13 Yoga Poses for Strength in Your Entire Body

Yoga provides many benefits. It increases flexibility, reduces stress, and aids in weight reduction. It’s even good for lowering blood pressure. But if you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you likely already know about one of its other benefits: building strength.

Why Building Strength Is Important

We naturally lose muscle with age. This is known in the medical world as sarcopenia and typically equates to a 3% to 5% reduction in muscle mass each decade from middle age on. However, in severe cases, sarcopenia can lead to as much as 50% muscle loss by the time you’re in your 80s, according to research (1). What helps stop and even reverse this process? Strength training.

Engaging in strength training makes it easier to maintain and build muscle mass no matter how old you are. Its benefits don’t stop there either. Some studies have connected muscle-strengthening exercises with a 10% to 17% lower risk of dying prematurely from chronic disease (2). Is there any better reason to start building your muscle strength?

There are also benefits of developing strength in certain areas of the body. Upper body strength supports good posture. It also makes it easier to pick up your kids or grandkids, carry groceries, and tighten loose bolts.

Lower body strength helps you move with greater ease. Walking, getting out of a chair, and squatting down to pick something off the floor becomes easier to perform when you have strong legs. 

Let’s also not forget the importance of building core strength. Core muscle weakness contributes to poor posture. It can also increase your susceptibility to pain in the lower back. All of these are good reasons to work on building strength, and yoga can help.

How Yoga Helps Build Strength

Yoga uses your own body weight to increase muscle strength. That makes it different from traditional strength training which often involves using weights.

Different yoga poses work different muscle groups. For example, one study reported that Half Moon pose and Warrior III pose are great for activating the gluteus maximus (3). Another piece of research indicated that, while Plank pose was great for activating the rectus abdominis and obliques, Chair pose excelled for activating the lumbar extensors (4).

You also use your muscles to help you transition gracefully from one pose to the next. This helps strengthen the muscles more. It also makes yoga strength training good for a whole-body workout. Or, if you’re looking for a more targeted approach, you can create yoga workouts that focus solely on the upper body, lower body, or core. 

Like with other forms of strength training, building muscle with yoga does take time. In most cases, you’re not likely to see major results for six to eight weeks. But as long as yoga is a regular practice, you’ll see them eventually. That will make it more than worth it.

Does This Mean That Yoga Counts as Strength Training?

Just as yoga can be performed as a spiritual practice or not, it also may or may not count as strength training. The reason for this is that it depends on the type of physique you want.

If your goal is to simply build muscle tone, you can do that with yoga. Practicing yoga consistently can help make the muscles more firm and tight. However, if you’re after bodybuilder arms, yoga won’t be enough. Using weights is critical for developing this type of muscle mass.

13 Yoga Poses for Strength in the Upper Body, Lower Body, and Core

Here we share some of the best yoga poses to build strength in your entire body. You can mix and match them to create a full-body workout. Or you can separate them based on the areas they work. You might do a few upper body poses one day, for instance, and a few lower body yoga poses the next. How you put them together is completely up to you.

So, which yoga poses are best for increasing strength? 

• Boat pose. This pose helps build your abdominal muscles. It also works the muscles that support the hip (the hip flexor muscles). 

• Bow pose. One benefit of this yoga pose is that it strengthens many muscle groups. Among them are the hamstrings, glutes, and back.

• Chair pose. This pose is good for building strength along the spine and in the legs, especially the quads. It also works the abs and glutes.

• Crescent Lunge. If you want to increase strength in your buttocks, hips, and thighs, this pose delivers. It’s an effective lower body move.

• Crow pose. This asana most notably builds strength in the arms. That said, you’ll also feel it in the upper back and abdominals.

• Locust pose. Locust pose helps strengthen many muscles on the back side of the body. This includes those in the back, as well as muscles found on the backside of the arms and legs.

• Mountain pose. This yoga posture can improve the strength of your legs, abdominals, and lower back.

• Plank pose. Anyone who’s done Plank pose knows that you feel it everywhere in the body. It works muscles in the lower and upper body, but it especially targets the abdominal muscles and obliques.

• Side Angle pose. This pose is a good one to do if you want to build strength in the core (abs, glutes, and hip flexors). It also helps you develop stronger quads.

• Triangle pose. Triangle pose is both a lower and upper body strengthener. In the lower body, it targets the legs and hips. In the upper body, it works the shoulders and chest.

• Warrior poses. All three of these standing yoga poses are great for building strength, albeit in different ways. Warrior I boosts strength in the quads and hamstrings. Warrior II is a standing pose that helps you build arm strength while also strengthening the legs, hip muscles, and glutes. Warrior III is great for the glutes; we’ve already established that. However, it also strengthens the quads and ankles.

Yoga Teachers: How to Help Your Students Boost Strength with Yoga

Yoga teachers can hold many different roles. If one of your roles is to help your students gain strength, it’s helpful to know the best guidance to give.

One piece of advice to consider is in regard to the style of yoga they should do if this is their fitness goal. Certain yoga styles are better for building strength. Vinyasa and Power yoga are two. Both are fast-paced and good for increasing muscle mass, the latter of which has been supported by research. 

One such study was published in the International Journal of Yoga, Physiotherapy and Physical Education in November of 2019 (5). It involved 16 dancers, eight of whom did Power yoga twice a week for 60 minutes. The remaining eight engaged in only dancing training.

After eight weeks, researchers compared the two groups for differences. They noted that the Power yoga group had more explosive power in their upper limbs. They also developed greater endurance.

Ashtanga yoga is another style good for increasing strength. It works by having students hold poses longer. This helps place more tension on the muscle. (On a side note, holding poses longer also helps students increase their flexibility.)

If you want to learn additional ways to help your students develop their yoga practice, teacher training can help. ISSA Yoga & Wellness Academy offers a 200-hour yoga teacher training package. This online course comes with a guidebook that breaks down more than 80 yoga poses. It also includes a pre-designed yoga class.

References

• Wilkinson, D. J., Piasecki, M., & Atherton, P. J. (2018). The age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function: Measurement and physiology of muscle fibre atrophy and muscle fibre loss in humans. Ageing Research Reviews, 47, 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2018.07.005 

• Momma, H., Kawakami, R., Honda, T., & Sawada, S. S. (2022). Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality in major non-communicable diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis of Cohort studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 56(13), 755–763. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-105061 

• Beazley, D., Patel, S., Davis, B., Vinson, S., & Bolgla, L. (2017). Trunk and hip muscle activation during yoga poses: Implications for physical therapy practice. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 29, 130–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2017.09.009 

• Lehecka, B. J., Stoffregen, S., May, A., Thomas, J., Mettling, A., Hoover, J., Hafenstine, R., & Hakansson, N. A. (2021). Gluteal muscle activation during common yoga poses. International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.26603/001c.22499 

• Škultétyová, Dominika & Czakova, Monika & Dvořáčková, Natália & Šutka, V. (2019). Influence of power yoga on the explosive strength of upper and lower limbs and heart performance of dancers.