• Yoga delivers a whole-body workout: It stretches and aligns, builds strength, tones muscles, and gets your heart rate pumping.
• You can incorporate yoga for the ultimate in cross-training, since it stretches tight hamstrings, increases range of motion, and improve balance.
• A focus on deep abdominal breathing boosts energy and promotes relaxation.
• Beyond the physical realm, yoga improves your mental game by teaching awareness, focus, patience, and concentration.
• Instead of involving lots of equipment, your body weight provides resistance to strengthen and tone.
• Working up a sweat while releasing accumulated tension creates heat that detoxifies the body and improves circulation.

How it Works

Roll out your mat, take a few deep breaths, and enjoy the graceful, energizing, and detoxifying benefits of a few yoga moves. During a yoga practice, you’ll hold poses and link them together as one continuous flow to tone, strengthen, and stretch. For a complete workout, choose a mix of postures to challenge your body and elevate your mind. Each category has specific benefits: Standing poses build strength and stamina. Balancing poses improve focus. Forward bends stretch the back and hamstrings. Backbends open the chest and shoulders. Twists help to wring out toxins and tone the abdominal area. And inversions increase circulation, leaving you both calm and energized. For a balanced workout, choose a mix of poses to engage and strengthen different sets of muscles, reduce the risk of injury due to overworking one area—and avoid boredom along the way.

The Moves
Standing Pose: Warrior II
(Strengthens the legs, stretches the shoulders, opens the hips, sculpts the butt and thighs, and increases stamina)

Stand with your legs 4 feet apart, turning your feet so that the right foot goes out 90 degrees and the left foot turns in slightly. Bring your hands to your hips and relax your shoulders down your back. As you extend the arms out to the sides, bend your right knee, bringing the thigh parallel to the floor and gazing at your right hand. Look down at your kneecap and make sure it’s directly over your ankle. Stay for 1 minute. Repeat to the other side.

Modification: Leave your hands on your hips and don’t worry about bringing the thigh parallel to the floor; instead focus on lengthening the spine.

Balancing Pose: Tree Pose
(stretches and strengthens thighs, calves, groins, ankles, chest, shoulders and spine, improves focus, tones butt and thighs)

Stand with your arms at your sides. Shift your weight onto your left foot and reach down with your right hand, taking hold of your right ankle. Bring the sole of the right foot to the inside of the left thigh. The pelvis should face forward. Once balanced, bring your hands in front of you in prayer position. On an inhalation, bring the arms up overhead, palms separated and facing one another. Stay for 30 seconds. Repeat to the other side.

Modification: Instead of bringing right foot to the inside of the left thigh, bring the foot to left ankle with the toes on the floor to help you balance.

Forward Bend: Wide-legged Forward Fold
(tones the abdomen, strengthens the legs and thighs, stretches hamstrings, calves, and shoulders)

Stand with your feet 3 to 4 feet apart and bring your hands to your hips. Inhale and lengthen your spine; exhale and hinge at the hips to lean forward so that your chest is parallel to the floor. Bring your fingertips to the floor, directly under your shoulders. Take a few breaths here, lengthening your spine as you breathe. On the exhalation, come into the full pose: Bend your elbows and, keeping the sides of your body long, lower your torso and head toward the floor. Press your palms into the floor, bring your upper arms parallel to one another, and release the shoulders away from the ears. Hold for 1 minute.

Modification: Instead of lowering your head down, support it with a block.

Backbend: Bridge Pose
(stretches the chest and thighs, lengthens the spine, brings air into the lungs)

Lie on the floor with your legs bent, soles of the feet on the floor, and arms at your sides. On an exhalation, press your feet into the floor as you tilt your tailbone, slowly lifting your buttocks and lower back off the floor. To continue, clasp your hands under you and press into the floor with your arms and hands, lifting yourself further off the floor and coming more onto your shoulders until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Keep your knees directly over the heels and continue pressing the hips toward the ceiling. Stay for one minute.

Modification: Put a block underneath your sacrum to help you maintain the backbend.

