Build strength, stability, and focus using this 10-minute yoga routine and one of the best yoga mats to find your flow.
“It’s a short ten-minute energizing yoga flow practice for increased strength, stability and focus that really gets you expanded and grounded,” says the Breathe and Flow yoga duo. It’s a great way to start your morning or the whole day if you sit at a desk for a long time.
Below we share the short but effective 10-minute routine along with some of the benefits of a yoga flow practice.
Watch Breathe and Flow’s 10-minute yoga routine:
Bre and Flo are qualified yoga instructors, certified in functional mobility screening and animal flow and are also Functional Range Conditioning Mobility Specialists. In short, they know something about yoga and how to move for maximum efficiency.
This particular routine is recommended for anyone who needs to fit exercise into their day, says Flo, not unlike the technique of snacking.
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You start from the back of your mat in a standing front position, which gives you a chance to focus on your breathing and align yourself for the routine. Renowned yoga instructor Flo recommends activating your ujjayi breath, which means inhaling and exhaling through your nose.
This is a type of cleansing yoga breath used to slow your heart rate and build heat in your body by pursing your lips and creating slight constrictions at the back of your throat. It’s one of those things I wish I’d known earlier as a yoga beginner, but only use it if you feel comfortable.
I describe this practice as slow and strong rather than a fast vinyasa transition; this will test your ability to use your strength, control, balance and concentration to propel movements, keep muscles under constant tension and increase stability over time.
This is a smart way to focus on form, transitions and strength if you only have a short amount of time to fix your yoga. Moving slowly also means paying more attention to what the body is doing and how the muscles feel in each position – something we should do more often in any exercise to improve muscle activation and contraction and build our neuromuscular pathways.
Is doing 10 minutes of yoga a day enough?
Although exercise snacking—a trend that involves adding short bursts of activity into your daily routine—seems to be a fad, there’s some evidence (like this study published in Exercise and Sports Science Reviews) that suggests a brisk workout lasting up to 60 seconds could improve your cardio.
While this 10-minute yoga class wouldn’t qualify as “vigorous,” building a consistent yoga practice, however long, has many benefits. Yoga can build flexibility, increase mobility, strengthen joints, muscles, bones and ligaments, increase mindfulness and reduce anxiety and moodiness, and help build mental strength.
It’s amazing what an hour of yoga can do for your body, but consistency is crucial to achieving your physical or mental health goals. Making exercise more accessible and accessible can create consistency, whether you want to build strength, lose weight, or anything in between. If breaking up your workouts throughout the day or week improves stability, then 10 minutes is helpful.
One study published in Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine suggests that yoga may be beneficial for improving health and “lifestyle-related health conditions”, citing that the frequency of home exercise is more important than the time spent exercising or the degree many hours someone takes. Even 10 minutes could pack some health benefits.
Can Yoga Help You Lose Weight?
Any form of exercise can help support weight loss, but yoga alone is unlikely to increase calories. You need to consider other lifestyle changes such as good sleep, diet and exercise more often during the day. Besides, there are many other benefits of yoga that can be gained.
If weight loss is one of your goals, fast-paced exercises like vinyasa, power, rocket, and hot yoga may increase your heart rate and make the class more difficult. For example, a study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that 60 minutes of vinyasa flow burned similar calories to brisk walking.
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