20 Yoga Poses That Are Perfect For Beginners

Poor balance and weak muscles can lead to a lot of negative health issues. In fact, a lack of exercise can cause you to live your life with discomfort, unhappiness and stress. The benefits of yoga are astounding in comparison to what your life is like without exercise. Yoga is designed to help you get fit, stay strong, build muscle and even lower your stress level. It’s an exercise that’s easy, meditative and every good for your body and your mind. It helps to calm you, relax you and ease the level of stress you feel on a daily basis. There is something magical about the way yoga makes you feel.

However, yoga is not something you should simply jump into if you’re a beginner. Some of the poses that yoga teaches are more complex than others, which means you might put yourself at risk for injury. If you’re a yoga beginner, here are a few simple poses you can do at home until you’re muscle strength grows and you are more confident.

Mountain Pose

This is the most important pose you will learn in practicing yoga. It’s the one in which you will learn to do every other pose that yoga features. It’s the one that’s most important to your core and to your well-being. The mountain teaches you to correctly line up your body and balance your weight evenly from every angle. It’s one that allows you to stabilize you in more advanced yoga practices, which is what is going to make you more confident, comfortable and less likely to wind up with an injury.

Lunge Pose

This one is great because it’s essentially a lunge. This makes it easy for even the most novice beginners to practice. Additionally, it’s one that’s designed to strengthen your core and your upper body. You will find that you are able to support yourself much more efficiently when you become good at a lunge pose. While it doesn’t look like one that requires much strength or effort, it’s one that will really work your core and your muscles, and it’s one of the most beneficial poses in the practice.

Crow Pose

This is a bit challenging. As you can see in the photo, this pose requires some serious contortion and some very difficult work. It requires that you put almost all your weight on the balls of your feet and your hands, which is something that’s not easy for many people. It is a beginner’s pose, but it’s one of the more difficult poses for beginners. There are several other poses you will need to master prior to being able to successfully attempt the crow without feeling overwhelmed and shaky. Once you get it, however, it’s bound to become one of your favorite poses.

Triangle

What this pose does is a little of everything, which is why it’s so essential for beginners to master when they begin practicing yoga. The triangle pose allows you to twist your body to help with flexibility and muscle support. However, it also requires that you extend your torso in four different directions, which is something many other poses cannot do. This increases muscle strength, flexibility and it helps build your core while releasing your chest and shoulders. This provides you with better balance and more structure.

Bridge Pose

The bridge is another inversion pose. This means that your head is below your heart, which means that your body is working even harder when you do this. That’s a good thing, however. When you perform this pose, which is nowhere near as simple as it looks, you are working very hard to strengthen your back and your leg muscles. You use your own body weight to make this pose work, which is good for your sense of balance and your stress level.

Downward Dog

This particular pose might be the most famous pose in all of yoga. It’s not one that hurts or that takes much effort at all, but it is one that provides ample benefits to your health. The downward facing dog allows you to invert your body – this simply means that your head is lower than your heart. It helps to open your shoulders and strengthen your upper body. It also helps to relieve a lot of the stress that builds up in your lower back and upper shoulders, so that you feel more relaxed and relieved when you are finished.

Cobra Pose

If you have a desk job that requires spending hours in front of a computer, hunched over your desk, this is an imperative pose to learn. It’s easy enough for beginners, but great for your mind and body. It’s a type of miniature backbend, which helps you release the tension and stress that occurs in your back when your posture is compromised at your desk. This one also helps to provide you with more energy, which is something else you will need after spending hours at the desk working.

Squat

While stretching the inner thighs, this is a pose that’s perfect for beginners. It’s also perfect for an expectant mother who wants to prepare her body for labor. This pose opens up the pubic area and helps to increase its strength, as well as the strength and muscles of the inner thighs. It’s a simple pose for many, but it does require some concentration to keep it up. It can be difficult to hold in the beginning, but the more you practice the better you will become at holding this pose.

Child’s Pose

The child’s pose is very simple and one of the easiest in the beginner’s yoga class. It’s also one of the most relaxing and more effective poses. This pose allows you to stretch your arms and back, and it helps you to relieve tension and stress. It’s great for your muscle relief, as well. It’s typically used as a cool-down pose to help those who practice yoga take a bit of a break from the more advanced poses and to slow down their heart rate before they start on something else. It’s very simple, and you can use it to stretch as much as possible.

