FitnessWorkouts

10 Partner Yoga Poses for a Strong (and Flexible) Relationship

Use partner yoga to cultivate open communication and a strong (and flexible!) relationship on the mat and off with these 10 poses.

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Photo: Getty Images/Cavan Images
Published Feb 12, 2016

Written by 

Lisa Elaine Held

Roses and artisanal chocolate are pretty awesome, but when it comes to keeping a relationship strong, they don’t hold a (softly lit, romantically fragranced) candle to one-on-one time on the mat. Enter: partner yoga poses to enhance that bond.

“One of the best ways to create more intimacy in your relationships is by establishing and maintaining open lines of communication,” says Abby Vernon, an instructor at San Diego’s Yoga Six, which offers partner classes meant to deepen a couple’s relationship. “In partner yoga, communication is key in order to cultivate a sense of safety and trust, as well as hold space for laughter and play.”

Vernon crafted a two-person routine that can help couples (and BFFs) explore and strengthen a relationship. She suggests completing the series twice, holding each pose for three to five full breaths. So grab a partner—whoever that may be—and hit the mat for a way to create an entirely new level of a love connection. And if you still want to finish up with some post-savasana chocolate (and a romantic fancy candle) we totally encourage that.

10 partner yoga poses that’ll strengthen your relationships with your S.O. or BFF

Move through these poses sequentially to get the most out of your flow.

1. Centering, or sukhasana

The benefit of centering with your partner is to give you time to detach from your day’s events and focus on what you’re about to accomplish. Looking your partner in the eye allows you to appreciate them and connect before movement.

Sit face to face with your partner in a cross-legged position with your hands on one another’s knees. If this is uncomfortable for your low back, sit on a pillow or bolster for support. Take a moment to breathe as you look into the eyes of your partner.

2. Seated cat-cow, or marjaryasana-bitilasana

Cat-cow is a fundamental yoga pose that articulates your spine for better mobility, which is key in everyday movement.

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From your seated position, reach for one another’s forearms and interlace, creating a gentle bind (or reinforcing your bond). Find equal resistance between you and your partner as you draw your shoulders back and down. Inhale and lift your heart toward the sky to extend the spine, allowing your head to arc back if it feels appropriate for your neck. As you exhale, draw your chin to your chest and round your upper back, gazing in towards your belly button and spreading your shoulder blades wide. Allow your breath to lead the way as you continue this motion, flowing through spinal flexion and extension together.

3. Seated spinal twist, or ardha matsyendrasana

Working through a gentle spinal twist loosens up your joints, improves your spinal flexibility, and boosts your circulation as it opens up your shoulders.

Begin in a seated position facing your partner, legs crossed (same position as centering). Cross your arms and reach for each others’ hands. Initiate a twist from the base of your spine, twisting in opposition of your partner and using their hands to deepen the twist. Check in with your partner, make sure they are breathing steadily and feel comfortable. You may feel a slight chest and shoulder opener during this one, so be sure to communicate. Release on an exhale and slowly repeat on the other side.

4. Back to back dialogue

After your beginning movements, take time to further connect with your partner and discuss what feelings may have come up during the flow. This is a powerful exercise in listening and noticing how the conversation changes when you cannot engage or see your partner’s face.

Sit back to back with your partner in a cross-legged position (again using support if desired). Take a few deep breaths in silence and focus on feeling your partner’s breath. Notice how when you’re close, your breaths tend to sync up and match one another. If you feel open to it, take turns speaking about what’s on your mind. Give each person at least three minutes to share without interruption, acknowledgment, or feedback.

5. Back to back backbend/forward fold, or anuvittasana/tttanasana

Taking turns moving through a backend and forward fold allows you to further stretch your spine as well as to unwind your hamstring muscles.

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Begin seated, back to back. Have one partner extend their legs and lean forward into a fold (for tight hamstrings bend the knees slightly, or place a rolled up towel under the knees for support). The other partner places both feet on the floor and slowly presses backward, potentially into a gentle backbend. This couples formation stretches one partner’s spine and chest (backbend) while releasing their partner’s back and opening the hamstrings (forward fold). Then switch. Be sure to check in with your partner on this one as sensitive lower backs and tight hamstrings are very common.

6. Back to back shoulder stretch

This is a universal stretch that you can do alone, but with a partner you’re able to get a deeper stretch of your shoulders.

