The yoga community is now realizing 🤔 and the importance and benefits of strength training 💪🏽, as yoga is not quite everything we need.

We know to gain strength, we need to progressively add load and resistance. Yoga being a body weight practice, can only get us strong to a point.

In this class we will focus on how we can strengthen to feel stronger, more stable and balanced in our asana practice as well as every day movement. For example, gaining the strength to achieve a non injurious chaturanga, won’t necessarily come from doing more chaturangas, but instead from breaking the movement down so that it is accessible for where we are today, and progressively adding load to build strength. This strength will benefit us in all the ways, making movement in general more accessible and pain free, reducing risk of injury, improving bone density, and of course all the mental health benefits - easing depression, reducing anxiety, raising self esteem, improving cognitive function (here is an interesting study) and overall wellbeing.

This class is for everyone, new to this type of movement or not, new to yoga or not. You get to choose what and how much weight/resistance to use. There will also be plenty of variations given so that every exercise can work for you.

For this class you will need: weights - dumbbells and/or kettle bells, or things you can use as weights like cans of food, water bottles, a gallon jug filled with water or sand etc. (The internet has lots of ideas 💡), and a resistance band. (I do have some to sell, Theraband medium and heavy (6ft), that I could drop off or you could pick up), we also occasionally use an armless chair.

We are thrilled to offer this class in which is truly for everyone! At Hudson River Yoga we are dedicated to sharing yoga with everyone. We believe that all people, regardless of ability or background deserve accessible access to the teachings of yoga, which offer individual empowerment and awakening.

Every body can enjoy this fun yoga practice which will be instructed in ways that are accessible and make sense to you the student. This class can be particularly helpful for students with limitation in mobility, range of motion or those who may not be able to practice on a yoga mat, and/or anyone who may not feel comfortable in a traditional yoga class.

Props needed: a firm armless chair, blocks or books, a yoga strap, scarf or tie, and blanket or towel.