Emotional well-being. Fall prevention. Chair yoga has a lot to offer
people of all ages
[May 22, 2025]
By LEANNE ITALIE
NEW YORK (AP) — Marian Rivman is pushing 80. Harriet Luria is a proud
83. In this trio, Carol Leister is the baby at 62. Together, they have
decades of experience with yoga. Only now, it involves a chair.
Chair yoga adapts traditional yoga poses for older people and others
with physical challenges, but the three devotees said after a recent
class that doesn't mean it's not a quality workout. As older adults have
become more active, chair yoga has grown in popularity.
“You're stretching your whole body,” Rivman offered. “What you can do in
the chair is a little bit more forgiving on the knees and on the hips.
So as you age, it allows you to get into positions that you were doing
before without hurting yourself.”
Sitting down to exercise, or standing while holding onto a chair to
perform some poses, may not sound like a workout, but Rivman, Luria,
Leister and practitioners everywhere see a world of benefits.
“I took it up because I have osteoporosis and the chair yoga is much
easier,” Luria said. “You don’t have to worry as much about falling and
breaking anything. It's not as difficult as I thought it would be, but
it’s not easy. And you really do use your muscles. It’s an excellent
workout.”
Yoga with a chair isn't just for older people
Chair yoga is clearly marketed to older women, who made up the class
where the three yoga friends got together at the Marlene Meyerson JCC on
the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But the practice also has a lot to
offer others, said their instructor, Whitney Chapman.
Desk workers can squeeze in 15 minutes of chair yoga, for instance. Many
companies offer it as a way to cut down on stress and improve overall
health. And people recovering from surgery or injuries may not be ready
to get down on a yoga mat, but they can stretch in a chair.
“I’ve known these ladies probably 18 to 20 years. And the very first
time in a yoga class that I brought in the chair, all of my students
said I don’t want geriatric yoga. I’m not an old person,” Chapman said.
“And then they saw that having a chair is just as good as a yoga strap,
a yoga block. It’s another prop that’s going to help you do what you
want to do. So it’s not necessarily because you’re older, but that it
can be helpful. And it doesn’t mean you’re geriatric just because you’re
sitting in a chair.”
The benefits are many, Chapman said: improved flexibility, strength,
balance. And there's the overall emotional well-being that yoga
practitioners in general report. It's particularly useful for people
with mobility issues or chronic ailments like arthritis or back pain.
Chapman also teaches yoga to cancer and Parkinson's disease patients.
In addition to restorative and other benefits, the practice of chair
yoga can help improve posture for people of all ages and abilities, and
help older people prevent falls.
A physical practice that can last a lifetime
Leister recently retired.
“I've been looking for all different kinds of exercises to do and this
is one of them,” she said. “This is the one that I could see doing for
the rest of my life, where some that are a little more strenuous I may
not be able to do in the future.”
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Whitney Chapman, right, conducts a chair yoga class at the Marlene
Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in New York, March 28, 2025. (AP
Photo/Richard Drew)
 Traditional yoga originated more
than 5,000 years ago in India. Many of the poses used today are also
that old. It can be as much spiritual as physical, and that also
goes for its chair descendant. The precise movements are tied to
deliberate, cleansing breathwork.
Rivman has been doing yoga for about 50 years.
“Once you start and you get what it does for your body, you don’t
want to give it up. And if there’s a way that you can keep doing it
and keep doing it safely, that’s a choice you’re going to make,” she
said.
Yoga by the numbers, including chair yoga
The practice of yoga, including chair yoga, has been on the rise in
the U.S. over the last 20 years. In 2022, the percentage of adults
age 18 and older who practiced yoga in the past 12 months was 16.9%,
with percentages highest among women ages 18–44, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to practice yoga, the
data showed. The percentage of adults who practiced yoga to treat or
manage pain decreased with increasing family income.
The CDC, didn't break out chair yoga for analysis but recommends
that adults 65 and older focus on activities that improve balance
and strength. That, the health agency said, can be achieved through
various exercises, including chair yoga.
Why don't more men do yoga?
Chapman and her students have thoughts on why more men don’t
practice yoga. Traditionally, Chapman said, the practice was
reserved for men, but as yoga became more westernized, women took
over.
“Women tend to be more group-oriented. I would love to see more men
in class. I do have a few. I don’t know if they’re intimidated, but
you know, it’s a great way to meet women if everybody’s single,”
Chapman said with a chuckle.
Luria theorizes that fewer men are drawn to yoga because it's not a
competitive sport.
“You're really working at your own level,” she said. “Take out the
competition and it's not their thing.”
These chair yoga practitioners have lots of advice. Rivman summed it
up best: “Get into a chair and do some yoga. You don't have to stand
on your head, but you have to move. You're never too old to start."
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