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Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises - Free Book of Kundalini Yoga Poses & Kriyas - Ch 3
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Yoga Exercises for Core Abdominal Power
Free Yoga Poses for Navel Strength & Power
Kundalini Yoga Set #3
Video of Core Power Kundalini Yoga Set
(From Free Yoga Videos, yoga video #2, Yoga Workout for Ripped Abs)
Purpose of Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises:
The following set of Kundalini Yoga exercises builds the navel center and works on the 3rd Chakra (energy vortex) of the Kundalini Energy System. The 3rd Chakra is called the Manipura or Nabhi Chakra. The navel center is not only important for core energy and necessary physical fuel, but also the Manipura chakra, which governs this region, is associated with the attributes of willpower and strength of character. Thus, it is recommended that early in one’s yoga practice one builds and balances this chakra. Doing so helps one to remain committed to their yoga and meditation practice, thus reaping the full rewards that such practice brings. Of course developing washboard like abs in the process does not harm either :-).
Description of Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises:
1. Single Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise: (Chkra Padasana)
a. Guided Instructions for Single Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise:
- Lie flat on your back.
- Raise your right leg up to about 45 degrees.
- Point your feet and toes away from you.
- Begin the Breath of Fire Breathing Exercise and keeping your leg straight rotate it in a big circle clockwise. Make the circle as big as you can without touching the floor.
- Do 10 rotations in 1 direction and then without resting rotate the same leg in the other direction (counter-clockwise).
- Repeat with the left leg.
b. Duration for Single Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise: Takes about 1 minute / leg, but use the count provided above.
c. Benefits of Single Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise:
- Builds your Navel Center and strengthens and tones your abdominal muscles.
- Activates and balances the Manipura Chakra (naval center)
- Builds willpower and strength of character.
- Loosens and opens up the hips.
d. Practice Tips for Single Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise: To modify the exercise bend you knees or do fewer rotations at a stretch. You can also take rest as needed.
(Take a short break to let your hip flexors and abdominals recover).
2. Double Leg Rotation Kundalini Yoga Exercise:
a. Guided Instructions for Double Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise:
- Continue to lie flat on your back.
- Now raise both legs up to about 45 degrees.
- Point your feet and toes away from you.
- Begin the Breath of Fire Breathing Exercise and keeping your legs straight rotate them in a big circle clockwise. Make the circle as big as you can without touching the floor.
- Do 10 rotations in 1 direction and then without resting rotate your legs in the other direction (counter-clockwise).
b. Duration for Double Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise: Takes about 1 minute, but use the count provided above.
c. Benefits of Double Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise:
- Builds your Navel Center and strengthens and tones your abdominal muscles.
- Activates and balances the Manipura Chakra.
- Builds willpower and strength of character.
- Loosens and opens up the hips.
d. Practice Tips for Double Leg Rotations Kundalini Yoga Exercise: To modify the exercise bend you knees or do fewer rotations at a stretch. You can also take rest in between as needed. To support your lower back you may want to put your hand underneath your buttocks with your palms facing down.
3. Relax in Yoga Corpse Pose: (also called Shav Asana)
a. Guided Instruction for Yoga Corpse Pose:
- Lie on your back and have your arms out to your sides about six to twelve inches away from your body.
- Turn your palms slightly upward.
- Relax your body and breath.
b. Duration for Yoga Corpse Pose: 1-2 minutes.
c. Benefits of Yoga Corpse Pose:
- Allows the body to consolidate the gains from the previous exercises.
- Helps the body heal and rejuvenate itself.
- Promotes relaxation and peace.
d. Practice Tips for Yoga Corpse Pose: Try to consciously relax your entire body. Release all your tensions and worries and stay in the present moment as best you can.
4. Kundalini Yoga Abdominal Pop Corn Exercise:
a. Guided Instructions for Kundalini Yoga Abdominal Pop Corn Exercise:
- Lie on your back, bend your legs and bring you knees in towards your chest.
- Hold on to each knee. Right hand grasps right knee, and left hand grasps left knee.
- Now try to explode off the ground like you are a pop corn popping. So you are trying to launch your whole body towards the ceiling (you will probably not leave the ground, but its the effort that counts here :-)
- If you are doing this right, pretty soon your abdominal muscles will let you know.
b. Duration for Kundalini Yoga Abdominal Pop Corn Exercise: 1-5 mins
c. Benefits of Kundalini Yoga Abdominal Pop Corn Exercise:
- Very good for building your core power and abdominal strength.
- Good for building overall fitness and stamina.
d. Practice Tips for Kundalini Yoga Abdominal Pop Corn Exercise: Another yoga exercise that you should not be quickly fooled by. If doing it correctly it is a great way to burn fat and develop strong abdominal muscles without putting any strain on the joints and lower back. Make sure you are using a soft surface when doing this exercise.
5. Yoga Boat Pose (Maha Shakti Kriya or Naukasana)
a. Guided Instructions for Yoga Boat Pose:
- Lie flat on your back.
- Have your arms straight out to the sides with your palms facing in. Keep your legs together and straight out as well with your toes pointing forward.
- Now bring your legs and torso up such that you are balancing on your sacrum. Keep your eyes focused on your toes, this will help you keep your balance. You are forming a V shape, with your legs and torso.
- Begin the Breath of Fire Breathing Exercise.
b. Duration for Yoga Boat Pose: 1-3 minutes
c. Benefits of Yoga Boat Pose:
- Builds your Navel Center and strengthens and tones your abdominal muscles.
