Active Yoga Posts
How To: Master the Crow pose when you're studying yoga
This video demonstrates the proper crow posture for yoga students. One of the pitfalls of this pose is a lack of stability, and your teacher shows you a few tips in placing your knees and arms to increase your balance.
How To: Practice a variation of the backbend posture for yoga
This tutorial gives you a variation on the basic backbend for yoga. Always make sure you are breathing properly when practicing this movement. Also make sure to keep your hips square and relatively motionless while moving your legs in this pose.
How To: Increase your flexibility by practicing yoga backbends
This mini class shows you how to correctly perform the backbend in yoga, which helps you restore the natural curves in your spine. It also helps energize you. Always make sure your breathing is slow and measured, and don't overextend your muscles.
How To: Learn how to perform the advanced headstand pose in yoga
This pose is only for people who are advanced practitioners of yoga, and should not be done by anyone who has a chronic neck injury. If you feel confident in your yoga skills, watch this video and learn how to do the headstand pose.
How To: Master the camel pose when practicing yoa
The camel pose will open up your throat, increase the blood flow into your brain and aid in your digestion. Make sure you have stretched adequately before attempting this pose, and pay attention to your breathing to make sure you are inhaling and exhaling at the right times.
How To: Master the basic breathing exercises for practicing yoga
The key to being able to perform yoga properly is in the breath. This tutorial shows you how to get started on breathing the yogic way. Use your entire lung capacity to take slow, measured breaths and focus on your diaphragm.
How To: Practice the proper Vinyasa flow and open up your hips
The Vinyasa flow is a short exercise you can use to limber up your body, as well as open your hips. It starts with a rotating triange and then slowly transitions into a forward bend. Make sure to pay attention to your breathing techniques!
How To: Use the Siberian sequence to warm up for yoga
This is a quick technique you can use to warm up for your regular yoga workout. Taken from a Siberian yogi, this is an ideal warmup to use if you don't have a whole lot of time for an extensive workout.
How To: Do the shoulder stand exercise in yoga
Ready to stretch out and relax? Yoga will help you out. Yoga's been known to help with flexibility and health. This is a perfect exercise to start out with. Watch this video to learn how to do a basic shoulder stand.
How To: Perform a strong, firm handstand in vinyasa yoga
Handstands are hard to do in general, whether you're a yoga veteran or a little tyke trying to impress his friends in P.E. Yoga junkies, however, possess a much butter control of the muscles that hold a handstand in place, including the core and arms.
How To: Complete simple vinyasa yoga stretches to improve flexibility
When it comes to yoga, none other than Gumby himself should be your flexi hero. Unlike the rest of us, who suffer from stiff joints, lack of flexibility, and aches in our muscles, Gumby is like a human (or toy?) pretzel, able to contort his way out of any stressful situation.
How To: Complete vinyasa yoga ninja salutations with Sadie Nardini
Are you familiar with the sun salutation? If so, then you can amp up your body toning and calorie burning power by completing this series of "ninja" salutations with Sadie Nardini.
How To: Complete a detoxifying vinyasa yoga sequence with Sadie Nardini
When you think detox, you probably imagine lithe, bony starlets sipping on vegetable juice or lemon water with cayenne pepper. While removing junk from your diet is a common form of detox, you can also remove toxins and cleanse your body by doing exercise.
How To: Release built up tension
This video explains how to release built up tension using De-stress styled Yoga. This type of Yoga requires you sit on your legs while sitting up straight. Taking deep breaths is the first step to begin releasing tension using Yoga. While taking deep breaths you must turn your torso very slowly from left to right. While keeping your legs planted on the ground, stretch your arms forward until the tips of your fingers are touching the ground. Taking frequent deep breaths in between these two Yo...
How To: Do the hastauttanasana (Hand raising pose)
Want to increase your flexibility, tone your back and core, AND relieve stress all at once? It sounds nothing short of a miracle, but with a good yoga practice you can have all three at the same time.
How To: Do the pada hastasana (hand to foot pose)
Want to freak your friends out by walking around looking like a human pretzel? Twist and bend your way to yogi bliss by doing this hand to toe pose, also known as a pada hastasana.
How To: Do the sirsha angushtha yogasana (head to toe pose)
The sirsha angushtha yogasana sounds pretty simple - it's a bending forward pose - but it's actually among the more intermediate yoga poses you can try. In a sort of lunge position, you clasp your arms behind you and bend forward as much as you can, until your head hits the floor if possible.
How To: Do a whole body vinyasa yoga sculpting sequence
People who have never done yoga before think of it as a kind of phony exercise for crunchy granola hippie types where all you do is sit on your butt in the lotus pose and say "Ohm."
How To: Do the Golden Egg yoga posture to energize and improve digestion
The Golden Egg is perhaps more of a state of mind than a posture in yoga. The Golden Egg involves sustaining and concentrating your core strength, creating what Sadie Nardini calls an "abdominal balloon."
How To: Complete a fat burning core strength vinyasa yoga routine
Got an extra thirty minutes today? Cut out that extra episode of "The Big Bang Theory" and give your body and metabolism a treat by completing a high intensity yoga routine.
How To: Complete a relaxing yoga routine to help you sleep
Saying that people have too much stress these days is an understatement. With Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of electronic gadgets occupying our time, there's hardly room to breathe or to relax. This means that more and more of us are finding it difficult to fall asleep.
How To: Differentiate shiva kicks and shakti kicks and build upper arm strength
The shakti principle of yoga is that of movement and dynamism. When applied to actual yoga practice, this moves movement in a pose and out of a pose. Meanwhile, the shiva principle is that of stability and static nature. Both are very important to any yoga practice and can help strengthen your body.
