Summer mornings flow

Join me and practice this sequence and more of my monthly sequences on Stronger You. Enjoy a FREE 2 WEEK TRIAL with the code YOGARU2W.

YOUR MORNING RESET
After a night of rest, it’s common to wake up feeling a little stiff or sluggish. Gentle movement first thing in the morning helps shake off that heaviness, re-energise the body, and set the tone for a more grounded, vibrant day. Morning movement releases endorphins, increases oxygen flow, and boosts circulation – leaving you feeling more awake, clear-headed, and ready to meet the day.

Yoga is one of the most effective and accessible ways to get moving in the morning. It gently stretches and strengthens the entire body, mobilises the spine in all directions, and opens up the hips – especially helpful if you spend much of your day sitting. By focusing on key areas like the spine, hips, and shoulders, yoga helps relieve tension, improve posture, and support pain-free movement. This physical reset also uplifts your mood and cultivates a sense of emotional clarity and openness.

A consistent morning yoga practice does more than just wake you up. It supports digestion, balances hormones, boosts metabolism, and strengthens your immune system. Most importantly, it creates intentional space for self-care before the demands of the day begin – grounding your energy, aligning your body and mind, and helping you show up with more presence and resilience.

MORNING YOGA IN SUMMER
Summer brings an energetic, outward-moving rhythm to life – longer days, social activity, and increased momentum. Morning yoga helps balance that vibrancy with inner steadiness and mindful activation. Grounding standing poses build strength in the legs and core, helping you move through your day with a calm, steady foundation. Focusing on the inhale, and drawing breath deeply into the lungs, uplifts your energy and awakens the nervous system.

Summer mornings offer the perfect opportunity to build or refresh your yoga practice. The early light makes it easier to wake up, roll out your mat and get moving. The warmer weather means your muscles are more pliable, making it a great time to explore deeper backbends and heart-opening poses. These postures improve spinal mobility, encourage a more upright and open posture, and create a natural sense of expansion – physically and emotionally. Poses where the arms are lifted help circulate blood around warmer areas like the chest, armpits, and head – offering a cooling, revitalizing effect.

Increased heat and perspiration can slow digestion, especially after a night of sleep. Gentle morning twists stimulate the gut, enhance digestion, keep things moving and leave you feeling lighter and more comfortable. Follow your practice with a large glass of water to support hydration and amplify the digestive benefits of your movement.

Your summer morning practice will help you stay balanced, focused, and align with the day ahead. Start your day on the mat and step into summer with strength, clarity and ease.

EXPLORING SUMMER MORNINGS FLOW IN YOUR PRACTICE
This sequence starts in the first row with MFR on the feet to connect you with your foundation and gentle, breath-led movements to gradually build heat and warm all the muscles up. The second and third row are your standing flows, grounding through the legs shakes off any lingering sleepiness and helps you feel steady and confident in the day ahead. Complete each full line with the right leg forward and then repeat the line with the left leg forward – this is one full round of the flow. For a longer practice you can repeat these two standing flows. The final row brings you back down to the ground to absorb all the goodness of your time on your mat and get you ready for the day ahead.

Instead of ending in the traditional Savasana, the sequence closes with Samavritti Pranayama – equal breath – to focus the mind and regulate the nervous system. Morning breathwork is like a tall glass of cool water for the whole body: hydrating, energizing, and deeply restorative. It sets you up not just for movement, but for mindful presence throughout the day.

ALIGNMENT CUES
Below are the MFR and pranayama techniques used in this sequence. The props you’ll need are:
1 x MFR balls - or 1 tennis ball.

MFR Feet
Compression - from standing or seated, place 1 x ball at position No.1, gently press down with an inhale and release on the exhale x 5 breaths and move on to No.2. Continue to No.5. 

Roll & cross fibre - with the toes on the ground place 1 x ball at No.5, roll the ball across your heel x 5. Place 1 x ball at No.6, roll the ball across the knuckles of your toes x 5. Place 1 x ball at No.6, roll in one direction from toes to heel x 5. 

Scribble - roll and scribble across the sole of the foot. Repeat all steps on the other foot.

Pranayama
Sit in a comfortable position – cross legged, sitting up on a brick or straddling a bolster. Inhale for the count of 4, exhale for the count of 4 x 3 rounds. Inhale for the count of 4, pause for 2, exhale for the count of 4, pause for 2 x 3 rounds. Inhale for the count of 4, pause for 4, exhale for the count of 4, pause for 4 x 3 rounds. 

