6 Best Power Yoga Poses and Exercises to Help You Lose Weight

Power yoga is a form of yoga that focuses on strength, flexibility, and balance. It usually combines basic poses with challenging variations.

Power yoga exercises have been known to help lose weight by improving core strength, endurance, muscle tone, and balance at the same time. Here's a look at a few power yoga poses you can do for weight loss:

---

Power Yoga Poses for Weight Loss

Here's a look at six such poses:

#1 Chair Pose

It's a great pose for the lower back and abdominal muscles.

To do it, stand with your feet together, arms by your side, and knees bent. Inhale, and lift your arms over your head. Exhale, and bend forward from the hips, keeping your knees bent. Repeat ten times for a set; do 2-3 sets per day.

---

#2 Half Moon Pose

Here's how to do this pose:

• Stand with your feet together, knees slightly bent, and arms by your sides.
• Inhale, and raise your arm and leg, with palms facing each other.
• Exhale as you bend to one side till you feel a stretch in the chest or shoulder area. Iif you're not flexible enough, bring your hands up above your head.
• Hold for 20 seconds on each side before repeating again with the other arm extended out to reach towards the ceiling. That should give you a deeper stretch throughout both shoulders and opening up through all sides of the torso.

---

#3 Warrior I Pose

It's a great way to stretch the hips, thighs, ankles, and shoulders. It also helps improve balance and posture.

Known as Virabhadrasana I or warrior 1 pose, this asana is like the foundation for all warrior poses. While it might not seem like much on paper, when done correctly this exercise can be quite strenuous for those who're just starting out with yoga or activities involving poses requiring balance and strength.

When done properly every day over time, you will notice an improvement in how quickly you can complete this movement without losing control of the body's position or balance. That means less effort required for everyday tasks, such as walking around.

---

#4 Crescent Lunge

To do this pose, begin in a standing position. Step one foot back, keeping the knee bent. Bring the hands to the heart center in a prayer position, and bend the front knee till it's at a 90-degree angle, keeping the hips square to the front of the mat.

Inhale, and raise your arms overhead as you look up at your extended leg. Exhale, and press into your heel as you straighten both legs, and bring them parallel with each other while maintaining balance on both feet. Hold for three deep breaths before transitioning back down into a crescent lunge pose again with hands clasped together above the chest center.

---

#5 Tree Pose

This pose is effective in helping you lose weigh, so it's also known as “the yoga pose for weight loss.”

The tree pose is one of the basic standing poses and involves standing on one leg while holding your other foot. It can be difficult to master, but once you get the hang of it, you can reap all its benefits.

The tree pose helps build strength in the arms, shoulders, legs, and abdomen, as it requires support from those parts and balance from head to toe. Each time you practice this pose (and any other power yoga exercise), there will be more focus on building strength than flexibility.

That means if you only do these exercises once or twice per week instead of daily as most people do with Pilates or yoga at a gym or studio, over time as your muscles become stronger, they will become more flexible too.

---

#6 Triangle Pose

It's done as follows:

• Stand upright with your feet together. Turn your right foot out and the left foot in at a 45-degree angle. Place the palms of your hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart, fingers pointing towards the toes and thumbs away from you at about a 90-degree angle from each other.
• Lean forward, placing both forearms on either side of one leg (left or right) with an arm straight as possible and parallel to the floor.
• Make sure you're keeping both shoulders aligned over your hips while in this position so that they don't roll forward or back too much during the pose.

---

Takeaway

Power yoga is a great way for anyone to lose weight and get healthy. You can do it at home; there is no expensive equipment or special clothes required, and you don’t need much space either.

Just find an open floor area where you can do the aforementioned poses easily enough.