Upper-body Yoga Sequences

Upward Salute

• A simple yoga pose that works your upper body, including your arms, shoulders and lats, is the Upward Salute. This pose can help you transition from a standing position to a sitting or lying position on your mat and back to a standing position. Stand with your hands at your sides and your palms facing out, inhale and swoop your arms to your sides and up to the ceiling. Aim to touch your palms above your head with your elbows straight and without rounding your shoulders forward. If your upper back or shoulders are hunching forward, your muscles are tight. Raise your arms as high as you can without compromising your posture and work your way toward touching your palms. This pose also stretches the front of your upper body, opening your chest and stretching your shoulders, armpits, arms and abs.

Basic Poses

• From standing salute, bend forward at your hips, sweeping your arms to the sides, and step your feet back into Plank pose. Holding Plank pose and sinking down to Four-Limbed staff pose will work your chest, shoulders and triceps. From this pose, ease into Upward-Facing Dog, which opens your chest and strengthens your lats -- the muscles on your upper back. Move back to Plank and go into Downward-Facing Dog to stretch and strengthen your arms and back. Shift back to Plank, and from there, you can perform the Side Plank on either side, which isolates each individual arm and puts more body-weight resistance on your arm and shoulder muscles to support you. The Plank pose and Side Plank both strengthen and stretch your wrists, which is something not many exercises outside of yoga can do. From the Side Plank, after doing both sides, return to Plank, step your feet up to your hands and finish with an Upward Salute.

Back Bends

• Bridge pose is a great back bend to include in an upper-body yoga sequence, and you can use variations to make it easier or more challenging. It also prepares you for Upward Bow pose, also referred to as Wheel pose, which stretches your upper body and back deeper. Both of these back bends stretch the front of your upper body, including your neck, chest, arms, armpits and abs. The back of your upper body contracts, strengthening your upper back. When going into a back bend during a sequence, lie on your back on your yoga mat and bend your knees so that you can place the bottoms of your feet on the floor. Stay in a back bend for at least five seconds, and inhale and exhale deeply. Do up to 10 repetitions; you might want to scatter this pose between other poses in your sequence.

Arm Balances

• Arm balances require you to put all of your body weight on your upper body, which strengthens your arms, wrists, shoulders and upper back. Standing arm balances include poses where you're balancing upside down, depending on your upper body for support, such as headstand and handstand poses. Other arm balances such as Shoulder-Pressing, Crane, Firefly and Eight-Angle poses strengthen and tone your arms -- including your forearms and wrists -- shoulders and lats by using them to keep your body upright. These are challenging poses, but using variations in a sequence will help you work your way up to achieving them. Dolphin pose is an inversion pose that strengthens and prepares your upper body for arm balances. In a sequence, you can go between Dolphin, Plank and Four-Limbed Staff poses to work your arms.

Tips

• Use the Upward Salute to begin and finish your sequences and as a transition between poses. Mix upper- and lower-body poses in a sequence, or do a full sequence of poses for the upper body today and save a full sequence of poses for the lower body the next day. Putting different sequences together and doing poses in different orders when you practice makes it more challenging for your body and mixes up the muscles you use, giving your muscles a more well-rounded workout. Be conscious about your breathing while doing your sequences. Count your breaths while holding each pose and hold each pose for at least two or three breaths.