Unique Aerial Yoga Accessories

If you love aerial yoga and have your own yoga swing at home, you’re probably looking for new tricks, accessories and apparatus to use to improve your technique. When it comes to aerial yoga accessories, there are loads of unique and interesting items available to choose from!

When you’re wanting to integrate some mat yoga or floor work into your aerial workouts, or you need to stretch a particular area of your body, there’s something on this list for you.

So, without further delay, here is a list of awesome accessories to help you step-up your aerial yoga game! Enjoy!

1. Yoga Swing Hanging Ladder

Why stop at a hammock, swing or trapeze when you can have a hanging ladder?! Use this ladder with your existing hardware and rigging to expand on the versatility of your aerial yoga skills.

You can use the rungs on the hanging ladder to make some really cool shapes:

If you need some extra padding and comfort in your yoga swing to perform more advanced poses, try a cushion insert for your swing.

These cushion inserts are a very simple design, you slide the cushion length-ways into your swing, fold it over at the sides and you’re ready to comfortably swing!

They’re great value at $25 and there’s a choice of 5 colours!

The Yoga Wheel is the ultimate apparatus for anyone trying to improve their back bends. There’s also loads of other poses and stretches you can perform using the Yoga Wheel. A high quality one like this from UpCircleSeven can support 500lbs+ so you can be confident it will support your weight.

Aerial Yoga Accessories to help you up your game

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4. Extra Large Yoga Mat

If you find yourself wanting to stretch out more than a regular mat allows, this extra large yoga mat could be the answer to your floorwork troubles!

At 72″ x 48″ – it’s practically double the size of a regular yoga mat and it’s really thick and padded. That means it’s great for using outdoors too. Alternatively, use this beneath your yoga swing for added support.

Need a neck adjustment when you’re out and about? Look no further! Neck pain is the root cause of millions of headaches and migraines every day. It’s not the only cause of headaches, but it is a big contributor!

Having access to a chiropractor or aerial yoga stand can help – but they’re not always available on demand if you’re out and about at work, etc.

This portable device allows you to adjust and stretch your neck. You can use it at home, when travelling or at work.

Ready to buy your very own aerial yoga hammock for use at home? You’ve come to the right place to read reviews about the best yoga swings and inversion tools currently on the market!

Aerial yoga, or anti-gravity yoga, is a relatively new form of yoga that involves a metal frame or rig on the ceiling supporting an aerial yoga hammock, or silk. Practitioners can use the hammock like a swing, gently bending forward or backwards, or engaging in more advanced yoga postures, much the way trapeze performers in the sky engage in acrobatic spinning maneuvers.

Some studios offer aerial yoga, but you can do aerial yoga at home if you’re motivated and have the right gear. The best yoga swings and aerial inversion tools are fairly easy to purchase and set up.

Where can you buy aerial hoop? Yoga shops and sporting goods stores may have one or two swings available, but Amazon is the best place to find the biggest variety of options. Read on for our top recommendations for yoga swings and trapeze products!

Aerial yoga is said to help open the hips and relieve back pain or tightness. Of course, it can also serve simply as a way to provide some variety to your yoga practice and to help you expand your horizons by trying out some basic moves.

“Anti-gravity” is just a fancy way of saying aerial. It means that you’re doing yoga moves off the ground. The equipment goes by many different names – you’ll hear terms like hanging yoga, hanging ropes, anti gravity yoga hammocks, inversion tools, trapeze stands, gravity swing inversion tools, and pull up bars.

Generally, these terms are all referring to different pieces that work together as part of an aerial rig. Don’t be confused by the term “silk” – that’s just another word for an aerial yoga hammock, regardless of whether it’s really made from silk (most are not.)

Ready to try aerial yoga at home? Most people do aerial yoga in a large room or door frame. You could even do it in a garage or outdoors in the yard by hanging it from a tree branch. If you’re curious about giving anti-gravity yoga a try in your house, these are the some of the best yoga swings you should consider.

Right now the king of the aerial yoga marketplace is the company known as UpCircleSeven. Their inversion swing has been around for more than four years, and it’s currently one of the best-selling items of its kind.

