Yoga Exercises: 11 Poses to Try

How to Do a Downward-Facing Dog to Bear Crawl

1. Start in a tabletop position, quadruped on all fours, shoulders stacked over wrists and hips stacked over knees. Inhale, taking a deep breath as you let your belly slightly drop as you breathe through your midsection.
2. Exhale, drawing your abs tight around your torso as you tuck your toes under and lift your knees 1 inch off the mat, finding a bear crawl. Hold for a 3-count.
3. Press evenly through your fingers to press your hips back towards the wall behind you, knees straightening. Hold this down dog position, stretching through the backs of your legs.
4. On an inhale, bend your knees, returning to a bear crawl hover position.

How to Do a Warrior 2 Pose

1. Start standing in a wide stance position, feet wider than shoulders and toes facing forward.
2. Pivot your left foot out 90 degrees, so your left toes face the front of your mat. Aim to align the heel of your left foot with the arch of your right foot.
3. Extend your arms straight out to your sides, arms parallel to your shoulders. Pull your shoulder blades back and down, relaxing them away from your ears and creating length in your neck.
4. Bend your left knee into a low lunge. Your left knee should be stacked over your left ankle, left toes pointing straight ahead. Your right leg remains straight. Option to perform a slight backbend to deepen the stretch through your torso.

How to Do a Chair Pose (Optional Heel Float)

1. Begin standing in Mountain pose, feet together with your big toes touching.
2. Inhale and raise your arms above your head, perpendicular to the floor.
3. Exhale as you bend your knees, bringing your thighs as parallel to the floor as they can get. Your knees will project out slightly over your feet. Bring your pelvis and hips down as low as you can. This is the chair pose.
4. To increase the intensity, shift your weight into your heels. Then, slide the right heel out, toes pointing up.

How to Do a Triangle Pose

1. Start in Warrior II pose, then straighten your front (left) knee. You may need to step your right foot in slightly more narrow, depending on your range of motion.
2. Extend your arms straight out to your sides, palms facing down and hands in line with your shoulders.
3. Leading with your left fingertips, reach forward as far as you can, then lower your left hand to your left shin. Stretch your right arm up towards the ceiling, right hand straight overhead and shoulders stacked vertically.

How to Do a Horse Pose

1. Stand with your feet wider than your hips, heels in and toes pointed out (horse pose or sumo squat stance).
2. Bend your knees to lower down into a squat, pushing your knees out towards your pinky toes as you drop your hips parallel to your knees.

How to Do a Chaturanga Push-Up

1. Start in a high plank position with your shoulders stacked over your wrists, weight evenly distributed amongst all 10 fingers. Pull your kneecaps up towards your belly.
2. Hold this position, maintaining a straight line with your body, flat back, tight core and neck in line with your spine, gaze slightly in front of you.
3. Slowly lower your chest down towards the ground, keeping your elbows pinned to your sides. Keeping your elbows narrow engages your triceps rather than your chest muscles, as a standard push-up would. Maintain a straight line with your body: head, chest and legs in one straight line.
4. Once at the bottom of your push-up, exhale as you push back up into high plank.

Modification: Option to add an incline by placing your hands on a chair or bench. Or modify the push-ups by dropping down to your knees. You can also check out this post for more ways to modify push-ups.

How to Do a Child’s Pose to High Plank

1. Start in a high plank position, shoulders stacked over wrists, core engaged, pulling up on your kneecaps to engage your quads. Create a straight line through the torso from head to toes.
2. Drop your knees to the mat and shift your weight back. Push your hips back towards your heels to sit back into child’s pose. Keeping your arms extended out away from your body, as you drop your forehead to the mat.
3. Take a big inhale in child’s pose.
4. On your exhale, push your body forward, returning to the starting position of high plank.

How to Do a Puppy Dog Stretch

1. Start in a tabletop position (quadruped) on all fours; shoulders stacked over wrists and hips stacked over knees.
2. Walk your hands away from your body, extending them as far out in front of you as possible, while keeping your hips high.
3. Hold this position, lengthening from fingertips to tailbone with each exhale.

How to Do a Crescent Lunge

1. Start in a lunge position, right foot forward, left foot back. Drop your back left knee towards the mat. Your right knee is directly over your right ankle and your front right thigh is parallel to the ground.
2. Inhale and bring your arms above your head, keeping the arms in line with your ears.
3. To deepen the lunge, press firmly into your feet as you allow your hips to shift forward.
4. Exhale to release the hands down, reframe the front right foot, and release the pose.

How to Do an Airplane Pose

1. Start standing in Mountain pose, feet hip-distance apart, shoulders stacked over hips, arms straight overhead.
2. Shift your weight into your right leg, right foot planted firmly on the mat.
3. Lift your left leg straight behind you, performing a forward bend at the hips as you balance on the right leg. Your sit bones will shift up towards the ceiling.
4. As your torso comes parallel to the mat, the floating left hip should stay square to the mat.
5. Extend your arms to your sides or back towards your hips.
6. Lengthen the back of your neck so you are looking at the ground, creating a straight line from head to left heel.

Modification: Stand next to a wall or countertop so you can reach out for balance assistance if needed.

How to Do a Cat Cow Stretch

1. Start in a tabletop position (quadruped) on all fours. Shoulders are stacked over wrists, and hips are stacked over knees.
2. Find a neutral spine — think of the spine as a straight line connecting the shoulders to the hips. Keep the neck long by looking down and out.
3. As you inhale, find an arch pose by curling your toes under and tilting your pelvis back so that your tailbone sticks up. Drop the belly down as you draw your navel in.
4. Take your gaze gently up toward the ceiling. This is the cow pose.
5. On your exhale, round out for the cat pose. Release the tops of your feet to the floor and tuck your tailbone.
6. Draw your navel toward your spine and drop your head, gazing toward your navel.