'Alien yoga' is the latest bizarre fitness trend that’s taking over Instagram

The mesmerising technique is thought to promote digestion and strengthen the core - while showing off your abs of steel
Alien yoga is the latest trend to sweep Instagram
YouTube/AloYoga
Liz Connor22 May 2017

First we had ab cracks, then we had thighbrows - and now there’s a new body buzzword that’s about to take over Instagram.

‘Alien yoga’ is the strange new fitness trend that's gaining steam on the app, a viral challenge that sees users contort their ribcage into inverted shapes.

The yoga move is practiced by exhaling fully, isolating the abdomen and then pulling it into the ribcage.

The mesmerising effect looks like rolling water, showing off the person’s core strength through one fluid movement.

Videos of people practicing their best alien yoga poses have been flooding Instagram, splitting opinion from users.

It looks like a freak show parlour trick,” wrote one commenter on an Instagram tutorial for the trend.

“I'm sorry, but I don't think my belly does that,” wrote another. "It actually looks painful to me.”

While alien yoga might be something entirely foreign to Instagram users, the move has been around for centuries.

Traditionally known as ‘nauli’, the practice is said to have numerous health benefits from toning the core and helping with digestion to correcting hormone imbalances.

The challenging move can supposedly be mastered by a person of any age and level of experience, according to Nauli.org.

“Nauli cleanses the internal organs and tones the abdominal region via a side-to-side rolling motion of the abdominal muscles,” the website reads.

“Although nauli is not widely taught or used today in most Western yoga classes, in some classical yoga traditions, it was among the first exercises taught to new students, even before any asana was taught.”

In order to perform the yoga feat, Nauli practitioners suggest you first master four movements.

The first is an abdominal lock called uddiyana bandha, followed by madhyana nauli, vama nauli and daksini nauli which contract the central, left and right side muscles.

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By putting all four elements together, a person can learn to recreate the fluid movement demonstrated in the ‘alien yoga’ videos on Instagram.

But although many people are now taking on the viral challenge at home, experts have warned that nauli shouldn't be practised without supervision.

"It is a powerful action that can cause discomfort, or possibly, minor injury," say the team at Nauli.org. "Learning from an experienced yoga teacher is recommended."

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