Strength for Yoga (2025)

22/12/2022

Do you struggle with bird dogs? 🐦🐕

On the surface, bird dogs look like a relatively easy exercise. All you have to do is raise an arm and a leg while maintaining a tabletop position.

But many yogis experience the bird dog as anything but easy! It’s all they can do not to lose their balance and tumble to their mat like a house of cards.

If you can relate to that sentiment, try this trick! Put a yoga block (or other block-shaped object, like a book) on your back; then try your bird dog.

The block provides feedback on how your torso is positioned in space, helping you keep hips more level and hopefully steadying you into a more stable pose! 🧘🏽‍♀️

➡️ For more quick strength tips to support your yoga practice, sign up for the Strength for Yoga email list! 📫 https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

16/12/2022

Upgrade your lateral lunge (with handcuffs!) 😱

I once had a virtual training client who struggled like crazy with lateral lunges. (This is Travis, by the way!)

When my client laterally lunged, his natural tendency was to stay bolt upright with his torso and dive his working knee forward.

I tried my darndest to explain through the Zoom window how I wanted him to push his hips back and allow his torso to come forward. But my words failed every time. 👎

Then I remembered the handcuff drill!

The handcuff drill is one I sometimes use to teach the deadlift (i.e., hip hinge). To perform the drill, you simply hold a light kettlebell behind your back as you hinge.

The kettlebell constrains your upper body (like handcuffs), which often elicits a proper backward weight shift and the nice long spine we love in the hinge. ✅

While the lateral lunge isn’t *exactly* the same movement as the hip hinge, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try the handcuff drill out in this case.

To my delight, it worked like a charm! From the very first rep, the constraint transformed my client’s lateral lunge exactly how we wanted it to. 👌

His torso inclined forward while his chest stayed proud, and his knee stayed back instead of diving forward.

We practiced a few reps with the kettlebell handcuff to “lock in” the movement pattern. Then we removed the cuffs and practiced transferring the same shape to a bodyweight lateral lunge.

Admittedly, I felt pretty clever having thought to apply this deadlift drill in another context (the lateral lunge). If you try it, I hope you feel clever, too! 💁‍♂️

➡️ For more quick strength tips to support your yoga practice, sign up for the Strength for Yoga email list! 📫 https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

08/12/2022

Want to build up to pistol squats? Try this first! ✅

Part of what makes the pistol squat so challenging is the high degree of hip flexor mobility and strength it requires of the *non-working* leg.

The skater squat eliminates that (unnecessary!) challenge. 🛹

In the skater squat, the knee of the non-working leg taps down to a yoga block behind you – or the floor if you’re super strong.

Because the hip of the non-working leg stays extended behind you during a skater squat, it tends to make it easier to balance and control the movement. ⚖️

To begin working on your skater squat, start by stacking 2-3 yoga blocks behind you and working through a small range of motion. Holding a couple of light dumbbells in front of you as a counterbalance can also help.

As you get stronger and more controlled, remove some of the height so you’re working towards being able to go all the way down to touch the floor behind you. 💪

Happy skater squatting, yogis!

For more quick strength tips to support your yoga practice, sign up for the Strength for Yoga email list! 📫 https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

23/11/2022

We couldn’t wait – our Black Friday sale has begun! 😱

If you've been considering getting either (or both!) of our Strength for Yoga creations…

❇️ Book and 8-week training program: “Strength Training for Yoga”

❇️ Follow-along practices: “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings” and “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings”

…now is the time to snag them! Now through Monday, 11/28, get *50% OFF* these awesome resources for yogis! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/black-friday

Now about this video we’ve featured here! 😉

As you may already know, one move we’re big fans of is the single-leg deadlift (known on the mat as Warrior 3!). It’s included in both our book and our hamstring program.

As you also may already know, Warrior 3 can be tricky to learn to coordinate. For that reason, we thought we’d take this opportunity to share NINE tricks for honing your Warrior 3:

1️⃣ Band feedback loop
2️⃣ Yoga mat leg-lock
3️⃣ Blanket sliding
4️⃣ Broomstick behind back
5️⃣ Broomstick scarecrow
6️⃣ Broomstick overhead reach
7️⃣ Kettlebell to belly
8️⃣ Sliding hand on bench
9️⃣ Sliding foot on bench (this one might just be our favorite!)