The parachute and rope material are sturdy, so they will give you plenty of support for poses like Banana Man once you find the right door frame or rafter to attach it to. In fact, its stated load capacity is 550 pounds, which is far more than anyone will need.

One great plus with the UpCircleSeven is that its handles are larger and have more padded foam than those from some other companies. This increases the comfort level and makes it a solid choice for newcomers. This one comes with two extension straps and a printed guide for people who may be getting into anti-gravity yoga for the first time.

The UpCircleSeven swing price is about average compared with other anti-gravity yoga swings available for sale. You don’t want to pinch pennies when it comes to a device like this that requires stability and quality construction!

Aerial yoga is a fun, modern take on traditional yoga that involves using a silk hammock for support as you perform yoga poses as well as strength and conditioning exercises.

This form of yoga involves many of the same poses you would find in other yoga classes and can be performed by anyone at any level, including beginners.

What sets aerial yoga apart, though, is that some part of your body will be interacting with the hammock, which can make certain poses easier and others more challenging, says Kevin Bigger, teacher training director at Om Factory School of Yoga. 

"The introduction of the aerial hammock to a traditional yoga pose will sometimes offer support, but it can also sometimes make a pose significantly harder as you have to contend with balance," says Bigger.

Aerial yoga is typically practiced in a group setting at yoga or fitness centers, with trained and certified aerial yoga instructors.

Sessions are usually 60 minutes and can cost anywhere between $25 to $55, says Alexander Fenton-Irias, group fitness coordinator at Crunch, South Beach.

If you've never done aerial yoga, here's what you can expect in a typical session, according to Bigger:

Hammock assignment: When you arrive, you will be assigned a hammock, which will be adjusted to your height. Most beginner classes require the hammock to be waist-high.

Warm-up: The instructor will take you through a warm-up routine, which may or may not involve the hammock.

Workout: The main workout will consist of a combination of traditional yoga poses performed with the hammock (which is typically three to four feet above the ground, depending on your height) as well as conditioning exercises. A yoga pose you might perform, for example, is the half moon pose, which is done with the hammock supporting your hands, ankle, upper back, or hips. Examples of conditioning exercises include supported pull-ups and plank pose variations using the hammock. 

Inversions: You will likely also spend some time hanging upside down in different inverted positions, which allow the spine to relax and lengthen.

Cool-down: The cool-down period could include a guided meditation and the aerial version of corpse pose, where you lie in the hammock and relax your body completely.

Initially, people who try aerial yoga may experience nausea when they're upside down; however, it usually goes away after the first few practices, says Fenton-Irias. 

In general, yoga is proven to increase flexibility, improve balance, build strength, and ease back pain among many other benefits. Aerial yoga has similar benefits, though the research is more limited on this particular form of yoga. Here's what the research on aerial yoga has found so far for how it may improve your health.

Aerial yoga not only improves your balance but also builds muscle strength as you hold yourself upright in the hammock using your arms and core. 

"Aerial yoga targets all your muscles. It requires a lot of core engagement and upper body strength, and depending on the pose, the leg muscles will also be required to put in some extra work," says Fenton-Irias.

"In fact, almost every pose in yoga swing stand requires a little bit more effort from your ... core than a grounded yoga class. For instance, when one of your legs is in the hammock and the other is on the floor, your core and inner thigh muscles need to engage more specifically to help you maintain balance," says Bigger. 

A small 2016 study commissioned by the American Council on Exercise that involved 16 healthy, female participants aged 18 to 45 found that doing three 50-minute sessions of aerial yoga per week for six weeks resulted in:

Weight loss of 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) on average and reduced body fat percentage

Improved blood glucose and blood pressure levels

Most people can participate in an aerial workout, ranging from young children to adults in their 80s, says Bigger. 

For people with special needs, mobility limitations, or other concerns, Bigger recommends starting out with a few private classes, before enrolling in a group session. 

Consulting with your healthcare provider first can help determine whether this workout is appropriate for you, says Fenton-Irias.

"Like all forms of physical exercise, it is possible to injure yourself in class. In aerial yoga, you could fall out of the hammock, but this happens very rarely. It is no more likely that a student would injure themselves in aerial yoga than they would in other yoga classes," says Bigger.