as needed for a reference on yoga poses. The cover is super pretty and interesting (though I can't do that pose), so it's a nice addition to any room.

[Anas Alrowaili · Rating 5 out of 5]

It always dazzles me as a personal trainer how yoga books tackle the human anatomy, I have studies ISA curriculum and took a look at other ones and honestly all of them failed miserably in my own opinion to capture the human movement anatomy as much as this yoga book has, beside I feel the curriculum is too cramped which just to give basic information and not actually prepear any personal trainer to work with clients so you need to have a background in sport in order to be a good coach.

I am a mobility and rehabilitation coach and as part of my own vision of spreading awareness about movement and the importance of bodyweight workouts as a functional training that will help my client to live a healthy and good life which helps them to strengthen and mobilize their muscles and joints this was very insightful.

The book speaks about the anatomy of the body and it's correlation with each other and specify on the importance of understanding how the body works, My greatest insight is when you stretch even passively your not actually just stretching your strengthening the antagonist muscles that helps your body towards these yoga poses and stay in it for the required time, I understood that the muscles fiber moves in every possible direction to make your body and muscle move in a certain way and that's something the personal trainer curriculum fails to capture.

The book has a library of movement and the muscles that function with it and which muscle is working in what way to be able to provide the desired outcome from the move another thing the personal trainening curriculum fails to capture miserably


Honestly 10 out of 10 if anything I wanted a bit more more this book

[Starla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love trying to say all the names Sanskrit. And then remenbering how to say them later in the studio :)

[Anna Hower · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down because it’s such a small niche. This book is for those who have some of both anatomy education and yoga experience. It’s a ‘take what you need’ type of text- some of it was what I was interested in and some of it was lists of what each muscle is doing in a pose. Loved the description of breathing! I read it cover to cover but will use it as a reference in future.


“ that which is essential to our health, freedom, and clarity is not missing, but may be obstructed. Therefore, we achieve yoga by identifying and removing the Klesha (afflictions) from our system. “


“ the recognition of confusion is itself a form of clarity.” T.K.V. Desikachar

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is more useful as a reference book than as a book that one would read straight through. I found the introductory chapters really hard to get into. They just didn't interest me. However, the sections on the individual poses are really great and I would imagine that anyone going through teacher training would want to have a copy of this on hand to refer to when learning to teach/cue/adjust any of the postures. It's worth having a copy of this book for that alone.

[Linden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a thorough examination of the musculoskeletal system, breathing, spinal alignment, bones, and joints. Standing, sitting, supine, arm supported, and kneeling yoga postures, identified with both English and Sanskrit names, are accompanied by detailed illustrations to indicate which systems of the body are involved.

[Tom Weissmuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding resource to keep in the studio to aid practitioners.

[Pearl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and written in a friendly style that teaches you a fair amount of scientific info without confusing you. Somewhat of a balm for the fact that yoga studios are still closed here.

[Sosyolog Feline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yoga alanında anatomi adına en iyi kitaplardan.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm working on my yoga certification and this book was perfect for what I needed it for! I appreciated the detailed chapter on breath in the beginning that described breath as a "shape change". Diagrams of the skeletal joint actions and the muscles involved were also super helpful

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of the information is medical verbiage and yoga speak, which I do not know. What I found helpful was the graphic pictures showing which muscles are engaged in each pose. The book did give info on how to do the pose and where focus should be directed.