How To: Do yoga arm binds in standing yoga poses
Yoga arm binds are part of what make seasoned yogis look like walking pretzels. Arm binds add difficulty to any yoga pose, testing your flexibility and balance. For this reason, many people find it hard to hold a standing pose with an arm bind, let alone get to an arm bind position.
How To: Complete a short energizing yoga routine with Tara Stiles
People who have never done yoga before often mistakingly think that yoga is simply stretching, and that there's only one kind of yoga. But yoga is so much more than making your body all Gumby-like. There are many different disciplines of yoga, each designed with a different goal in mind (vinyasa, or power yoga, is about working up a sweat through fast yoga flow, while hatha yoga is about meditation).
How To: Do an L-shaped yoga handstand and make some chia lemonade
Balance your life— balance yourself— all with this L-shaped handstand and some chia lemonade. This video will show you the recipe for a healthy chia lemonade drink, full of Omega 3 fatty acid, plus the L-shaped yoga handstand that will help you get a real feel for balance.
How To: Complete the down dog yoga pose for beginners
You know those New Age-y yoga folks who look like human pretzels? As flexible as those contortionist veterans are, they had to start somewhere. And for most yogis, it starts with the downward dog.
How To: Complete the classic eagle yoga pose to increase balance
Okay, we're going to be honest here and let you know up front that the eagle yoga pose ain't no walk in the park. In fact, unless you've already been practicing basic yoga for a while and have gained a decent amount of flexibility and strength you probably shouldn't even attempt this pose for fear of falling down.
How To: Do a balancing toe hold yoga posture
Stretching before and after a workout helps loosen muscles so rather than building bulk you're builidng lean legs and arms. Combine the benefits of stretching with balancing on one foot and you've got a nearly perfect exercise.
How To: Do a calming yoga flow to increase leg flexibility
There are a plethora of reasons why you should practice yoga, from easier breathing to increased flexibility to clearing your mind. But there's another super important reason you should take up the art of the pretzel-limbed: It helps build strength all throughout your body, which means you'll be less likely to pull a muscle or throw out your back in real life.
How To: Perform the cat stretch pose (Marjari Asana) in Yoga
The cat stretch pose, also known as Marjari Asana, is a pose designed to help improve the flexibility of the neck, shoulders and your spine. This position also gives you intense relief from symptoms such as menstrual cramps and leucorrhea. In this video you will get a quick tutorial on how to perform this pose.
How To: Do the half camel pose (Ardha-Ushtrasana) in Yoga
Ardha-Ushtrasana, or Half Camel Pose, is a Yoga pose designed to help strengthen your neck, back, pelvis and abdominal muscles while also helping you to relax. It's great for relieving back ache, rounded back, and drooping shoulders. In this video you will get a quick tutorial on how to perform the pose.
How To: Do vinyasa yoga thigh stretches and toning exercises with Sadie Nardini
Unfortunately, thunder thighs won't just get rid of themselves. And women tend to accumulate fat in the lower body regions, including the belly, hips, and thighs (mostly for childbirth reasons), which makes losing flab in the thigh region even more challenging.
How To: Do a vinyasa yoga belly roll to release serotonin and get rid of cramps
This vinyasa yoga move is quite possibly the simplist yoga move out there, but that doesn't mean it isn't effective. In fact, the belly roll is one of the most effective exercises you can do to reduce stress, relieve menstrual cramps, get rid of insomnia, or just recover from a long and grueling workday glued to your chair.
How To: Do a vinyasa yoga flow to whittle your obliques
Most ab workouts target your upper abdominals only. Sit ups and crunches, for instance, only work on that upper part of your abs without even touching the lower portion, where most of us have muffin tops and really need the work.
How To: Do down dog waves to open up the shoulder and back
The Down Dog yoga pose is so popular that people who have never done yoga before generally know what it entails. But despite how classic the move is and its practice in every yoga studio, lots of people still get the move wrong, over extending the shoulders backward.
How To: Sing "OM" for maximum vibrational healing power
Yoga is centered on centering you, both physically and emotionally. If you're a yoga practitioner then you know how relaxed and rejuvenated you feel after a vinyasa yoga class.
How To: Do a creative core vinyasa yoga flow to tone the lower body and side abs
Most people don't realize this, but yoga is a form of strength training. If you've never done yoga before then you probably think it's nothing but a series of New Age-y stretches that get you in tune with your inner Zen, but yoga is a lot more intensive than that.
How To: Do yoga marichyasanas to increase flexibility all over the body
We can't overstate the importance of stretching in yoga. Yes, you may think that yoga itself is just a bunch of stretches flowing one right into the other, which is true, but there are certain yoga poses aimed strategically at increasing your flexibility so you can do other yoga poses better.
How To: Do the splits with Tara Stiles
Tara Stiles teaches us how to do the splits in this tutorial. Remember not to do this all at once, stretch out your body first. To start, come into a downward dog position while bending the knees and straightening them and deep breathing. Now, bring a foot to the front and keep in this position until flexing the foot while sitting back near the other foot. Lean forward over your front leg, then repeat on the other side of the body. Come back into a downward dog, then do lunges to open up the ...
How To: Strengthen buns, abs, & thighs with Tara Stiles yoga
In this video, we learn how to strengthen buns, abs, & thighs with Tara Stiles yoga. First, stretch out your body on a yoga mat, then come into a downward dog position, raising your back legs in the air. After this, come into a warrior pose, except have both of your hands straight in the air while bending the knees. From here, come into the normal warrior pose, then stretch out both sides of the body by lifting opposite hands up in the air. Next, stretch out your legs as wide as they will go,...