It is well known that long term yoga exercises are an effective ways to promote health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of four kinds of short-time yoga exercises on grip strength, which is a good index of physical condition. The subjects were a male with four years of yoga experience and 21 males and females of various ages without any yoga training. The experienced subject (Subj. Y.Y.) and one of the untrained (Subj. K.Y.) performed the following four kinds of yoga exercises five times separately or in combinations: 1) uddiyanabandha (UB ; l0 min.), 2) kapala-bhati (KB ; 10 min.), 3) asana (AS; 15 min.) and 4) sukhapurvaka-pranayama (SP; 10 min.). The rest of the untrained subjects (Subj. (UGD performed UB only once. The subjects Subj. (M) and Subj. (m), who showed respectively the greatest increase and decrease of their grip strengths after UB, performed UB five more times. Grip strength was measured just before and after each performance with the use of a popular type (Smedley type) dynamometer.

Our findings were as follows:
1) The grip strength of Subj. Y.Y. was significantly greater by 2.8-4.1 kgf after the exercises than before them.
2) The increases in the grip strength of Subj. Y.Y. were not the same for each of the four kinds of exercises when performed separately, and combinations of them did not increase grip strength any more than the individual exercises did.
3) The grip strength of Subj. K.Y. was smaller by 0.9-1.4 kgf after the exercises when performed separately, but showed a small non significant decrease after the combination of UB and KB.
4) The grip strength of Subj. (UG) did not show any significant change after UB.
5) The grip strengths of Subj. (M) and Subj. (m) did not change after UB.

Effects of four kinds of Yoga exercises on grip strength