5 Poses That Support Heavy Lifting

Lifting heavy items asks quite a lot of your body. Picking up and toting around moving boxes, children, even bags of groceries asks that you engage your legs, glutes, core, and lower back—all while making sure that you’re maintaining proper form and not causing undo strain. If this feels a little overwhelming, that’s understandable. But practicing yoga for strength can help build that necessary awareness in your body so you’re functioning from a place of strength and stability rather than stress or strain.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), safe lifting consists of four stages: preparation, the actual lift, carrying, and setting down. It also requires some real mindfulness around what you’re lifting, where it’s going, and how exactly you’re moving. The following yoga poses—particularly when held for a few more breaths than usual—can help you build that relationship with your body, including your core, spine, and more. That way, when it’s time to lift heavy, the safest possible form will come a little more naturally.

A note about breath: Holding the breath is common when the body is facing a challenge. Practicing yoga can help remind you to keep inhaling and exhaling, the better to breathe through the moment.

5 Yoga Poses to Help You Lift Safely

Leveraging yoga for strength training is all about where you direct your energy. Taking the time to feel into the parts of your body that come online during lifting can help ensure that you’re maneuvering your body (and whatever else) with intention.

1. Plank Pose

In terms of firing up pretty much every muscle in your entire body, you can’t go wrong with Plank Pose. The static shape helps strengthen your abs, hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, core, glutes and legs, all while working your willpower. The latter helps immensely when you’re in the carrying stage of the lifting process.

2. Chair Pose

Safe lifting asks that you lift with your knees, not your back. This means squatting, securing the object, and then straightening your legs to lift it rather than bending over and letting your poor back and shoulders bear the load. Chair Pose can help with that. The powerful pose asks that you lengthen your spine while sitting back, effectively mimicking the stance you’ll take while lifting an item from floor to full standing.

3. Boat Pose

Strong yet flexible hip flexors and lower back muscles can help support a neutral spine when the time to lift arrives. Boat Pose stretches and strengthens all of these. Finding stillness during challenge, which you’ll practice in Boat, calls for the same exact sort of whole-body awareness you need to safely move items from A to B.

4. Dolphin Pose

A pose that opens your shoulders and strengthens your core and arms could be just what you need. Dolphin Pose helps build strength throughout the mid and upper body—so much so that it’s often used as a preparatory tool for more intense inversions such as Handstand and Supported Headstand.

5. Cobra Pose

This backbend can be practiced pre- or post- heavy lifting. Cobra Pose helps relieve lower back tension while powering up your legs and opening your chest and shoulders. To take things up a notch, try hovering your hands just above your mat to encourage the sort of engagement in your back muscles that can prevent any unwanted rounding while bending and lifting.