4 Surprising Ways to Use a Yoga Bolster

Want to challenge your stability and coordination? Grab a yoga bolster and try these four surprising moves.
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It’s a common misconception that yoga props are simply work-arounds for beginning practitioners, and that they lose their helpfulness as your practice progresses. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! Yoga props offer countless ways to vary your practice and test your body and mind in new ways.

My favorite yoga prop—the bolster—isn’t just for restorative yoga. It can also be used to up the ante on core work in a few unexpected ways.

See also 7 Best Yoga Props, According to 7 Top Teachers Around the Country

These four practices use the bolster's soft, unsteady surface to challenge both stability and coordination:

bolster, core work

1. Balancing Core Work

Set your bolster up parallel to the long edge of your yoga mat and lie down with it under your spine. Make sure you are supported from your sacrum to the back of your head; if your torso is longer than your bolster, find a yoga block or cushion to support your head.

Engage the muscles around your core, visualizing movement in two directions: drawing in around your waist and lengthening from your crown to your tail. Make sure you aren’t gripping or clenching your abdominals; you should still be able to feel your breath moving freely in your ribcage.

Keep that gentle core support and float your arms above your shoulders, as if reaching for the ceiling. Then, lift one foot off the floor to stack your bent knee above your hip. Keep firming in around your waist to steady yourself on your bolster and lift your opposite foot, stacking both knees above your hips in a supine tabletop position with your knees bent and shins parallel to the floor.

Take a smooth breath in. On your exhalation, slowly extend your left leg out straight, lowering it down toward hip height, and simultaneously reach your right arm overhead, lowering it toward shoulder height. Then, use the length of your inhalation to return to supine tabletop. As you exhale, extend your right leg and and left arm, and on an inhalation, return to your starting position. Continue to move from side to side with the steady pace of your breathing, keeping your face and neck relaxed.

Notice the coordination between your upper and lower body, and between your left and right sides, feeling how that allows you to compensate for the lack of stability in your base.After 10 rounds on each side, return to supine tabletop position. Keep drawing in around your waist for support as you set your feet back down onto the floor. Slowly roll off your bolster, lying on one side for a moment or two before pressing up to stand.

See also How Yoga Helps You Survive Your 20s

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