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Having strong abs is about so much more than just looking good in the summer. Strong abdominal muscles help you move around every day, improve your posture, and keep your lower back stable.
Every yoga pose is easier to perform on the mat when you have strong abdominals. Off the mat, this deep source of strength helps you move through the world with more grace and ease and reconnects you to your own power.
Vasishthasana and 5 Other Yoga Poses for Ab Workout
These 6 yoga poses for strong abs target your core muscles while engaging and strengthening your entire body.
1) Cat Pose Crunches
Practicing the cat-cow pose warms up your body and provides great benefits. The cat-cow pose is a basic stretch that helps you improve your body balance and posture. It also stretches the muscles in your hips, back, abdomen, and chest, working your abs in the process.
To do this exercise,
- Come to tabletop position on your hands and knees, with your hands planted under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
- Put your toes together to help you stay stable. Lift your low belly up and in. This will engage your core and make your back long.
- Reach your right arm forward at shoulder height, turn your palm to the left wall, and spread your fingers. Stretch your left heel to the back wall at hip level and flex your foot. As you let your breath out, bring your right elbow and left knee together.
- In Cat Pose, you round your back and lift your lower belly up. As you take a deep breath in, stretch your right arm forward and your left leg back. Let out a breath, and hug the crunch. Keep going for 5 rounds, taking one breath for each move. Get back on your fours. On the other side, do it again.
2) Plank Pose
Plank is an energizing pose that helps build strength in both the upper and lower body and connects the core. They are ideal for increasing core strength and shedding belly fat because they work several muscles at once, which increases metabolism.
To do this exercise,
- Put your shoulders on top of your wrists and reach your heels to the back of your mat.
- Press your outer shins in and tighten your leg muscles to the bones.
- Reach your heels back and move your head forward.
- Lengthen your tailbone toward your heels and lift your low belly up and in. As you hold this pose for 10 breaths, your inner fire will be stoked.
3) Vasishthasana
To tone and strengthen your arms and abs, perform a side plank while using your own body weight as resistance. It works both your upper and lower body. Your obliques, which run along the side of your core, are the muscles that are specifically targeted.
To do this exercise,
- Ground down through your lower hand and lift your other arm up to the sky. Press the outside edge of your lower foot into the floor, stack and flex your feet, and pull your leg muscles close to your bones.
- To build your inner fire, press your tailbone toward your heels and lift the pit of your stomach up and in.
- Look at your top hand and spread your fingers out as far as you can.
- Lift your hips as high as you can and open your chest as you grow from the inside out. Hold for five to ten breaths.
- Come back to plank, pause, and hug yourself into the middle. On the other side, do it again.
4) Dolphin Plank
All of the muscles in your core are used and toned when you do the Dolphin Plank. This is one of the most effective poses for strengthening all of the abdominal muscles, including the transverse, rectus, quadratus lumborum, and oblique.
To do this exercise,
- Move down to your forearms from the plank position. Make a straight line from your shoulders to your heels by pressing your inner forearms, elbows, and palms firmly against the floor.
- Spread out across your collarbone and soften your thoracic spine, which is your middle and upper back. Anchor your tailbone down toward your heels and pull your low belly up.
- Engage your leg muscles and press your heels toward the back of your mat as you lengthen the crown of your head forward. Look straight down at the floor and take 10 deep Ujjayi breaths.
5) Crescent Lunge
The Crescent Lunge is a full-body pose that trains all the muscles to work as a single unit. It is an excellent lower-body dynamic exercise that targets the abs, glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps.
- Put your weight on all four corners of your front foot and take a long stance.
- Put the heel of your back foot over the ball of your back foot and hug your skin to your muscles and your muscles to your bones.
- Pull your inner thighs in toward each other, square your hips to the front of the mat, and pull your centerline in toward you.
- From the ground up, lift up, and from the center down, root down. Stretch your arms out and lift your chest. Hold for five to ten deep breaths.
6) Boat Pose
Boat Pose connects and balances the whole body, strengthens and tones the abdominal wall, and supports the low back. It exercises the deep hip flexors in addition to the abdominal muscles as well.
To do this exercise,
- Straighten your back, lift your legs off the ground, and keep your balance on your seat.
- Catch behind your knees and raise your heels as high as you can.
- Engage your feet by pressing your inner arches together and spreading out your toes.
- Spread your fingers out and move your hands forward.
- To change, bend your knees so that your shins are parallel to the ground and keep your hands behind your knees for more support.
- Pull the bones in your upper arms back and out across your chest. Engage your low belly and lift up and open your chest. Balance yourself while taking deep breaths and holding for 5–10 breaths.
These six yoga poses when performed regularly will give you those perfect abs to flaunt.
