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Yoga straps can be incredible tools to help students modify, enhance, and explore a physical posture in an entirely new way. Not to mention, if you’re a teacher or studio owner who’s spent money on props and they take up space in your yoga studio, it’s worth having your students take advantage of these resources as much as possible.
As a yoga teacher and training coordinator for over 15 years, I’ve spent much of that time collecting unique uses for yoga props and experimenting on the mat with students. The goal? Allowing students to feel even more supported than practicing without props.
15 Creative Yoga Strap Hacks You Haven’t Tried Yet
Here are some creative ways students and teachers can incorporate a yoga strap into their next practice—whether it’s to support the body, intensify a stretch or sensation, add a strengthening challenge, or all the above.
1. Mountain Pose (Tadasana)
It’s easy to be passive in Mountain Pose. Pressing your legs into the strap strengthens the outer hip muscles and helps decompress the SI joint. You can also add an arm strengthening challenge to this posture using a strap.
How to: Fasten the strap in a loop around your thighs, just above your knees, so your legs are fixed hip-distance apart. Stand in Mountain Pose with your feet firmly planted and press your thighs outward against the resistance of the strap.
Wrap the looped strap around your arms at your elbow crease. From Mountain Pose, reach your arms forward with your palms facing each other. Press your upper arms against the resistance of the strap.
2. Upward Salute (Urdhva Hastasana)
The resistance from the strap on your arms causes you to isometrically engage the underworked muscles of your posterior rotator cuff and upper back. In other words, it supports better posture.
How to: Fasten the strap into a small loop barely wider than shoulder-width apart and loop it around your arms at your elbow crease. Raise your arms overhead and draw your shoulder blades apart in Upward Salute.
3. Chair Pose (Utkatasana)
Reaching your arms forward with the strap around them engages the lower posterior shoulder and back muscles. Or, reaching your arms overhead ignites the trapezius and latissimus muscles of the mid and upper back. Alternatively, to challenge your outer hip muscles and prevent your knees from collapsing inward, wrap the strap around your thighs.
How to: With the strap fastened around your elbows as in Upward Salute, sit your hips back into Chair Pose. Reach your arms forward or overhead and press outward against the strap. Draw your shoulders down.
Wrap the looped strap around your thighs and come into Chair Pose. Press your thighs outward against the resistance of the strap.
4. Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)
Pushing against the resistance of the strap with your arms helps stabilize the posterior shoulder and upper back muscles in Warrior 1, training the muscles to support better posture and shoulder strength.
How to: From Warrior 1, fasten the looped strap around your elbows and press your arms against the resistance of the strap.
5. Sun Salutations
With the strap still around your elbows, you can explore an entire Sun Salutation, pressing against the resistance of the band throughout. This engagement of the back of the shoulders and upper back creates a newfound awareness of the upper body in your Sun Salutations, and helps strengthen and stabilize the shoulder muscles.
How to: With the strap fastened around your elbows, move through your Sun Salutation, from Plank to Chaturanga, Upward-Facing Dog to Downward-Facing Dog. Press out against the strap throughout. (More details on each pose follow.)
6. Four-Limbed Staff Pose (Chaturanga)
The strap can help support the body in Chatarunga by creating a kinesthetic awareness of when you should stop lowering yourself. (Bending your elbows too much and taking yourself too close to the mat actually stresses, rather than strengthens, your shoulders.)
How to: Wrap the looped strap around your arms at your elbow crease. Come to Plank or hands and knees with your shoulder stacked over your wrists. Shift your body forward, bringing your shoulders forward over your fingertips in Chaturanga. Reach your sternum in front of the strap and bend your elbows. Lower your body toward the floor until your ribcage touches the strap.
7. Upward-Facing Dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana)
Pulling out against the strap can help alleviate some of the sacral and lumbar compression that tends to accompany this pose.
How to:
Wrap the looped strap around your arms at your elbow crease. Come into Upward-Facing Dog. Press your hands and tops of your feet into the floor, and draw your elbows in toward your ribs as your arms press against the resistance of the strap. Draw your shoulders away from your ears and your core toward your spine.
8. Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mudkha Svanasana)
With the strap fastened around the legs in Down Dog, you can feel the outer hip muscles engage, strengthening the legs and hips.
How to: Wrap the looped strap around your thighs and come into Downward-Facing Dog. Press your thighs outward against the resistance of the band.
9. Warrior 3 (Virabhadrasana III)
By pressing the back foot into the strap, you’ll help stretch the lifted leg and create strong energy from foot to crown. The arms will also be locked in with shoulders strongly down to keep the neck long and back engaged.
How to: Open the strap and hold one end in each hand, letting the midsection fall onto the floor. Step one foot onto the center of the strap. Step your opposite leg forward into Warrior 1. Slide your hands down the strap to create tension between your back foot and arms. Draw your shoulders down. Lengthen your spine to pull upward on the strap but do not bend your elbows. Shift your weight into your front foot and shift into Warrior 3, continuing to press your back foot against the strap. Engage your core muscles and reach the crown of your head forward.
10. Reclined Bound Angle Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)
Your experience of Reclined Bound Angle will shift slightly depending on the placement of the strap. If the strap is situated under the sacrum, you may be able to keep your lower back flat on the floor. If the strap comes behind the lumbar area, you may feel a supported backbend as the strap lifts the lower back off of the floor.
How to: Sit on the floor with the soles of your feet together and your knees open in Bound Angle Pose. Fasten the strap into a large loop taking it around your sacrum or lower back as well as your thighs and then under your feet. Lie back and allow the strap to keep your feet in place, allowing your inner thigh muscles to relax.
11. Happy Baby Pose (Ananda Balasana)
Think of this as a reclined squat that helps strengthen the thighs as well as stretches the hips, hamstrings, and lower back
How to: Cross the strap behind your back and loop both ends around the soles of your feet. Come into Happy Baby Pose by lying on your back, bending your knees, and bringing your ankles over your knees. Press your feet into the strap and relax your arms by your sides.
12. Extended Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose (Supta Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)
Pressing against the strap in this pose can help decompress the hip and lower back and allow you to stretch your extended leg even more. Practicing on your back, as opposed to standing, also allows you to experience all this without needing to balance.
How to: Fasten the strap into a large loop about the length of your leg (using an extra-long strap of 8-10 feet is best). Lie on your back and loop the strap under your lower back and around the sole of one foot. Straighten your leg toward the ceiling. Actively press the sole of your foot against the strap in Extended Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose. Stay here or slowly open your extended leg out to the side. You can also draw your leg across your body toward the opposite side in a supine spinal twist.
13. Plank (Supta Phalakasana)
Pressing your legs against the strap in Plank can help you find extra stability in the posture through engagement in your legs and core.
How to: Fasten the strap into a loop, wrap it around your thighs, and come into Plank. Engage your core and press your hands and feet into the floor as you press your legs against the resistance of the strap.
14. Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani)
Allow yourself to unwind in a passive variation of this classic resting posture. The weight of your arms helps keep your legs in the air without a lot of effort.
How to: Fasten the strap into a large loop and lie on your back. Slip the strap around the soles of your feet and extend them toward the ceiling in Legs Up the Wall. Slide your arms through the strap, allowing it to fall into your elbow creases. Hang your arms off the strap with your hands together in prayer position (anjali mudra) at your forehead.
