Yoga is a relaxing exercise that helps form a better connection between the mind and body. Although a lot of people categorize yoga as a restorative practice, which it can most certainly be, many of the poses require a significant amount of strength and balance. Do you ever notice that experienced yogis can hold inverted poses and then transition to push-ups with ease? Until you take your first yoga class, you don’t realize how much strength the practice actually requires. 

Yoga helps to enhance strength in the form of bodyweight training. Studies have shown that bodyweight training can be just as effective as weight training for gaining muscle mass. Developing more strength in your yoga practices will depend on the level of class you take. For this reason, be mindful of your strength training goals when choosing your classes. That said, if you truly want to develop bulky muscles, consider weight lifting to achieve that goal. Regardless of your goals, yoga is a beneficial exercise to incorporate into your routine because it helps hone your balance, improve flexibility, and meditation efforts. 

Introducing your body to a variety of movements and tasks is how to keep it limber and ready for anything. As always with yoga, do what makes your body happy and don’t push it to the point of pain. Consider the following yoga poses to help build strength. 

Chair Pose

This pose doesn’t seem that difficult at first, but you start to feel the burn in your quads the longer you hold it. The stronger you get, the longer you’ll be able to hold it. Begin by standing upright with your feet together and arms by your sides. Balance your weight onto the heels as you sink your butt back as if you were about to sit in a chair. As you do this, keep your back straight and extend your arms overhead so that they are in line with your back. Keep the hips even and breathe deeply for four long breaths before returning to the starting position. 

Warrior II

As a great foundational pose, warrior II can help strengthen your lower body. It’s not as difficult as the high lunge, but it can help deepen your high lunge and increase strength the longer you practice it. Begin in a wide stance with your feet past your hips facing forward. Make sure that you feel balanced in this position before you turn your left toes inward and right toes outward toward the front of your mat. Hold in your lower abdomen and lengthen your spine. Bring your arms up so that they are parallel with the floor and in line with your body. Bend your right knee slowly, but make sure your knee doesn’t extend past your toes. Hold this pose for five deep breaths before you switch sides. 

Goddess Squat

Sometimes referred to as horse pose, goddess squat is a great pose to develop better glute muscles and open up your hips. The deeper you squat, the more it works your inner thighs! Begin by standing straight up with your feet hip-distance apart. Widen your stance and face your toes outward as you tuck your pelvis and sink into a squat. The goal of this pose is to squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Don’t roll your knees in and keep your back straight. You can rest your hands on your thighs for support, or extend them up overhead while keeping your shoulders dropped. Hold this pose for five deep breaths, aiming to sink deeper with each exhale. 

Boat Pose

This pose challenges your core in the best way possible! Practicing this pose will help you hold other poses for longer periods with a lot less effort. Begin in a seated position with your legs extended out in front of you. Bend one knee at a time and keep your feet flat on the floor. Lean back slowly and lift your feet off the ground; you should start to feel your core engage. Raise your feet so that your shins are parallel to the ground and extend your arms toward your feet to help balance. Remain here for 10-20 seconds, increasing the time as you get stronger. 

Superman Pose

If you suffer from poor posture and want to correct it or reduce upper back pain, this is a great pose to practice. Begin by lying face down on the ground and extend your arms out in front of you. Take a deep breath in and, as you exhale, engage your back muscles, glutes, and upper back to lift as much of your body off the ground as possible. You basically want to balance on your upper thighs and abdominals. Stretch from your fingertips to your toes, being conscious to drop your shoulders away from your ears. Hold this pose for three to five breaths and then return to the starting position. 

Forearm Plank

This takes the regular plank up a notch, but many people find this plank variation easier because it takes more pressure off your wrists. That said, this pose forces you to engage your core more than regular plank because you are closer to the ground. Begin on all fours in a tabletop position, stacking your shoulders over your wrists and hips over your knees. Lower yourself down to your forearms and then step your feet back one at a time. Engage your core and lift through your belly button to maintain a flat back. Hold for 20-30 seconds to start and increase the time as you get stronger. 

Chaturanga

This pose proves difficult because it requires you to hover your entire body just above the ground. Your arms may shake more than usual when you first start, but that will fade as you get stronger. Begin on all fours in a tabletop position, stacking your shoulders over your wrists and hips over your knees. Come into a high plank position by stepping your feet back. Hug your elbows close to your sides as you lower down so that your elbows are at a 90-degree angle. Hover a few inches above the ground and engage your chest and core. Hold for three to five deep breaths and then release. 

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It was a thrilling third day of action at the Tokyo Games during the women’s 55-kilogram (kg) weightlifting competition. Hidilyn Diaz, a four-time Olympian, stopped China’s bid for a perfect record in weightlifting at the Tokyo Games. She overtook fellow olympian, Liao Qiuyun of China, on her last lift in the clean and jerk. Her combined weight (244 kg) amounted to one more kilo than her competitor. 

Athletes from the Philippines have competed at every edition of the Summer Olympics since 1924, save for the exception of boycotting the 1980 Moscow Games. Over the course of the country’s near century long participation in the Summer Games, it has only amassed three silver and seven bronze medals. 30-year old Diaz actually won one of those silver medals in the 2016 Olympic Games, making the country’s first podium appearance in 20 years. This year, she became the country’s first ever Olympic gold medalist. 

China won all three events in weightlifting at the Tokyo Games leading up to the women’s 55 kg event. Qiuyun failed to match her own world record of 223 kg, but Diaz was able to lift a combined weight of 224 kg, setting a new world record to boot. After confidently pressing up 127 kg in the clean and jerk, she dropped the barbell and burst into tears, realizing the glory of her country’s first Olympic gold medal achievement.