To save the images for personal use click and hold down the image until the ‘save image’ option appears; on Mac hold down ‘control’ and click the image to get the option box; on PC right click on the image to get the option box. Scroll down in the ‘option box’ and click ‘save image’.

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

Bone health flow

Join me and practice this sequence and more of my monthly sequences on Stronger You. Enjoy a FREE 2 WEEK TRIAL with the code YOGARU2W.

STRONG HEALTHY BONES
Strong and healthy bones are dense and resilient, providing the body with structure, protecting the organs, and storing essential minerals like calcium. Maintaining optimal bone health involves a balanced intake of calcium and vitamin D, engaging in weight-bearing exercise, and avoiding harmful habits like smoking and excessive alcohol use.

Bones are living tissues that are constantly being broken down and rebuilt. This natural cycle allows them to adapt and strengthen in response to physical demands. Weight-bearing and impact exercises – like resistance training or jumping – stimulates bone growth by applying external pressure. These activities also build muscle, which further encourages bone strength, as muscles exert tension on the bones during movement.

Bodyweight exercises like yoga can be an excellent starting point for building strong bones. However, as your bones adapt to your bodyweight, incorporating resistance training alongside yoga becomes essential to continue challenging the skeletal system and improving bone density. Like muscles, bones require progressively increasing load to grow stronger and remain healthy. That is why I’ve teamed up with Stronger You – to bring together yoga and resistance training so you can get the best of both worlds and boost your bone health.

YOGA & BONE HEALTH 
Yoga provides a wide range of benefits for bone health, making it a valuable practice for individuals of all ages. It helps reduce the risk of falls and supports bone strength through improved posture, balance, muscle conditioning, and stress reduction. Additionally, yoga promotes effective movement patterns, enhances coordination, and improves body awareness – key elements that not only support bone integrity but also prepare the body for more advanced resistance training. When viewed through the lens of yoga, the formula for bone health becomes clear: balance + core strength + proper posture + stress relief = stronger, healthier bones.

Posture and alignment - good posture is essential for bone health, especially as we age. Poor alignment places uneven pressure on certain bones, leading to excessive wear and potential damage over time. A neutral, aligned posture evenly distributes gravitational load, which stimulates bone growth and density. Yoga helps strengthen the postural muscles that support proper alignment and increases awareness of posture throughout daily life. It also releases tight areas that may pull the body out of alignment. Maintaining an upright posture not only protects the bones but also improves balance and reduces fall risk.

Balance training - balance is a vital life skill — and one that is very trainable, especially through yoga. Balance relies on three key elements: strong postural muscles, proprioception (your sense of spatial awareness), and cognitive function (your ability to perform tasks). Yoga targets all three. It builds core and stabilising muscles, sharpens proprioception as you move mindfully through different poses, and provides mental challenges through working out how to transition from pose to pose. Improved balance enhances everyday mobility and decreases the likelihood of falling. While all yoga sequences offer balance work, you’ll find targeted balance training in my Standing strong, Build better balance, and Everyday balance sequences.

Strong, smarter muscles - yoga strengthens the entire body while enhancing coordination, agility, and reaction time – skills for avoiding falls and staying balanced. In our yoga practice, we also focus on key areas that support bone health – strengthening the core will protect the lower back, which naturally loses density as we age; and targeting the hips, legs, and feet gives a solid base for a strong, stable spine. With time, these movement patterns become second nature, making everyday actions smoother and more stable.

Stress reduction - chronic stress elevates cortisol levels in the body, a hormone known to reduce bone mineral density and compromise bone strength. One of yoga’s most well-known benefits is stress relief. Slow, mindful movement, breathwork, meditative flow, and myofascial release (MFR) all activate the parasympathetic nervous system — your body’s “rest and restore” mode. This activation helps lower cortisol levels, supporting not just your bones, but your overall well being.

EXPLORING BONES HEALTH FLOW IN YOUR PRACTICE
This sequence offers lots of opportunities to explore the bone health formula – balancing drills, core activation and plenty of challenging flows to build strong feet, ankles, legs, hips & spine. You can gently bring down your nervous system to a state of relaxation by using the breath cues as you flow.