Stand back to back, extend your arms out wide into a T position. Interlace hands with one another, pressing the palms together. Keep your arms engaged as one partner gently pulls on the others’ palms to create a stretch across the chest and shoulders.

7. Back to back chair, or utkatasana

Chair pose is a squatting yoga pose that fires up your quadriceps and tests your balancing skills. With a partner, this is a playful exercise that strengthens body and mind, while creating a deeper sense of trust.

Stand back to back and relax your arms by your sides. Press firmly into one another to maintain balance as you first walk the feet to hip-width apart, and then away from your partner’s. Slowly begin to lower down as if you’re sitting on a chair. Once you’ve reached a 90-degree angle in your knees, hold for three to five steady breaths. Push into each other to rise back up.

8. Seated bound angle, or baddha konasana

The seated bound angle is one of the best hip-opening poses in yoga, and stretches out the muscles that get tight from sitting all day. So you’ll hit your outer hips, inner thighs, and low back while cultivating intimacy and support.

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Sit facing one another and find a long spine. Have one person bring the soles of their feet together and the other extend their legs long, feet against shins (feel free to bend your knees if you have tight hamstrings). Reach for one another’s forearms and interlace. The person with extended legs pulls the other forward slightly, tuning in to their breath as the other deepens the stretch.

9. Lateral side bend, or urdhva hastasana ardha chandrasana

Stretching your side body, as you do in this pose, is an integral way to create space between your ribs as it facilitates fuller, deeper breathing.

Sit facing your partner in a straddle stretch with your feet together. Reach for each other’s same side hand (right to right or left to left) and connect forearm to wrist. Take a deep breath in. On the exhale, bend sideways toward the extended arm as you stretch the opposite arm overhead.

10. Flying warrior, or visvamitrasana

This is where your trust and communication with your partner is put to the ultimate test. As you work on these elements of your relationship, you’ll also benefit by strengthening your arm muscles, stretching your hips, and working on your balance. Flying warrior cultivates a sense of stability, freedom, and playfulness.

To begin, the base partner lies on their back, knees bent, legs lifted toward the sky. The partner, the “flyer,” stands in front of their partner, clasping hands and leaning into the partner’s feet. The base partner adjusts their feet in their hip crease, toes slightly turned out for comfort. The base partner keeps their arms strong as the flyer leans their weight into their feet. With trust and a mutually communicated sense of security, the base slowly extends their legs, and they take flight.If you feel comfortable and safe, release the hand clasp and enjoy another level of excitement. Pro tip: It’s best to either have a spotter nearby for support, or a soft surface to land on.

Originally posted February 12, 2016, updated October 2, 2020

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FitnessWorkouts

Doing This Type of Breathing as Part of Your Pilates Practice Can Help Strengthen Your Pelvic Floor

Here's how hypopressive breathing, a deep breathing exercise, can help you with your Pilates practice and other forms of movement.

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Photo: Stocksy/Atolas
Published Jan 29, 2025

Written by 

Kelsey Kloss

If you’re obsessed with all things Pilates, you already know about the best athleisure, accessories, and self-care moments to incorporate into your practice. However, you may be less familiar with a type of breathwork that can improve your practice — and help you feel more grounded.

Experts in This Article

Anouska Shenn

certified Pilates instructor and founder of The Office Yoga Company

Blair Mauri

a pelvic floor therapist and owner of Blair Mauri Pelvic Health

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Enter hypopressive breathing, a deep breathing exercise that involves emptying your lungs completely. It’s similar to the uddiyana bandha in yoga (or an “abdominal lock”).

“It involves breathing in a way that creates a vacuum-like effect in your thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities by decreasing the pressure, causing a lift and toning of the pelvic floor,” says Anouska Shenn, a certified Pilates instructor and founder of The Office Yoga Company.

But before we get into how to do it, let us clear up one thing: Don’t try any breath-holding exercises during your practice, since Pilates focuses on breathing through movements.

That said, practicing hypopressive breathing before, after, or separate from your Pilates workouts can help support your practice in a number of ways.

What is hypopressive breathing?

Hypopressive breathing is a technique that involves completely emptying your lungs and holding that breath to create a vacuum. It serves as a core exercise that can benefit your pelvic floor health.

