Yoga is a fantastic exercise to help you de-stress, stretch your muscles, strengthen your body and gain flexibility. Another great advantage is the ability to do a workout session virtually anywhere, from a gym to a living room. Many people take yoga classes with instructors, but others prefer to work on their yoga skills in the privacy of their own homes. And both options work. If you’re doing yoga at home and you want a guided session to help you work out, all you need is a mobile device like a laptop or a phone, because there are many yoga programs and apps available to help you make the most of your time. Here are our top 10 favorites.
Daily Yoga
This yoga app, which is top-rated on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, focuses on helping the aspiring yogi build a yoga habit day by day, with courses from beginner level to advanced. It includes guided meditations and routines from world-renowned yoga instructors and smart AI technology that helps you determine where to take your yoga journey next.
Yoga Studio
Yoga Studio is an Editor’s Choice app on the Apple App Store with a similar amount of popularity on Google Play. It does its best to help you turn your chosen yoga practice location into a virtual studio, with lots of ready-made videos, classes for every need, guided meditation sessions and more that help you become the Yogi that you want to be, from beginner to expert.
Down Dog
Down Dog is a yoga app that takes pride in its versatility and customizability. With options to create a personalized yoga routine, it also allows you to match your routines with dynamic music choices, multiple practice types, different guiding voices (with support for 9 other languages besides English!) and much more.
Simply Yoga
Simply Yoga (Google Play, App Store) takes a minimalist approach to this exercise. It offers personal coaching for Yogis of all experience levels, complete instructions for going through 35+ poses, streaming classes and more. But it also helps you create a simple headspace for going through this meditative practice on your own terms.
Asana Rebel
Asana Rebel (Google Play, App Store) takes the idea of a personal yoga experience and runs with it. It includes workouts from easy 5-minute sessions to high intensity workouts; whatever you need in order to create a flow that’s right for you. It also offers added features like informational articles, daily challenges, fun quizzes and more to help you stay motivated about your journey, confident in your ability to follow through with your routine each day. Everything about it is designed to bring you to a state of mindfulness while having as much fun and working as hard as you can.
Five Minute Yoga Workouts
Five Minute Yoga (Google Play, App Store) is built with the busy Yogi in mind. Sometimes, all you have is five minutes to get in a workout, and this app makes that possible. It offers brief but thorough sessions that are the perfect way to get ready for the day, unwind before bed or relieve stress between your daily tasks. It also includes a timer to help you get the most out of each pose while spending just a short time on the workout itself.
Find What Feels Good
Find What Feels Good (Google Play, App Store) is an app that compiles the many sessions and teachings of popular instructor Adriene from the YouTube channel Yoga With Adriene. Adriene is well-known for creating classes and workshops that fit just about any need. She does video classes such as beginner yoga for habit formation, yoga for anxiety and depression, start-of-day and bedtime yoga and yoga for digestion and pregnancy. She leads the viewer along a workout with a gentle tone and an emphasis on taking what works for you and leaving what doesn’t.
YMCA Virtual Classes
Your phone’s app store isn’t the only place where you can find guided yoga workouts. The YMCA has been pulling out all the stops to help members get the training sessions they need. This includes follow-along yoga videos available for streaming from local certified yoga instructors. Multiple different forms of yoga are available, too, from gentle chair yoga to yoga for flexibility to therapeutic yin yoga.
Bower Center for the Arts
The Bower Center is also offering free online yoga classes for people of all ages and skill levels. Taught by two different instructors Monday-Thursday, this is a great way to get your feet wet in various forms of yoga discipline.
James River Yoga
James River Yoga is a local studio that is offering free yoga classes on YouTube as a way for Yogis to get their practice in while the studio does its best to reopen. Instructor Nancy leads classes that are about an hour long and provide a thorough workout for those who miss being at their studio in person.
We hope that as we all continue to live through this season of pandemic that you can find an exercise practice that works for you. If you have any questions about exercising or any other form of staying healthy, contact us at Community Access Network today!