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This 10-minute morning yoga power flow is a heat-building class that targets all your muscles. It will strengthen your core, legs, and shoulders and challenge you to work through some trickier transitions and balancing poses, such as Warrior 3 with your hands clasped behind your back. Then you’ll finish with a little stretching.
The power yoga flow is a quick way to experience a boost of energy. It’s also a way to set the tone for your day by putting yourself first. You may want to choose a one-word intention for the day ahead, just one simple word—whatever captures how you want to feel today, what you want to focus on, and what matters to you. Or you may want to let that word come to you during your 10-minute morning yoga practice.
10-Minute Morning Power Yoga
This quick morning yoga practice is suitable for all experience levels. No props are required in this power yoga practice, although you’re welcome to use them for any pose you like.
Cat-Cow
Begin in Tabletop and take a few rounds of Cat and Cow. So hands underneath your shoulders, knees underneath your hips. You’re going to inhale, lower your belly and lift your gaze in Cow Pose.
As you exhale, reverse this motion as you push the mat away from you and contract your abs in Cat Pose. So inhale, finding a nice back bend, opening through the chest. Exhale, broadening between the shoulder blades and then comback through a neutral position.
Keep going in and out of those poses to warm up the spine and bring your movement in rhythm with your breath. Think about pushing into the tops of your feet to take some of the weight out of your knees. Similarly, push into your fingertips and knuckles to take some of the weight out of your wrists.
Tabletop to Plank to Downward-Facing Dog
From Tabletop, walk your hands slightly forward, a couple inches past your shoulders. Tuck your toes, and find Hovering Tabletop by lifting your knees a few inches off the mat.
Exhale as you straighten into Plank, then inhale back to that hovering Tabletop. Your hips are not lifting or lowering.
Then exhale all the way back into Downward-Facing Dog. Do that about 10 times or so. So inhale into Floating Tabletop, exhale into Plank Pose, inhale into Floating Tabletop, exhale into Downward-Facing Dog. Keep going. Feel the strength through your shoulders, hug in slightly through the inner thighs, and draw your lower belly in and up.
As you’re doing these poses, think of pushing into your fingertips and knuckles, taking some of the body weight out of your wrists. The more times you practice this sequence, the more you might be able to get your heels closer toward the mat when you find that Downward Dog. Take 2 more full cycles here.
Downward-Facing Dog
On your last Downward-Facing Dog, stay here and peddle your legs. Push into your heels and find that space.
Scorpion Dog
As you reach your chest toward your thighs, lift your right leg into Three-Legged Dog. Then bend your right knee, open your hip, and let your right heel hover behind you as you take a big stretch.
High Lunge Variation
Transition into High Lunge by stepping your right foot forward to the top of the mat. As you lift your chest, interlace your hands behind your lower back, squeeze your shoulder blades toward each other, and think of lifting your knuckles off your tailbone. This is a transitional pose.
Warrior 3 Variation
Lean forward into Swan Pose, a variation of Warrior 3, by balancing on your right leg and keeping your hands interlaced behind you. Keep your right knee slightly bent as you lift your left leg and reach through it. Bend even more into your standing leg, almost like a single-leg squat.
Keep lifting and reaching through your knuckles. At most your chest is parallel to the ground, no lower than that. Keep your gaze steady. Take one more big breath here.
Warrior 1
Then plant your left foot down behind at about a 45-degree angle. Make sure your feet are hip-distance apart and you keep a bend in your front knee. Release your arms, circle them alongside your head, and your palms either come together to touch or stay apart facing each other in Warrior 1. Breathe here.
Pigeon Pose
Take your hands to the mat, lower your back knee, and bring your right knee somewhere behind your right wrist. Extend your left leg farther back behind you and make sure you’re not rolling over onto your right side. Stay upright or fold forward in Pigeon Pose. You don’t need to go all the way down to the mat and can stay on your forearms as you take 5 steady breaths.
Try to slow your breath so your inhalation is just as long as your exhalation. See if you can relax your shoulders a little more. You may want to remind yourself of your intention here.
Downward-Facing Dog
From Pigeon, bring your hand back beneath your shoulders, tuck your back toes, and lift yourself into Downward-Facing Dog. You’re welcome to hold your Down Dog or take a vinyasa by inhaling into Plank Pose, exhaling all the way down to the mat, inhaling as you come into Cobra Pose while keeping your elbows in, and exhaling as you release back to Downward-Facing Dog. Try to relax your neck here.
Repeat these poses on your left side, starting with Three-Legged Dog followed by High Lunge, Warrior 3, Warrior 1, Pigeon Pose, and Down Dog. This time when you’re in High Lunge and Warrior 3, interlace your fingers in the more unusual way, so get your other thumb on top.
Seated Meditation
Come to a seat, either cross-legged or kneeling, and bring yourself back to your one-word intention. Focus on that as you breathe here for as long as you can before continuing with your day. Thank you so much for doing this short 10-minute morning yoga practice.
Want to Practice More Power Yoga?
There’s a style of yoga for everything, and power yoga tends to emphasize cardio as well as strengthening and stretching.
What makes it yoga isn’t the shape of the pose but the awareness to your body, your mind, and your breath
as you make the shapes. Here are some practices that support all of the above.
15-Minute Power Yoga to Help You Wake Up
20-Minute Power Yoga Practice
30-Minute Power Yoga for a Full-Body Flow
30-Minute Feel-Good-Yoga for When Simply Want to Move