Raised Arm

The raised arm is not a difficult pose to master, but it is a difficult one to hold for extended periods of time if you do not practice yoga avidly. The pose is designed to use your muscles to build strength as well as to stretch your muscles so that they have the opportunity to warm up and prepare for a work out. Yoga is, after all, one of the most satisfying and best workouts available for anyone to practice. It offers some of the most amazing benefits.

Camel Pose

This particular pose looks more complicated than it actually is. While it’s not one of the easier beginner’s poses, it’s not nearly as intimidating as photos make it seem. This pose requires a great deal of concentration and strength, but it’s going to help benefit parts of your body other poses will not touch. For example, this pose helps increase your lung capacity and it stimulates a number of your glands, which can lead to better overall health.

Forward Bend

The forward bend looks easy, but it’s not. Most beginners cannot even reach the ground when they stand with their legs together and do not bend them. This is okay. The point of this pose is to provide rest and to stretch the back and shoulders. If you cannot reach the ground when you stand in this pose, you will. All you can do at this point in time is reach as far down as possible. The more you practice and the more flexible and the stronger your body becomes, the farther down you will be able to reach. If you continue to practice yoga regularly, the forward bend will not provide a challenge for you in the near future.

The Upward Dog

The upward dog is very similar to some other yoga poses, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve an important purpose. This pose is used to stretch the back and the shoulders. It’s also used to provide some strength to the arms. Not an inverted pose like its downward facing dog counterpart, this pose focuses solely on the body parts that require a bit of additional strength and stretch. It’s a powerful pose for warming up and for beginners to learn.

Sun Salutation

This particular pose requires that you have some serious strength and balance. It’s centered, which means you must be able to stand completely still and focus on your inner muscles. This one is primarily for your core, as it’s going to help you learn to balance your body and to distribute your weight evenly. It looks like such as simple pose, but without good balance, it’s one of the most difficult poses associated with yoga. It might be easy for you if your balance is already good, but it might also take you some time to pick up.

Plank

What makes this pose so attractive to beginners is the fact that it looks simple. However, it’s anything but simple. This particular pose requires a lot of upper arm strength. The plank is one that is going to make sure you have to support the weight of your entire body with your arms, and it’s not a simple pose. However, once you get the hang of this one, it means you’re building strength and muscles and that your practicing is paying off in ways you cannot even begin to describe.

Deep Lunge

This one is very similar to the lunge, but it works your muscles just a bit more vigorously. This is still considered a beginners pose, but it’s a bit more difficult and complex than the regular lunge. If you suffer from a painful back or tense shoulders, you will find that this deep lunge is going to provide you with some relief from your muscle aches and pains. Like many of the poses in the beginners category, this pose is very beneficial for people who play sports regularly as well as those who sit in front of a desk on a regular basis.

Warrior

This is one of the best yoga poses for balance. This one helps you strengthen your inner core and relax your muscles. It also helps to build muscles in that it uses your own body weight to work. This pose is a very simple one that’s perfect for beginners because it provides you with the ability to make your inner body stronger and more flexible, while making your outer body look its best. And it’s good for your mind because it’s a stress-relieving pose.

Seated Twist

It looks as if it is one of the easiest yoga poses for someone to master, but it is surprisingly difficult. This type of pose requires that you have wonderful strength in your lower back, upper arms and shoulders. The seated twist is one that gets easier over time as your body strengthens and you become more confident in your abilities to pose. It’s going to help you stretch your muscles and relieve tension from some of the tensest parts of the body, which will enable you to successfully leave yoga feeling calm and less tense.

Pigeon Pose

This one is always a fun pose because it’s one that you can really feel – at least personally. The pigeon pose requires that you get down on one knee and stretch your legs and back, as well as your arms and shoulders. It is almost as simple as it looks, but it does have a greatly deceptive feeling. You will be overwhelmingly stretched feeling when you are in the midst of this pose, which is not something most people expect when they do it for the first time. It’s a beginner’s pose that’s wonderful for those with sore, aching backs.

Tree Pose

Standing upright in a straight line such as this is wonderful for your body. It’s a pose that is designed to help you learn the rest of the poses in the yoga sequence. It’s good for beginners because it’s not overly strenuous, but it’s one of the most deceptive poses. It looks simple, but it requires a great deal of inner balance and strength, which is why many people need some time to master this particular pose.

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