Yamuna

What is Yamuna?
Yamuna Zake created the total bodywork system generally named Yamuna after her in New York in the United States in 19791). The term of Yamuna is a registered trademark. Yamuna mainly consists of four different categories: “Yamuna Body Logic,” “Yamuna Body Rolling,” “Yamuna Foot Fitness,” and “Yamuna Face Ball.” Zake created the manual therapy called Yamuna Body Logic first. YBR was developed from Yamuna Body Logic to maintain the conditions of therapists and provide a home program for patients. YBR has the same therapeutic benefits as Yamuna Body Logic and uses a specialized exercise ball as a self-conditioning tool.

This unique program gives people distinct methods to work on themselves in order to sustain their postures, flexibilities, strengths, and alignments throughout their lives. Yamuna is a totally different concept compared with conventional “fitness” regimes and newly categorized as “Body Sustainability.” It has been widely used in many countries in North America, Europe, South America, and Oceania and in Japan.

Yamuna is based theoretically on people performing certain movements on a specialized ball called “routines” by controlling their own body weight and stimulating muscular origins, tendons, muscle bellies, and insertions. Repeating deep inhalation and exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, relaxing muscle tensions and making the body weight sink into the ball. After sinking into the ball as the muscles elongate, the person distally stretches or, in other words, self-tractions the intended body parts to increase the joint play. During stretching out of limbs, any rotational malalignment can also be adjusted. After one side is done, it is very important to evaluate and compare the conditions of the worked side to the other side. It is not recommended to forcefully press toward the ball because this activates the stretch reflex as an opposing effect.

The extraordinary effect of YBR is its multidimensional elongation of muscle fibers. In addition to the regular longitudinal elasticity resulting from the conventional stretch method, the transversal and diagonal expansion of muscle fibers by YBR enables the body to move more dynamically. Also, YBR can easily access to abdominal muscles and internal organs even though regular stretching cannot usually target those sensitive areas. For example, YBR can expand the rib cage to increase the lung capacity.