Twist: Seated Spinal Twist
(stretches the shoulders and hips, boosts blood flow to the body, stimulates digestive organs, energizes the spine, tones the abdomen)

Sit on the floor with your legs bent and your feet on the floor. Then slide your left foot under your right leg to the outside of your right hip, bringing the outside of the left leg to the floor. Step the right foot over the left leg and bring it outside your left hip so that the right knee points toward the ceiling. Exhale and twist to the right. Bring the right hand to the floor behind you, and bring your left elbow to the inside of the right knee. Look over your right shoulder. Make sure your lower back isn’t rounding; if it is sit on a blanket. Stay for 1 minute. Repeat to the other side.

Modification: Instead of having both legs bent, straighten the bottom (left) leg on the floor in front of you.

Inversion: Half Shoulderstand
(strengthens shoulders, neck, legs; improves digestion, stimulates the thyroid)

Stack two folded blankets so they form a 12 x 20 rectangle. Lie on the blankets with your knees bent so that the blankets support your shoulders but your head is on the floor. Bring your arms alongside your body, palms down. On an exhalation, press your palms into the floor and lift your legs off the floor, bringing your hips up as high as comfortable. Your ankles should come directly in line with your eyes, and your back should remain at an angle to the floor. Bring your palms to support your back. Stay for 30 seconds, and build up to 2 minutes. Caution: Do not do this pose if you are pregnant or menstruating, have a neck injury, or have a history of heart disease, glaucoma, high blood pressure, or headaches.

Modification: Do the pose facing away from a wall, so that your feet rest on the wall behind you when you come up.

Sidebars:
1) Yoga Styles: Yoga is Not All Created Equal

Anusara
Focuses on rigorous alignment and experiencing inner joy and creativity through movement.

Ashtanga
A sweaty, standardized sequence of poses that connects movements with the breath and links poses together with “yoga pushups.”

Bikram (a.k.a Hot Yoga)
A standardized series of 26 poses practiced in a room heated to 105-degrees.

Flow (a.k.a: Power, vinyasa)
A vigorous sequence of poses linked by a specific series of movements done repeatedly.

Iyengar
Emphasizes precise alignment principles while developing strength, stamina, and flexibility.

Kripalu
Incorporates breathwork and meditation, all of which encourages inward focus and spiritual attunement.

Kundalini
Practices—breathing, postures, hand positions, chanting, and meditation—are designed to awaken the latent energy that sits at the base of the spine to experience your highest consciousness.

Restorative
Puts the body in supported positions using props suck as bolsters, blocks, and blankets so that it can relax completely.

Viniyoga
A slow and therapeutic form that modifies the poses for each individual and is particularly useful for those recovering from illness or injury.

Essential Beginner’s Videos
Can’t get to class? Get started on your very own yoga library.

Yoga Journal’s Yoga Step-by-Step Session 1: Foundation Poses for Strength & Stamina with Natasha Rizopoulos ($19.95; www.yogajournal.com)

Total Yoga: Earth with Tracey Rich and Ganga White ($12.95; www.whitelotus.org)

AM and PM Yoga for Beginners with Rodney Yee ($19.98; www.amazon.com)

Sun Salutations with Shiva Rea ($16.95, www.soundstrue.com)

Yoga Zone: Introduction to Yoga ($15; www.yoga.com)

Ashtanga Yoga DVD Set with Nicki Duane ($40; www.gaiam.com)

Yoga Tips: Enhance Your Practice

• Always breathe through your nose: If you notice your breath is shallow or forced, ease up on the pose or come out completely.
• Imagine hugging your muscles to the bone to engage your strength and rather than just relying on flexibility.
• Work from your core: Imagine that each pose emanates from your center for maximum benefits.
• Even when you are working hard, stay relaxed by softening your jaw and moving your shoulder blades away from your ears.
• When holding a pose, lengthen the body on the inhalation and move more deeply into the pose on the exhalation
• Don’t do inversions during the first two days of your period.
• If you have hyperextended arms or legs, keep them slightly bent instead of locking them.

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