Gearing up for the yoga retreat I’ll be taking in a couple days, looking back at this strengthening type of flow I did at my last Costa Rica retreat!
I love just moving thru a flow when I can, but I’m also a huge fan of fitness in general. The stronger I become — especially in my core — the better I find my yoga flows. The easier I move. The more I can fold. The new things I can try. The longer I can hold poses. So every once in a while I like to just mix in some yoga moves with some “fitness” moves, and work on strengthening up my body to improve my next yoga session.
These exercises really help me in my yoga practice, so I hope they may be able to help you as well!
Some of the ones I focus on here:
Balancing poses — throwing in some crunches knee to chest while you’re in your version of warrior 3
Lots of twist variations — releasing tension down my back and in my spine; prayer twists are great for this
Standing lateral leg raises
Chair pose variations — leg strength but a lot of core strength too especially if you play around with your balance more here
Planks! Simply just working on holding planks will tighten you up — throw in some shoulder taps for an extra boost or going back and forth from a forearm plank and pushing back up
Even better than your standard plank — side planks! These are really hard for me; again just holding a side plank does wonders, but you can get a crunch variation in, or even just holding your leg in the air for balance will do great things for your core
Downward dogs to let your body stretch out — roll them out too if that feels nice
Superman type of exercises on your back — need to strengthen your back as it is part of your core
Keeping with plank themes — knee to nose crunches in plank; twist to each elbow too
Some boat pose type of crunches; holding boat pose is great in itself, I also like this what seems like a simple foot tap and elbow to opposite knee crunch, but if you do enough of these you’ll feel it in your whole body
Bridge pose variations for that booty! I like to take a couple dips if I am just in bridge pose, and pulsing it out too will really get the burn in your backside; lifting a leg up keeps your butt working and adds a more quad element in there
When I get sick of too many push-ups or planks or what not, I like this wheel pose push-up to get my arms activated — in wheel pose, slowly move your head closer to the ground and your arms will get that burn in, you only need to do a couple!