Think of it this way: Your abdomen is a closed pressure system. That means that when the pressure changes—like with a cough, deep breath, or force like a lift—your abdominal structures need to be able to manage that pressure properly. That’s where pelvic floor exercises, like hypopressive breathing, come in.

“When we’re not managing that pressure properly, gravity takes it and sends it down into the pelvic floor,” says Blair Mauri, MS, OTR/L, a pelvic floor therapist and owner of Blair Mauri Pelvic Health. “Repeated downward pressure not only weakens the pelvic floor, but can also cause it to become extremely tense.”

That tension may lead to symptoms such as incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, painful sex, low back pain, or chronic constipation. “Hypopressive breathing is an excellent way to optimize pelvic floor function, as it provides a natural lift to these tissues without increasing the tension,” says Mauri.

Improving your pelvic floor function can relieve pelvic pain or low back pain, improve your oxygen and energy levels, promote digestion, and support your movement throughout your Pilates practice.

In fact, an eight-week program of hypopressive exercises improved pelvic floor muscle strength and urinary incontinence symptoms in women ages 18 to 60 with pelvic floor dysfunction and urinary incontinence symptoms, per a 2022 study1 in Neurourology and Urodynamics.

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Plus, hypopressive breathing can work your lungs in a way that benefits your Pilates practice. “Optimizing your rib mobility is also important for diaphragm function and getting the most out of your breaths,” adds Mauri.

How do you do it?

First, take a few deep breaths and see where you notice that pressure (in this case, your breath):

  • Is it focused in your chest or belly?
  • Are your ribs moving apart as you breathe in?

You should feel some mobility in all of these areas, not just one. “Rib mobility is especially important for proper hypopressive technique, so you may need to start here,” says Mauri. “Take some time to retrain your breathing so that everything expands on the inhale and comes back together on the exhale.”

Once you’ve honed in on that, you can move on to your hypopressive breathing exercises, following Mauri’s instructions:

  1. 1.
    Gently exhale as if you are fogging a window. Don’t send any pressure or force down into your lower belly or pelvic floor.
  2. 2.
    After you exhale, hold your nose and close your mouth and “pretend” to inhale without actually taking in any air. Think about widening those ribs, which will make your stomach begin to look concave.
  3. 3.
    Hold this for 3-5 seconds and then inhale.

How does it benefit your Pilates practice?

This breathing technique shines as an add-on to your Pilates practice. You don’t want to hold your breath during Pilates moves (after all, Pilates is all about coordinating movement with breath), but hypopressive breathing exercises can serve as bumpers for an effective workout.

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“Hypopressive breathing is designed to stand alone, but you can use it as part of your warm-up or to close your Pilates practice,” Shenn says.

Pelvic floor strengthening is already often a key element of Pilates. In fact, a 12-week Pilates program focused on pelvic floor strengthening significantly improved stress urinary incontinence symptoms in women ages 45 to 70, with the results lasting even six months after the program, per a small 2020 study2 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

“Hypopressive breathing complements a Pilates routine, as it also retrains and strengthens the deep core along with your pelvic floor,” says Mauri.

A strong and coordinated deep core and pelvic floor gives you more stability as you move your body throughout your Pilates practice—and throughout the rest of your day.

“Our pelvic floor muscles work together with our deep core muscles to stabilize the spine—supporting our posture and providing a solid foundation for all of our movements,” says Shenn.

Tips to get started

As you integrate hypopressive breathing into your Pilates routine, Shenn recommends keeping these tips in mind:

  • Start with 1-3 sets of 3 repetitions, resting between sets.
  • If you’re a beginner, practice your breathing lying down or seated, before progressing to more challenging positions like side-lying or quadruped (a four-point kneeling position).
  • Do your hypopressive breathwork on an empty stomach (it’s recommended to not eat at least two hours beforehand, since this type of breathing involves suctioning the abdomen inward and upward).
  • Avoid wearing clothes that are too tight—including collars, waistbands, and belts—as they can impede your breath.

Very little research has been done on the effect of breathwork on babies in the womb, so avoid hypopressive breathing if you’re pregnant.

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One more thing to note: Certain preexisting health conditions like high blood pressure can also be contraindications for breathwork, so always check with your doctor first and consider working with a trained provider to make sure your form is correct.

