10-Minute Yoga for Core Strength Practice (With a Little Pilates)

Ready to work your abs? You’re about to take yourself through a 10-minute yoga for core strength routine that includes a mix of classic yoga and Pilates movements. I like to think of it as “Yogalates.” It’s an ab-focused workout that takes you in and out of traditional Pilates and yoga for core strength movements throughout the class.

Each of the yoga poses and Pilates exercises are very simple, so even if you’ve never practiced them before, you’ll be able to follow along. But just because something is beginner friendly does not necessarily mean it’s easy. This yoga for core strength practice will definitely challenge you. Let’s get started!

10-Minute Pilates + Yoga for Core Strength

This all-levels class requires no props, although you’re welcome to reach for them if you prefer. It also includes an affirmation at the end to help you set yourself up for the rest of your day.

Knee Circles

Let’s begin by lowering down onto your back. Once you get there, pull your knees toward your belly, maybe rocking a little side to side and noticing how you’re feeling this morning.

Bring your hands onto the tops of your knees and start to trace some circles.

So before you actually work the core, you’re doing a little gentle movement. Then reverse the direction of those circles. When you’re done, come back to center.

The Hundred

Let’s warm things up. Classical Pilates classes usually begin with a version of this exercise called The Hundred. Still on your back, stack your knees above your hips and keep your calves parallel to the mat. Lift your head and shoulders off the mat and reach your arms forward. Keep your legs in position as you begin to vigorously pump your arms up and down.

This is as much a breathing exercise as it is a core-strengthening exercise. So you’ll inhale for a count of 5 and exhale for a count of 5. Try to inhale through your nose and exhale out your mouth. Keep going, inhaling and exhaling, lifting both shoulder blades off the mat, hugging the legs in toward your midline, and drawing your lower belly inward and upward. Take 4 more rounds of breath.

When you’re done, relax your head and shoulders on the mat and bring your knees toward your chest. Great job.

Reclined Spinal Twist

Bring your feet flat on the mat. Open your arms and bend your elbows to take a cactus shape. Your hips can shimmy over a couple inches toward the right before you lower both knees toward the left in a spinal twist. Try to keep that right shoulder blade down on the mat so you can stretch through the obliques here.

Lift your knees back through center and go to the other side to twist it out. So your hips can go to the left a little, and then your knees can drop over to the right, trying to press down through that left shoulder blade. Breathe here.

Bring your knees back through center.

Single Leg Stretch

This is another reclined ab exercise from Pilates that’s also a breathing exercise. So pull your knees toward your chest and lift your head and shoulders off the mat again. Grab hold of your right leg as you extend your left leg straight out at a diagonal. You’re going to inhale, lift a little higher, and then exhale fully out your mouth. At the end of the exhalation, switch your legs, so you’ll bend your straight leg and straighten your bent leg. Then inhale, lift, exhale, switch the legs.

Keep breathing in and out as you practice a few more. Then bring both knees toward your chest and relax by bringing your head and shoulders down to the mat.

Happy Baby Pose

Grab hold of the outer edges of your feet or shins and try to stack your ankles over your knees in Happy Baby Pose. Maybe you rock a little side to side here, massaging the lower back.

Hovering Tabletop

Then release your grip and make your way to your hands and knees. Maybe you rock up and down the length of your spine, cross your ankles, and plant your hands on the mat underneath your shoulders with your knees underneath your hips.

Then bring your hands a couple inches past your shoulders. Tuck your toes under so you can lift your knees just an inch or so off the mat. This is your Hovering Tabletop with the back engaged, and the spine straight.

Plank to Hovering Tabletop to Down Dog

From Hovering Tabletop, straighten your legs and come into Plank Pose. Then bend the knees and come back to Hovering Tabletop.

Then stretch and straighten the legs out in Downward-Facing Dog.

Then repeat this. Take an inhale as you find Hovering Tabletop, exhale to Plank, inhale to Hovering Tabletop, and then exhale to Downward-Facing Dog. Do a few more just like this.

Stay in Downward-Facing Dog and peddle out the legs or take any little movements that feel good here.

Three-Legged Dog to Knee to Nose

Reach your right leg up toward the sky, bend your knee, open your hip, and give yourself a nice thigh stretch here as you push down through your left heel.

Then exhale as you bring your knee toward your nose and squeeze it in as you shift your shoulders forward and come into Plank Pose. Feel your core engage.

Inhale as you reach back into Three-Legged Dog and exhale as you crunch. Repeat that twice more. After the last one, step your foot forward in between your palms to the top of the mat.

Low Lunge

Lower your back knee to the mat and lift your chest in Low Lunge (Anjaneyasana). You want to lengthen the tailbone down and engage through your core so you’re not collapsing in your low back. Instead you’re lifting up out of your low back. So pull the lower belly in and lift up tall.

Maybe you start to press your hips forward and down, but you don’t need to sink down too far. Stay here or your palms can come together overhead and you can shift your gaze upward in a little backbend. Think of this as an upper back bend rather than it coming from your low back. Keep your abs engaged here.

Toe Squat

From Low Lunge, step your right foot back, keep the toes tucked, and see if you can sit back onto your heels to stretch through the bottoms of the feet. Even though this is a core-strengthening practice, you can include movements that target a full-body workout so you’re getting properly set up for your day.

When you’re ready, come back to Downward-Facing Dog. Then repeat th Knee-to-Nose sequence on the second side as well as the Toe Squat. Then find Downward-Facing Dog before you take a short vinyasa flow.

Plank Pose

Shift your shoulders forward over your wrists in Plank Pose.

Cobra Pose

Lower yourself all the way to your belly, keep your elbows in, and point the toes straight behind you as you lift into Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana).

Child’s Pose

Then press your hips back toward your heels and relax the forehead down on the mat in Child’s Pose (Balasana). Take at least 5 breaths in and out through your nose here to slow down and set the tone for the day ahead.

When you’re ready, slowly make your way into a comfortable sitting position.

For each practice, I like to draw an affirmation card from my deck, I Radiate Joy, to help create a focus for the rest of the day. So our affirmation today is, “I give myself permission to heal inside and out.” As you sit, maybe with your eyes closed, repeat that to yourself a few times. “I give myself permission to heal inside and out.” You don’t need to figure anything out. Just be curious about what that brings up for you and using this time to connect with yourself before you  get on with the rest of our day. Stay here as long as you can.

Thank you so much for practicing this 10-minute Pilates and yoga for core-strength class.