Morning yoga stretches

Wake up your body with these six, scrumptious morning yoga stretches by MacKenzie Miller.

morning yoga

1. Seated cat: With your palms holding the shins or knees, round the spine and tuck the chin towards the chest, exhaling as you do so. 

morning yoga

2. Seated cow: inhale and arch the spine, lifting the chest and gazing slightly upwards. Try not to tip the head too far back. Repeat seated cat / cow movements slowly, moving with the breath, a few times.

morning yoga

3. Sphinx pose: come onto your belly and place your elbows under your shoulders, forearms parallel with one another. Energetically draw your elbows back whilst lifting the chest. Lengthen your tailbone towards your heels and soften the shoulders away from the ears. Keep a slight engagement of your lower belly to protect the lower back. Take a few long, slow breaths.

morning yoga

4. Standing forward fold: hold opposite elbows and let the head hang heavy, neck relaxed. Bend your knees slightly if having straight legs is too strong for your hamstrings. Breathe slowly and evenly for a few moments feeling the spine and the sides of the torso lengthen.

morning yoga

5. Side stretches: hold the left wrist with the right hand and arch the torso to the right. Keep the lower belly drawn in so as not to overstretch the side waist and if it feels good, turn the chest and the gaze to the left. As you breathe, feel the elongation from the outer left foot to the left little finger. Repeat on the other side. 

morning yoga

6. Yogic squat: Take the feet slightly wider than hip-distance and turn the toes out a little. Squat down, making sure the knees are pointing in the same direction as your toes. If your heels are hovering, rest them on a rolled up blanket or blocks. Bring your elbows to the inner thighs and the palms together at the sternum. Take a few breaths here, keeping space in the chest area and lengthening from the tailbone to the crown of the head. 

morning yoga

Follow our 10 Days of Vinyasa Flow program

This program is a set of ten 30-minute Vinyasa Flow classes from different teachers so that you can get to try out a mix of approaches to Vinyasa yoga.

Share article
EkhartYoga Written by one of the EkhartYoga staff or guest writers. A dedicated team of yoga teachers, yoga students, anatomy geeks, and recipe creators.