The first row starts with five balance challenges. In the fourth one, stand with one foot on a brick and circle the hanging leg from front to back. The fifth challenge trains your proprioception – stand on one leg and look up, down, to the right and to the left three times. The second and third row are the main three standing flows. Repeat each of these two or more times on both sides depending on how long you would like to practice for. The sequence finishes off with some slow two pose breath linked poses to finish off the practice with some grounding seated poses before you take savasana.

CAUTION: If you have been diagnosed with low bone density it would be advised to practice near a wall when you are doing balance drills; avoid deep spine flexion; work on active range of movement (AROM) rather than passive range of movement (PROM); and avoid inversions with a risk of fall (eg handstand, headstand).

ALIGNMENT CUES
Have a read of the tips below and either print out the sequence or save it onto your device:

• Move slowly to capture all the opportunities to strengthen the muscles. Inhale is indicated with a ‘+’, exhale is a ‘-”.

• Take a few extra breaths in the single leg balancing poses to build your balancing muscles in your feet, ankles, legs and hips.

• Repeat the two standing flows for two or three rounds per side, stepping right leg forward first then left leg.

• Give yourself at least 5 mins in Savasana to transition back into your day.

To save the images for personal use click and hold down the image until the ‘save image’ option appears; on Mac hold down ‘control’ and click the image to get the option box; on PC right click on the image to get the option box. Scroll down in the ‘option box’ and click ‘save image’.

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru

Standing strong

Join me and practice this sequence and more of my monthly sequences on Stronger You. Enjoy a FREE 2 WEEK TRIAL with the code YOGARU2W.

RESILIENCE & STAMINA
Standing strong is about more than just physical stability – it’s about resilience in the face of challenges and prioritising recovery. In my previous article, Building Resilience, we explored mental and emotional endurance. Now, let’s shift our focus to the physical foundation of resilience: the feet, ankles, and legs. Strengthening and maintaining these areas enhances balance, stability, and coordination while reducing your risk of falls and injuries.

The leg muscles are among the largest in the body. Strengthening them boosts circulation, improves heart health, and stimulates bone density by exerting force on the bones. Developing endurance and stamina in your lower body gives you the confidence to move with ease and control, whether in your yoga practice or daily activities.

BUILDING FOUNDATIONS 
A strong stance begins with mindful contact with the ground – pressing into three key points of contact with the ground: the big toe, little toe, and center of the heel. Engaging these points lifts the arches, channels energy upwards, and activates the legs for greater stability. When our foundation is strong, we stand resilient in both body and mind.

Balance is a crucial life skill that is very trainable and essential at every age. A solid foundation not only improves balance but also enhances posture, core engagement, and lower back support. Yoga offers a unique opportunity to reconnect with the feet, strengthening muscles often weakened by shoes and modern surfaces. Strong legs offer the power for steadiness, while well-conditioned feet and ankles enhance sensory awareness and reaction time. By cultivating symmetrical strength in the feet, ankles, knees, and legs, we move with greater confidence and ease. Strength can be built in yoga through slow, controlled movements or by holding static poses with intentional muscular engagement. A resilient body supports a resilient mind, allowing us to stand firm in both movement and life.

EXPLORING STANDING STRONG IN YOUR PRACTICE
This sequence offers plenty of opportunities to strengthen your feet, ankles and legs. The first row is a series of balancing drills challenging postural muscles, proprioception and cognitive – the three components that together make up your ability to balance. The second and third row are the two main standing flows which are each built of three two pose mini flows and finish with a single pose that you will hold for 3 to 5 full breaths. Complete the full line with the right leg forward and then repeat the line with the left leg forward – this is one full round of the flow. For a longer practice you can repeat these two standing flows. The sequencing finishes with some strengthening for the back of the hips and some hip circles to massage out the muscles.

ALIGNMENT CUES
Have a read of the tips below and either print out the sequence or save it onto your device:

• Move slowly and with control through the sequence like you are moving through honey. Use your breath to help you access your postural muscles. Inhale is indicated with a ‘+’, exhale is a ‘-”.

• Press into the three key points in the feet, find your foundation and feel the ankle and legs muscles activate.

• Repeat the two standing flows for two or three rounds per side, stepping right leg forward first then left leg.

• Give yourself at least 5 mins in Savasana to transition back into your day.

To save the images for personal use click and hold down the image until the ‘save image’ option appears; on Mac hold down ‘control’ and click the image to get the option box; on PC right click on the image to get the option box. Scroll down in the ‘option box’ and click ‘save image’.

Ruth Delahunty Yogaru