These tricks often work like magic for yogis. But not every trick works for every person. If you find Warrior 3 challenging, try several of these tricks to see which one resonates with you!

And remember to take advantage of our *50% off Black Friday sale*, now through Monday, 11/28!

17/11/2022

Everyone knows the “correct” way to perform a vinyasa:

1️⃣ Plank
2️⃣ Chaturanga
3️⃣ Upward-facing dog
4️⃣ Downward-facing dog

And everyone also knows these 4 steps are “supposed” to be distinct, separate poses.

Yet oftentimes we DON’T see it done that way. We see people blend chaturanga and up dog together, “scooping” between the poses.

Yogis almost universally consider this blend a bastardization of the vinyasa. Many sticklers insist it should be *banned* from our practice. ❌

Given this state of affairs, it may surprise you that there’s a *nearly identical* movement in strength training that trainees deliberately do: the Hindu Push-Up.

In the Hindu Push-Up, you start in down dog and, in one deliberately blended motion, scoop down and up into up dog.

The goal of the Hindu Push-Up is to target the upper body pushing muscles halfway between a horizontal direction (a push-up) and a vertical direction (a down dog push-up). ↗️

How can virtually the same movement be demonized in one context and enjoyed in another?

At , we believe what’s important is the intent behind the movement. 💭

If you’re scooping your vinyasa because you lack the strength or awareness to perform the poses distinctly, it could be worth addressing.

But if you have the strength and awareness and just like the way the Hindu Push-Up-style vinyasa feels, then maybe instead of “banning” it, you should consider it a viable vinyasa variation (a triple-V!).✅

➡️To celebrate the Hindu Push-Up, we’ve included it in our Remote Group Training (RGT) program this month!

Our November theme is Dancer Pose, which means many of the exercises are targeted at improving Dancer. (Can you see how the backbend in the Hindu Push-Up is specific to Dancer?) 💃

To join in on the fun of this supposedly banned transition, start your free trial of RGT today! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/group-training

11/11/2022

The best wrist exercise you’ve never seen! 👀

As yogis, we regularly practice yoga asanas that involve bearing weight on our hands. Think of downward dog, plank, chaturanga, arm balances, handstand… The list goes on and on!

There’s nothing wrong with bearing weight on our hands. In fact, doing so can serve to strengthen our wrists! 💪🏽

But if you think about it, even though we practice an abundance of asanas which ask us to bear weight on our hands, in all of these asanas, our hands are in the exact same position: our palms are on the floor with our fingers spread (a.k.a. “wrist extension” in anatomy speak.)

Wrist extension is a great position in which to train our wrists. But if it’s the *only* position in which we work our wrists, this may not be so ideal. That’s because we know that our joints tend to be happiest when they experience a variety of different types of loads – and our wrist joints are no exception!

This is one (of many!) reasons that we love the rarely-seen wrist exercise we’ve featured in this video today – especially for yogis. The wrist extension push-up trains our wrists in a complementary position to the one they’re used to in yoga.

We start with our hands in fists, and then we slowly lower the tops of our hands to the mat – moving through wrist *flexion* (the opposite direction of movement from wrist extension!) as we do so. From there, we reverse the movement to bring our hands back into fists.

(Quick point of clarification: although we’re targeting our wrists in flexion, the muscles that are actually doing the work here are the wrist extensors – thus the “wrist extension push-up” name for this exercise. 🤓)

Working our wrists in this manner can help make them stronger and more resilient, and potentially happier in our yoga practice over the long term. That’s why we of course include them from time to time in our Strength for Yoga programs.

Build strength with us today in Remote Group Training, with our new 5-week programs, or with our book, Strength Training for Yoga! 📕 https://www.strengthforyoga.com

06/11/2022

What's something that a yogi could do for some overhead pulling strength that doesn't require a pull-up bar?

What a great question! Here, Travis demonstrates two options that only require a resistance band and a heavy anchor point for the resistance band (like a heavy furniture leg, a heavy kettlebell, etc.)

The first exercise Travis demonstrates is the quadruped pull-down, in which we start in a quadruped (hands-and-knees) position and we pull down on our anchored band.