Response To Her Victory

In response to her own victory, Diaz said, “I am 30 years old and I thought it would be like going down, my performance, but I was shocked I was able to do it.” The Philippines’ presidential spokesperson gave a statement about Diaz bringing pride and glory to the Philippines. He also added, “Congratulations, Hidilyn. The entire Filipino nation is proud of you.”

During the medal ceremony, the Filipino national anthem played for the first time in the history of the country’s participation at the Olympic Games. With her country’s anthem playing, she proudly clutched her medal on top of the podium, tears streaming down her face and a smile from ear to ear. 

Diaz’s Road To The Tokyo Games

In January 2020, Diaz won the gold medal in the women’s 55 kg event at the Roma 2020 World Cup in Rome, Italy. While traveling to Peru to compete in an Olympic qualifying event, however, she was detained in Malaysia due to COVID-19 outbreak. The government then issued a travel ban and she got stuck in Malaysia for about five months. During that time, Diaz built a gym and trained with water bottles, using water in place of weights. Clearly, her determination did not waiver, as she stood victorious on the podium after this year’s dominant performance. 

According to Diaz, she plans to compete during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France. Let’s see what she’s able lift in a few years!

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With summer just around the corner, it is time to start toning your body so you can confidently strut your stuff on beach days. Who has hours upon hours to do cardiovascular exercises every week, though? Even though walking 30 minutes a day is extremely beneficial and can promote weight loss, it may not get you where you want to be by summertime.

We advocate resistance training in conjunction with mild cardio workouts every week to accelerate your weight loss journey. Not only does this type of workout help you burn fat, but it also helps you tone your body and build a little muscle. While resistance training and cardio are beneficial, it is also essential to consume a healthy diet alongside your workouts. You can’t out exercise poor eating habits, so try and focus on plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds to have the best results.

What Is Resistance Training?

Resistance training involves exercises that have you working against some force, which resists your movement. The most popular type of resistance training is weightlifting, but you don’t have to lift weights to train with resistance. Many bodyweight exercises or movements in water are commonly involved in resistance training programs.

The following exercises have video demonstrations to help you perform them correctly. The best part about these exercises is that you can do them anywhere.

The Burpee

Burpees work out all of the primary muscle groups and cause your heart to pump blood faster than normal. They help you burn off more belly fat than doing lots of cardio.

Bodyweight Squats

Squats are very simple exercises that help you tone your gluteus muscles, quadriceps, and hamstrings. They are easy to do incorrectly, so make sure you are doing them with correct form. You can increase intensity by holding dumbbells.

Pull-Ups

You’re a big kid now! Bad jokes aside, pull-ups help to tone your back. Since they can be hard to do correctly right out the gate, here is a modified pull up that is very easy to do.

Lunges

Lunges work to tighten your hamstrings and buttocks. If you experience knee pain while you are doing this exercise, you can do the glute bridge, which is the video below the lunge video.

The Skater

This exercise is going to get your blood pumping! It helps increase your balance and works to strengthen your inner thighs.

Push-Ups

You can begin sculpting your chest and shoulders by doing push-ups every day. Because you are supporting yourself the whole time, push-ups also help to strengthen your core.

The Plank

Planks are amazing for engaging all of your muscle groups, provided you are doing them correctly. It works your abdominal muscles and some people find that it alleviates back pain.

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Strength training is a great way to build muscle and burn fat. It can help you retain existing muscle and boost your metabolism in the process. It helps to boost the metabolism by increasing your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). Your RMR is the rate at which your body burns energy at a complete rest. For every pound of muscle you gain, your RMR increases by 30-50 calories, meaning your body must use more calories to maintain muscle than it does to maintain fat.

In addition to boosting your metabolism, strength training is a great way to boost your mood, relieve anxiety, decrease stress, improve cholesterol levels, and improve overall blood flow. This is enticing to a lot of people, but some people get intimidated or don’t know where to start. We have several workout routines in our Articles section that can help ease you into strength training, so you aren’t going from zero to sixty and setting yourself up for failure.

Have You Done Workout Training?

If you have never done any of the exercises that you come across, always start out with your bodyweight. Let’s say you encounter an exercise that requires dumbbells. Hold two water bottles or two things that are very lightweight to take the place of dumbbells. The idea behind not using any additional weight is to focus on form. Maintaining correct form is more important than lifting heavy. Doing exercises improperly can increase your risk of injury.

Adding Weight

Dumbbells are great strength training tools. While most gyms have an array of dumbbells, you may only need a couple sets or an adjustable dumbbell set at home. Additionally, dumbbells are less intimidating than barbell training, e.g. bench presses, squats, or deadlifts. They also help you work harder at balancing during the exercise.

What Are Reps & Sets?

A rep, or repetition, is a single movement through a range of motion and back again. A full movement, from start to finish, of a squat, push-up, dip, or pull-up is considered to be a single rep. A group of reps is called a set. If the exercise calls for two sets of ten reps, you will do ten consecutive reps, rest, and repeat ten reps.

Combos

Most of our workouts are combo exercises, especially if you are using our second and third exercise guides. By using combo workouts, you don’t have to exercise for long periods of time. Additionally, you exercise various muscle groups when you do combo exercises, as opposed to doing exercises that focus on a specific area of the body. The important thing to remember is to not rest between combos.

We hope you enjoyed these strength training tips and wish you well on sculpting your body.

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