Boat Pose Variations

Hi, this is Lindsey Bomgren and I'm gonna show you how to properly walk through a boat pose and a couple variations you can take of the boat pose. So let's go ahead and jump right in. I'm seated on the mat here, bum nice and connected to the mat. Rolling my shoulders back. Crown of my head up towards the ceiling, shoulders down and back. Nice and relaxed. And we're going to start by simply lifting one leg up off the mat. Core is really engaged here. So think about pulling the belly button back to the spine the whole time while keeping a flat long back. If lifting one leg up feels okay for you, go ahead and bring the other leg up to join. As you can see, I moved around a little bit there. Lot of stability engaged in boat pose. So you can hold it right here. If you're able to, bring those arms out and just hold right here. Again, thinking about really big posture, tall through the back, holding here. Is this works well for you, you can take this a little bit further and straighten those legs. That's when it gets a little bit more challenging. Again, you can see I'm shaking. This is a challenging exercise right here. I'm feeling this in my quads, in my hip flexors as well as my core. Think about wrapping my ribs around my stomach here. A nice, tight corset, not letting my rib cage expand. Arms out in front, right here. If this is working well for me, bring my arms up and reach up high, biceps by ears, elongating through the back. Nice and long hold right here. The goal is to see how straight you can get it and how high you can lift your legs, okay? Again, like I said, it's a challenging one but if it works, it's a great core exercise. A couple variations would be boat pose pulses. Coming into that boat pose, if you can, pulsing up tiny movements, pulling the legs up as I reach for the toes with my hands. Reach and reach a couple pulses. As you can see this also engages the lower back. So a way I like to use it to roll out the low back and work the core is with a roller boat. So you roll down. I bring it up and I hold right here for three, two and one. Again, I roll it back. Roll out the back, bring it up. This time I'm gonna really reach to straighten and hold for three, two, one, one more time. I'm gonna take it down. Up and hold right here. Hold for three, two, and one. And that's a couple variations of boat pose that you can take as well.