To step things up by adding a core and balance challenge, you can the opposite leg from the arm you're pulling with back for the bird dog pull-down!

Guess what! We include both of these great exercises as options in our new month of Remote Group Training that just launched.

Our theme this month is building strength for dancer pose. Now is the perfect time to dive in and join us – start your free 7-day trial today! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/group-training

31/10/2022

How could getting stronger improve our backbends? 🤔

Each yoga backbend variation is unique, but they all share one element in common: a certain degree of flexibility in many of our major joints.

In general, all backbends involve end-range

🔹spinal extension

🔹hip extension

🔹shoulder flexion (if the arms are overhead)

🔹shoulder extension (if the arms reach down and back behind you)

So if we can improve our flexibility in any of these areas, this should help make our backbends in yoga more easeful.

At , we often talk about the fact that when we strength train through full ranges of motion, this not only increases our strength, but it also increases our flexibility. And it does so just as effectively as passive stretching does – can you believe it??

This flexiblity-through-strengthening quality is one of the major ways that strength work can help our backbends!

In this video, we’ve illustrated this relationship using dancer pose! Featured here are 3 ideas for strength exercises that could help support our practice of dancer pose:

💥 Pullover – strengthens the shoulders through a full range of shoulder flexion

💥 Prone retraction w/ tricep extension – works our shoulders in the opposite direction that pullovers do: shoulder extension!

💥 Single-leg deadlift – cultivates single leg strength and stability (two qualities important for dancer pose!)

➡️ Guess what! Our newest month of Remote Group Training releases on 11/1, and the theme of our new phase is… *dancer pose strength*! 🎉

These monthly turnovers are the perfect time to join our program. Learn how to build strength to complement your yoga practice. Start your 7-day free trial of Remote Group Training today! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/group-training

24/10/2022

The seated crab shoulder slide is a Strength for Yoga original exercise!

They're great for targeting shoulder strength through a full range of motion. 💪

Keeping our spine tall, we slide our hands back behind us until we feel a shoulder stretch.

Then, without any momentum, we pull ourselves forward again.

Movement geeky side note: our shoulders are in a position of extension in this exercise, but we're actually strengthening the shoulder *flexors* here. 🤓

These slides are especially supportive of yoga poses like wild thing, purvottanasana, shoulder stand, and more.

Let us know if you try them at all!

And sign up for quick strength tips from us right to your inbox: https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

20/10/2022

The quintessential yoga-based movement for yogis who want to work on their pulling strength! 💪

We’ve had Sphinx Slides in our programs ever since we started – they’re a foundational exercise we think all yogis should have in their back pocket. 👍

In an ideal world, we’d work on overhead pulling strength with a pull-up bar. (Doorway pull-up bars for home use are relatively easy to come by these days, and we definitely encourage them for our members!)

But having your very own pull-up bar at home isn’t always possible. And in that case, Sphinx Slides come in as an excellent alternative for developing shoulder pulling strength.

To perform Sphinx Slides, all you need is a yoga blanket and a hardwood floor. Fold your blanket in half, and lie on it face down with your arms flat overhead. Then just pull yourself forward into sphinx pose!

If you have space, you can reach your arms out and continue sliding forward. If space is limited, simply push yourself back to the start position, then repeat.

Sphinx Slides are the perfect equipment-free option for building pulling strength and healthy shoulders. In addition, if you can imagine rotating the world 90°, they're also a great entry point into training to do a pull-up!

We include Sphinx Slides as a shoulder-pulling option in all of our offerings: our book, our Remote Group Training ongoing program, and our brand new 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders program!

You can check out all of these options to support you in your strength practice here: www.strengthforyoga.com. See you there!

16/10/2022

Which do you prefer: hammy or quad exercises?🤔

If you’re anything like us, the above question is like having to pick a favorite between two of your children or pets. It’s an impossible choice!

Luckily, with the Kang Squat we don’t have to choose! 😄

The Kang Squat is a hybrid of a good morning and a squat. A good morning is a hamstring exercise, and squats are a quadriceps exercise.