[T.L. Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff discusses yoga's effect on the body and the body's effect on yoga. Kaminoff starts by explaining the dynamics of breathing and of yoga breath. This section alone is worth the cost of the book! I noticed an immediate improvement in my breathing during yoga poses and therefore an improvement in the poses after reading the section on breathing. Yoga Anatomy then goes on to show yoga poses from an anatomical view highlighting the parts of the body that should be working and/or that are affected by the pose. The yoga name and a translation for each pose is provided. Each pose is classified and given a level. The joints that are active, the work the body is doing, the muscles being lengthened, the obstacles for each pose, notes to help with the pose, and breathing are all discussed in relationship to each pose. There are moments when the descriptions for the poses have so much in common, the reader feels a sense of de ja vu while reading. I even felt like there were times when I wasn't actually internalizing what I was reading until I was moving into a pose the next day or even a few days later and would suddenly remember reading about the pose and realize why the pose hadn't been working for me and how to correct my stance, my breathing, or my focus. Yoga Anatomy is easy to read and understand, but a reader should be prepared to take some time, especially if the goal is to use the book to improve one's yoga practice. I read it a little at a time over several months in order to internalize what I read about each pose. Yoga Anatomy is a great book for anyone interested in practicing yoga or for anyone who practices yoga but struggles from time to time with a pose or yoga breath. Yoga Anatomy has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf as a reference book! After all, it's already proven beneficial to my yoga practice.

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty solid anatomy guide for anyone that practices yoga and wants to understand the poses - what the muscles are doing, what the joints are doing, how your body is affected by stretching/pulling/breathing.
The illustrations are great, highlighting the primary muscles involved, showing how the weight should be distributed and what's anatomically going on.
I do love the explanations for each asana, how different movements change the focus and stresses on the system, and I really like that the book starts out with basic anatomy lessons.   Even though I have a background in biomedical sciences, it's a good refresher, and also helps clarify what the author is trying to say when describing each pose.
 
The book is also well laid out, having sections categorizing the different asanas (sitting, inversions, back bending, etc.)

[Olya Chizh · Rating 1 out of 5]

A pretty useless book. Don't see why there's such a fuss.
The only good thing about it is its illustrations, so one may want to use it as a reference atlas.
Just below the picture there are muscles enumerated. How is this supposed to help?
There's hardly any advice on how to enter the poses to turn on the necessary muscles or how to avoid any undesireble action. There's some. But hardly enough.
Any serious practitioner will find the information in this book superficial. Judging by the amount of explanations, the book is really just a collection of nice reference pictures.
Not all the poses included. Most popular ones,yeah, but not all.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, for sure.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book! I've been doing yoga for a while now and wanted to learn more about it, so I grabbed the first books about yoga I came across. They were very spiritually based and not what I was looking for at all. There is nothing wrong with the spiritual side of yoga, but I was looking for something based in physiology and not existential. This book was perfect. The break down was easy to follow and the illustrations were great. I refer back to this book often.

[Norma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purchased through Barnes & Noble


I found this book to be a wonderful reference book for those seeking a better understanding of what is going on in the body when achieving different poses and the proper use of breath. I wouldn't advise this book to be anything read straight though in one sitting; it really is something to look back on as you advance in your own personal yoga practice.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of yoga’s better anatomy manuals, Kaminoff offers enough key poses and variations to give asana practices a handle on what’s happening. Each pose provides a few pictures with detailed explanations of which muscles are working, which are stretching, what each joint is doing, and how to surmount common obstacles. I use this in tandem with Blandine Calais-Germain’s “Anatomy if Movement” when I want a deeper understanding of the practice and how to teach it.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definite must read (and study) for any and all yoga teachers, even more so if you have taken only a weekend yoga course. This is meant to show you what muscles are engaged and when, plus how the breath affects the musculature and the bones.

IT IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST in every yoga teacher's library.

[Hannah Barkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super helpful for my practice! I'm not well versed in anatomy, so I had to read this book with my computer by my side, searching terms I didn't know and seeking out extra information when I was curious; this made for a slow read, but it was worth it. This is a great handbook to have around for anyone who practices yoga.

[Amy Suto · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping this book would go more into the benefits of the different poses, but instead it's more dry and focuses only on what's being activated in different poses. There's not as much info as I'd like about how to safely practice each pose, either. Just a very basic textbook, helpful but not as helpful as it could be.

[Cinthia F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I marked this book as read but I should really say "glanced." It was way too technical for me. I enjoyed reading about the parts of the body that are affected by breathing but after than and even in that section I got uninterested in the detail. Real science nerds and yoga aficionados may enjoy it. I needed the children's version.