Yoga bra design for elderly women

With the increasing number of elderly women who are participating in yoga exercises, it is important to recognize the importance of yoga bra designs because they are closely related to the psychological and physiological needs of elderly women. Commercial yoga bras, however, usually target younger women. They neglect that the aging process has profound influence on the biomechanical behavior of the breasts which changes how yoga bras should be designed. Yoga bras usually have various components that will contribute to their overall performance in terms of their ability to shape the body, provide support, feel comfortable, and fulfil aesthetical requirements. Many efforts have been made in the literature to evaluate the performance of yoga bras. The majority of the approaches adopted have been a questionnaire survey. The answers to the questionnaires are mostly subjective and based on the satisfaction of the participants with their yoga bras. However, more advanced and systematic technologies have been recently introduced, such as motion capture for motion analysis, finite element method for virtual modeling, and three-dimensional body scanning to investigate the support of yoga bras and the interaction between the bra and breasts. To design the optimal yoga bra for elderly women, not only would their physical conditions need to be taken into consideration, but also their psychological parameters. In this chapter, the design of a yoga bra that considers both of these factors will be discussed accordingly.