Not only is the Kang Squat the best of both worlds from a strengthening standpoint for both the fronts and backs of the thigh, but it’s also beneficial for flexibility! 🌎🌏

The bottom of the good morning puts a potent stretch on the hamstrings (similar to a halfway lift in yoga). And the bottom of the squat is great for hip mobility (just like malasana, but holding a weight!).

It’s for all of these reasons that we included the Kang Squat in our brand-new program, “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings,” which is on a special launch week sale this week only! 🆕

In addition to our hamstring program, we also created a partner program for the upper body, “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders.”

Just like with the Kang Squat, you don’t have to choose between these two great options – the combination package of the two is an *even sweeter* deal! 🍯

Launch week runs through 10/16. Snag your programs here! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/5-weeks

12/10/2022

Hi from our Strength for Yoga co-founder Jenni Rawlings!

Snag our brand new 5 Weeks programs on special launch sale through Sunday 10/16 – see you there! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/5-weeks

10/10/2022

*Launch Day Announcement!*: Our brand new programs we’ve been working on for the past several months are finally ready for you – and they’re on special SALE this week only! 🎉🎉

https://www.strengthforyoga.com/5-weeks

Did you know that two of the most common weak points for yogis are the *hamstrings* and the *shoulders*? These are two areas that our yoga practice doesn’t strengthen well. What if there was a way to easily and efficiently fill in these yoga strength gaps, though?

That’s exactly what we’ve designed these 2 new programs for! They’re called:

💪 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings, and

💪 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders

They each consist of a series of 20-25 min strength practices emailed to you every 3 days for 5 weeks.

And what’s extra exciting is that this is the first time we’ve offered *led strength practices* – just hit play on the video and follow along with us! 👏

Another very cool aspect of these programs is the many educational nuggets interspersed throughout the practices on topics like anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics.

The video we’ve featured in this post is an example of this! This is a clip from our 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders program in which we highlight why *rest* is such an important part of our strength practice. 🤓

We’re so excited to share these brand-new programs with you! Snag them on sale this week only: https://www.strengthforyoga.com/5-weeks

07/10/2022

What’s the BEST way to get up off the floor?

If you’ve been following along with us for a while, you might’ve guessed that this is a trick question!

There is no “best” way to get up off the floor. There are just lots of great options, of which the “Turkish Get-Up” is one. ✅

The Turkish Get-Up, which comes from the kettlebell world, is a series of 6 steps that takes us from supine to standing.

Here we’re demonstrating the first 3 steps, hence the tagline “½ Turkish Get-Up.”

At a quick glance, you might wonder why kettlebellers go out of their way to make standing up such a complex movement with the Turkish Get-Up. 😆

On a closer look, we see the get-up is a full-body strength, coordination, balance, mobility, & stability challenge. That’s a lot of bang for the buck!

If we had to pick a favorite part of the get-up, it would have to be the 3rd step, where we bridge our hips.

Through our yoga-tinted lenses 😎, this bridge position looks a lot like wild thing, albeit with a weight in our hand!

Besides the weight, another difference between the get-up’s bridge and wild thing is the way we enter it.

In yoga we typically enter wild thing from side plank or down dog. It’s less common to press up into it like we do in the get-up – thus providing a novel twist on a familiar theme for yogis.

Another reason we love the get-up is for the open-chain multidirectional shoulder stability benefits it provides for the arm with the kettlebell.

In yoga, most of the shoulder loading involves the hand in contact with the floor. In the get-up, we have to keep the kettlebell pressed towards the ceiling as our body changes orientation – another novel movement input for our yogi minds and bodies! 💪

This is why we made the Turkish Get-up one of the foundational exercises in our new program (launching this Monday, 10/10!), “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders.”

This 5-week program is all about enhancing and filling in the gaps in a traditional mat yoga practice. Join our email list to get notified when the program goes live! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

03/10/2022

Here's a less common version of a single-leg deadlift (specifically a Romanian deadlift) that we love!

It's a great mid-point between a double-leg Romanian deadlift (where both feet are on the floor about hip-width apart side by side) and a full single-leg Romanian deadlift, in which we lift our back leg straight up off the floor – like warrior 3 in yoga, with added load!

