Although there are many yoga poses that I would love to share with you, there are three in particular that I believe are essential to master first before diving into more advanced poses.

Those poses are: Mountain pose, Downward Dog and Plank pose. I love each one because whether you have reached a more vigorous level of yoga or not, they are always great to resort back to when your body needs healing, restoration, and relief.

Let’s talk about their benefits and tips on how to master them:

Mountain Pose

The Mountain pose, also known as Tadasana, helps with grounding, promotes good posture, strength, and improves our digestion and organ function.

To reap the full benefits of this pose, it is important to master aligning your body correctly so that you can improve your balance in order to do this pose standing tall and straight. You can support this by doing the pose a few times with your feet a few inches apart rather than together to help with your balance. Afterwards, you can resume doing this pose with your feet back together.

Downward Dog

Downward dog may sound familiar to you as it is a commonly known and practiced pose. Physically, it strengthens and lengthens your hands, wrists, shoulders and lower back. It also provides a great stretch to your hamstrings, calves and ankles.

Because downward dog requires that you relax your head and elongate your spine and neck, it can help relieve tension that you may have in your body like back pain or headaches. Downward dog is an excellent way to energize your body as it increases blood circulation.

It is important to engage your lower belly and make sure you are drawing your navel into your spine when practicing this. Doing so will activate your core and remove some tension from other parts of your body like arms and shoulders.

Plank Pose

Lastly, the plank pose is vital in building up strength in your arms, shoulders, core, glutes and hamstrings. This pose promotes good posture because you are strengthening the muscles that are responsible for the proper alignment of your spine.

When doing the plank pose, you really want to focus on utilizing the arm and back muscles. Make sure that you keep your arms straight and that you are keeping your back at a sturdy and flat level.

The more you practice this, the stronger you will feel. And yes, it does get easier!