Try Alpha BRAIN® for FREE Try Alpha BRAIN® for FREE Learn More
5 Yoga Poses Using Resistance Bands

5 Ways to Add Resistance to Your Yoga Poses

Written by
March 4, 2015
Updated April 11, 2018
Category: Fitness

Resistance Bands allow for more tension than is normally accessible in your yoga poses. This additional tension provides scalable difficulty and an alternative perspective on yoga poses that we normally practice without resistance. Add resistance bands to your most typical yoga poses to gain that extra engagement towards your practice!

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #1: Half Moon

Noah Pose 1
Balancing in an open hip pattern is tough, using extreme strength in the hip joint capsule to do so. The Half Moon exercise is a great activator of the external hip rotators on the balancing leg, creating openness in the muscles on the inside of that same leg. At the same time, trunk stabilization is required to try and keep the geometry straight through the top side of this yoga pose.

Adding a resistance band to the top hand and bottom foot will create a more dynamic balancing effort in this balancing practice. Similar to Warrior 2, more engagement is required to keep an expansive chest. The Quadradus Lomborum is a spinal stabilizer that is heavily active in the body weight variation of this yoga pose, and when the tension of the resistance band pulls down on the upper body, this muscle is heavily activated.

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #2: Warrior 3

Noah Pose 2
This balancing yoga pose requires a strong single leg engagement to balance and a responsive spinal extension action to reach forward. As these two forces pull on each other, Warrior 3 strengthens the engagement of both, building better single leg strength and thoracic extension.

Adding the resistance band creates a super-gravity effect on the upper body, requiring a stronger response of spinal muscles to stretch out and lengthen through the arms. This additional tension will engage those muscles involved with correct posture and spinal function even more than the yoga pose without a resistance band.

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #3: Wide Legged Forward Fold

Noah Pose 3
Folding with wide legs is essential to reducing the tension that can be tucked away in the adductor muscles after an intense session. Several different arm variations are available in this fold, however the most effective that I have felt is with the arms up and behind the spine. A massive release can be felt in the middle back when folding with this arm variation.

Many times, this variation is not accessible due to a limited range of motion in the shoulders. Adding the resistance band takes away that limitation and allows for the overhead arm variation to be accessible to even the most tight of shoulders!

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #4: Warrior 2

Noah Pose 4
Expansion of the chest cavity in this yoga pose is so crucial to correct posture and torso strength. Coupled with adducting the separated legs, Warrior 2 is a powerful yoga pose that builds an understanding of the body as one complete unit. The resistance band allows for the angles of tension to be altered in Warrior 2, providing the opportunity for a different exploration of this full body movement.

By holding one end of the resistance band in either hand, a more robust contraction of the middle back muscles is required to keep the same open chest. In addition, the resistance band provides a marker of how level each arm is with one another, an especially difficult task when one hand is completely outside the range of vision.

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #5: Chair

Resistance Band Yoga Pose #5: Chair
Onnit Mobility BnadA great exercise of spinal strength, chair requires openness through the front side of the torso while deepening the bend into the legs.

Most importantly, the weight of chair pose is back in the heels, allowing for accessible stacking of the vertebra to create shoulder over hip alignment.

Sometimes, the range of motion in the shoulders limits the ability to take the arms up and overhead.

Adding a resistance band will increase the amount of tension taking the arms back and allow for an easier stack of the shoulders over the hips.

With this alignment, the abdominal wall is ready to be engaged in order to straighten out and lengthen through the entire spine while still bending low into the legs.

Have you ever wondered what the hell is going on? When did we all sign up to be human beings on the planet earth? What does this all mean? The truth is, nobody knows. Luckily, there is a certain tiny little aspect of this universe that is under your complete control; your Movement and Breath. Since existence is such a mystery, all we can DO is DO what we can. Breathe mindfully. Move with purpose. Once you’ve done all you can DO, this amazing universe we live in takes care of the rest and we sink into synchronicity with its infinite beauty. My call to action is invoking this thought process in as many people as possible. With the force of this idea, your life can completely change. This intention towards breath and movement has certainly changed mine. Existence is no longer a struggle, but a harmony; a ballad of the one YOU there will EVER be. My classes are geared towards evoking these two aspects of your control; Breath and Movement. I will constantly remind both you and myself to BREATHE during class. By cultivating this connection, the trivialities of everyday human life will fade away. Begin the process. Come move and breathe!
Free shipping is offered on orders with a minimum subtotal of $100 less discounts. Free shipping is only available in the contiguous U.S. and excludes Fitness and Digital items.
For media inquiries please contact us at media@onnit.com.
With a subscription, you'll get your favorite Onnit products whenever you want at 15% off MSRP. All automatic, worry free, and with our same great money back guarantee.
Cancel or adjust your order at any time, hassle free. Your payment method will only be charged right before your order ships. The discount applied every time is 15% off MSRP or the current sale discount, whichever is greater. For more information, see the complete Onnit Subscription Terms & Conditions and Frequently Asked Questions.

Secure Shopping

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access any information on our website. We incorporate physical, electronic, and administrative procedures to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal information, including Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for the encryption of all financial transactions through the website. We use industry-standard, 256bit SSL encryption to protect your personal information online, and we also take several steps to protect your personal information in our facilities. For example, when you visit the website, you access servers that are kept in a secure physical environment, behind a locked cage and a hardware firewall. After a transaction, your credit card information is not stored on our servers.