  1. Molina-Torres G, Moreno-Muñoz M, Rebullido TR, Castellote-Caballero Y, Bergamin M, Gobbo S, Hita-Contreras F, Cruz-Diaz D. The effects of an 8-week hypopressive exercise training program on urinary incontinence and pelvic floor muscle activation: A randomized controlled trial. Neurourol Urodyn. 2023 Feb;42(2):500-509. doi: 10.1002/nau.25110. Epub 2022 Dec 8. PMID: 36482844; PMCID: PMC10107869.

    ↩︎

  2. Hein JT, Rieck TM, Dunfee HA, Johnson DP, Ferguson JA, Rhodes DJ. Effect of a 12-Week Pilates Pelvic Floor-Strengthening Program on Short-Term Measures of Stress Urinary Incontinence in Women: A Pilot Study. J Altern Complement Med. 2020 Feb;26(2):158-161. doi: 10.1089/acm.2019.0330. Epub 2020 Jan 9. PMID: 31916840; PMCID: PMC7044776.

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The 10 Best Pilates Exercises for Beginners, According to a Peloton Instructor

A Peloton instructor shares the best beginner Pilates exercises and how to do them, plus the benefits of Pilates.

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Photo credit: Peleton
Published Jan 27, 2025

Written by 

Kristin Jenny

Pilates was created in the 1920s in New York City by Joseph Pilates and many of its exercises were originally used to help World War I patients rehabilitate injuries. Today, Pilates is used more for fitness than for physical rehabilitation, although its focus on building a strong core may help prevent or speed along healing from other injuries.

Experts in This Article

Rebecca Kennedy

certified personal trainer and Peloton instructor

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If you’re considering giving this mind-and-body-focused workout a try, it’s key to have a grasp of Pilates’ foundational moves so that you can safely make the most of this muscle-building, endorphin-inducing workout.

The benefits of Pilates

Pilates is a unique fitness practice in that it focuses on more than just burning calories and achieving toned muscles—although you’ll do both of those things with a regular cadence of classes.

Pilates is focused on three principles, according to the Pilates Foundation: breath, whole-body health, and whole-body commitment, with “the whole-body encompassing mind, body and spirit.” Within those principles, the concepts of breath, concentration, centering, control, precision and flow are mainstays in any well-rounded Pilates practice.

“There are many benefits of Pilates that go beyond toning muscles or getting in a great workout,” says Rebecca Kennedy, CPT, a Peloton Pilates and Tread instructor. “Some of the top benefits of Pilates for me are that it improves posture and balance, helps with overall flexibility and mobility, and is low-impact and low-stress on your joints.”

Additionally, Kennedy notes Pilates can be an excellent complementary workout to other fitness activities like running, cycling, or strength training.

Lastly, Kennedy believes the mind-body connection that is achieved from a frequent Pilates workout is unmatched in the fitness world. “A regular Pilates practice will improve your mind-body awareness while improving mental focus and concentration,” Kennedy says. “Its emphasis on enhancing breathwork can also have the effect of reducing feelings of stress and anxiety.”

Beginner Pilates tips to keep in mind

Before diving into Pilates head first, remember to listen to your mind and body—it’s better to forego a move or modify it than cause yourself pain or injury. While it may be tempting to launch into some of the more advanced Pilates moves, it’s better to view each movement with “curiosity, instead of just trying to do each move and check off a box,” Kennedy says.

She recommends nailing the basics of the moves featured below—and not just acing the look of a move, but truly internalizing the breathing rhythm, form, and alignment of these foundational Pilates movements before becoming overly concerned with time spent in a movement, number of reps, or moving into more challenging variations of a move.

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“A common misconception about Pilates is that you need to be flexible and also have a ton of equipment to get started with your practice,” Kennedy says. “Neither of these things are true. You do not need to be flexible to start a Pilates practice, and much of the equipment used is all extra, so don’t let either of those misconceptions hold you back from beginning a foundational practice.”

Finally, Kennedy reminds those who are new to Pilates that this is a slow, methodical practice. “Move slower than you think you need to, and always move with control,” Kennedy says. “Take modifications for any exercise that feels too challenging—it’s better to take a modification that allows you to maintain good form, breath control, and pelvic floor connection than to rush through a movement.”

The best Pilates exercises for beginners

Kennedy demonstrates each of the 10 moves in the video below. Follow along with her or scroll down for detailed exercise instructions.

1. The hundred

The Pilates hundred works your core and introduces the concept of timing your breath with your movements.

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