Shake up your vinyasas with these fun core exercises. They are mostly ab based and they are excellent to build heat and strength in your practice. Are you ready?
Ondulate
Start from downward facing dog and from the area between your scapulas roll forward into plank pose on the inhale. On your exhalation bend your knees and move back to downward facing dog from the hips, then ribs, and chest. Continue doing this movement with each breath. I always do this at the beginning of practice.
Floating tabletop
Starting either from table top or downward facing dog, make sure your knees are below your hips and your shoulders are more or less above your wrists. Tuck your tailbone towards your navel and elevate your knees 1-2 cm form the floor. This works the lower abdominals and your quads.
Knee to nose sequence
This is a classic but yet effective. Use the inhale to elevate one leg and the exhale to shift the weight forward into plank and bring your knee to your nose.
Window sequence
I love this one, it is usually super unexpected when I teach it and I feel like it builds up so much core strength. It is similar to the previous one, but after bringing your knee towards one triceps, you inhale to the same side wrist, exhale to opposite wrist, inhale to the opposite triceps (this is the tricky one haha) and start again.
One hand-downward facing dog to plank
Try to keep your body squared as much as possible here. On the inhale you lift one arm up and place it beside your body and on the exhale you shift the weight forward and bring your hand in front of you as if you wanted to "hand-shake" someone.