Energy expenditure and ventilatory responses during Virasana--a yogic standing posture.

Energy expenditure and ventilatory responses to yogic standing posture of Virasana were studied on 10 healthy men (25-37 years of age). The results of various responses respectively to the horizontal supine, Chair-sitting and Virasana were: Minute Ventilation (VE) 7.64, 8.61 and 18.67 L/min; Respiratory Frequency (FR) 15.71, 15.70 and 21.45 Breath/min; Tidal Volume (VT) 0.496, 0.544 and 0.827 L/min; Oxygen consumption (VO2) 0.127, 0.234 and 0.573 L/min; Carbondioxide Elimination (VCO2) 0.127, 0.134 and 0.420 L/min; Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) 0.58, 0.57 and 0.69; Heart Frequency (FH) 65.2, 74.5 and 104.4 beats/min; Oxygen Pulse (O2P) 3.32, 3.17 and 5.45 ml/beat; Ventilatory Equivalent (VE-EQ) 36.78, 37.12 and 33.85; Multiple of Resting VO2 (METS) 0.96, 1.05 and 2.53 and Metabolic Cost (MC) 1.04, 1.13 and 2.76 Cal/min. Virasana posture was characterised by higher VE, FR, VT, VO2, VCO2, FH and O2P with lesser VE-EQ. The observations suggest that Virasana induces temporarily a hypermetabolic state characterised by enhanced sympathetic nervous system activity which gets inhibited during the adoption of resting supine shavasana posture.