The kickstand moves us in the direction of the full single-leg balance, but with a bit of help from the "kickstand" of the back leg, we have more stability here. The idea is that the work is mostly in the front leg, though!

We like this exercise so much that we've included it in our current phase of Remote Group Training! Our theme this month is deadlifts, which offers sooo many benefits for yogis specifically because deadlifts build types of strength that are absent from a yoga practice (i.e. grip strength, posterior chain strength, and shoulder pulling strength).

Join us in Remote Group Training to power up your deadlift practice this month! Start your free 7-day trial here: https://www.strengthforyoga.com/group-training

29/09/2022

In the yoga world, we're sometimes cautioned against performing a "spinal roll down" on our way to a forward fold. Some yoga authorities believe rounding our spine in this manner is dangerous for our spine. ⚠️

Imagine what those same authorities would think about this exercise, the Jefferson Curl, from the strength and conditioning world. In the Jefferson Curl, we roll up and down *while holding a weight. Scandalous, we know!

At Strength for Yoga, we believe that no movement is inherently "bad." A movement can only be judged in application to a specific individual in a specific context.

In the case of a Jefferson curl, we basically have a loaded stretch. The weight allows us to get a little deeper into our forward fold than we would without it. And it also allows us to build some strength through the full range of spinal motion. 💪

The key is to work in a progressive fashion, as with all exercises! Start light and slowly increase the load over time.

Revisiting the idea of the individual and context, sure, there might be people for whom this exercise isn't the best choice.

For example, if you've previously had back issues, then it would be wise to get cleared by a medical professional before performing Jefferson Curls.

But for others, this exercise could very well be a part of a rehab plan to introduce a novel movement that the person may previously have been avoiding. 👍

Also, if your primary goal is to build back and leg strength, there may be better options for doing so that you can load heavier (e.g., deadlift and squat variations). 🏋️‍♀️

In short, Jefferson curls likely will not break your back! 😀 In fact, practicing them in a graded manner could make your back even more resilient.

➡️ Guess what! You can practice Jefferson Curls, deadlifts, *and* squats with us in our brand new programs we're about to release: 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings and Shoulders! 🎉

These programs release on 10/10, but we're releasing them *early* and at a major discount to our email community on 10/3. Hop on our email list right here! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

25/09/2022

Pullovers are one of our favorite exercises for working on overhead shoulder pulling strength *and* overhead shoulder mobility at the same time!

They’re also a great complement to many of our yoga poses in which we position our arms overhead, such as down dog and handstand. Whereas these yoga poses work our shoulders overhead in a *pushing* manner, pullovers work our shoulders overhead in a *pulling* manner. So practicing them both means that we’ll load our shoulders in a more balanced way!

In this video, Travis is demonstrating a progressed variation of a pullover in which he’s added a “hollow body” position in his lower body. This makes the exercise more challenging in general – and it especially lights up the anterior core more! 🔥

For more strength tips designed with yogis in mind, sign up for our Strength for Yoga email newsletter! 📫 https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

23/09/2022

Add strength to your mobility practice! 💪🧘

Here at , we’re all about finding ways to introduce load to poses and movements we’re accustomed to practicing with just our bodyweight.

Take the classic thoracic spine rotation (i.e., “open book”) performed here in low lunge, for example. 📘

This is a terrific mobility drill for opening up the upper back in the transverse plane. But it doesn’t do much for us from a strengthening standpoint.

The upgrade? Add a resistance band “pull-apart.” ⬆️

In a regular pull-apart, you would pull with both arms at the same time. In this case, we’re anchoring with one arm and pulling with the other.

Together, we call this combo a “low lunge pull-apart thoracic spine rotation.” While the name is a mouthful (hehe), the exercise is a straightforward hybrid of two relatively simple movements. 😊

We still get all the mobility benefits of the open book, plus we have a potent strengthening stimulus for the posterior deltoids (i.e, the backs of the shoulders) from the pull-apart.

➡️ This “loaded mobility” approach is exactly the one we took when we were designing our forthcoming “5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders” – a 12-part series of 20-25 minute follow-along, yoga-specific strength practices.

5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Shoulders officially launches on October 10th, but we’re offering early access + a big discount to our email community. Subscribe here! https://www.strengthforyoga.com/email

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