- Activates and balances the Manipura Chakra.
- Builds willpower and strength of character.
- Awakens all the systems in the body (digestive, nervous, endocrine, circulatory, etc.).
- Develops focus and balance.
d. Practice Tips for Yoga Boat Pose: To modify the exercise hold on to your knees or thighs. Keeping a steady gaze upon your toes will go a long way in helping you keep your balance. If you need to, you can take a break and then come into the pose again once you are ready. This is a very powerful kundalini yoga pose and is sometimes practiced on its own as a complete set (kriya). You can build up the time for Maha Shakti Kriya to 11 minutes.
6. Relax in Yoga Corpse Pose (#3 above) for 2-5 minutes:
This concludes the Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises.
Tools for Greatness & Enlightenment: 
on April 29th, 2007 at 11:39 am
it was my pleasure to include your article in the blogger carnival. this is an awesome site…one of the ones i was really excited about finding for the healing carnival. i will be back when i have more time to explore all the wonderful widsom here. it is a beautiful place. :)
on April 29th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Meredith, Thank-you so much for your kind and gracious words. I am glad you are enjoying the website and finding it useful.
on May 8th, 2007 at 10:23 am
[…] Anmol Mehta presents Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga, saying, “Yoga exercises to build and develop one’s core abdominal strength and power.” […]
on June 25th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
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on June 26th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
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on July 7th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga […]
on August 27th, 2007 at 8:30 am
[…] Anmol Mehta presents Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga, saying, “Yoga exercises to build and develop your core abdominal strength and power.” […]
on August 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Congratulations on being included in the NutritionFrenzy.com’s Health and Fitness Forum. I have a similar post called “Top 10 Reasons to Exercise” that can be found at http://marylandpersonaltrainer.....-exercise.
on August 27th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Thanks for your comments. Pretty impressive story there of swimming the length of the Mississippi River (not bad with the 10,000 mile bike ride either :-)
Cheers,
Anmol
on September 6th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Read 3 pranayama.What about KAPALBHATI and BHAMARI pranayama
on September 8th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Agreed these 2 pranayamas are terrific. Kapalbhati is one of my favorite pranayamas. For the 3rd most powerful though I am leaning towards the advanced version of Nadi Shuddhi (aka Nadi Shodhana or Anuloma Viloma) pranayama.
Thanks much for your input.
Best,
Anmol
on January 11th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hello again,
I have a couple of questions regarding these kriyas.
1. In the popcorn posture should we have our head lifted like in the yoga tuck pose?
2. In the boat posture should our arms be out to our sides after we’ve made the “v” or should we be reaching up next to our ears?
Thank you,
Steph
on January 11th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
You are not the first to ask about popcorn :-P. Yes the head is up like in tuck pose. I prefer that to having the head down. Here is a recent reply to another yogi regarding how to do popcorn….
“Popcorn is a bit tricky to explain, hope to have video on that up soon, but till then here is another way to understand it.
Once you take the position of holding your knees (you can have your head up as well), then make a sharp effort to lift yourself off the floor. So essentially you are trying to “pop” off the floor towards the ceiling. Your back may not leave the ground but the effort of trying to “pop” off the floor in this way will work your abdominal muscles quite a bit. Use as much effort as you are comfortable with in your attempt to launch yourself repeatedly towards the ceiling.”
2. For Yoga Boat Pose, the arms are out to the sides and straight (parallel to the ground).
Hope this helps.
Best,
Anmol
on March 7th, 2008 at 12:38 am
[…] In this article, I am happy to present a video demonstration of the Core Abdominal Power Yoga Set, from the Online Kundalini Yoga Workouts E-Book. This will be the second video of our Free Online Yoga Video series. […]
on April 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Set […]
on April 7th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
[…] For the slightly more advanced yogi, do Boat Pose instead. The chapter for boat pose will be online soon, but you can see it being demonstrated in the Video for Core Abdominal Power, from the Free Online Yoga Video series. Others can do Stretch Pose as illustrated below. The timings and duration apply to either pose you choose to do. […]
on July 21st, 2008 at 1:02 am
the boat and popcorn is killer, but i can see how it’s a really good workout. I find the breath of fire makes everything that much more difficult.
on July 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Means you are doing it right :-D… specially popcorn. Once you get comfortable with Breath of Fire, you should find it helpful as concentrating on it can help distract you from the pain the exercise is putting you though :-D. It can though make some exercises tougher to do.
Thanks for your feedback.
Cheers,
Anmol
on October 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
anmol, if you feel a burning the the legs does that mean you are doing it wrong?
on October 9th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
You are probably feeling it in your hip flexors, which is ok and quite common. They will get stronger. Just take a few more breaks initially. If you are feeling it elsewhere in the legs please give me more info and I will guide.
Best,
Anmol
on October 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
[…] Previously on Mastery of Meditation & Yoga, I had provided the powerful Core Abdominal Power Yoga Set to help you tone and build your abdominal muscles, but when it comes to strengthening and toning muscles it is good to hit the same muscle group with a variety of exercises and workouts. This is simply because muscles adapt to certain exercises over time, and so targeting them with new workouts is needed to help stimulate their development. […]
on November 29th, 2008 at 1:01 am
anmol, what is the experience of the 3rd chakra opening?
i want to master boat pose, if i master it, how will it effect me?
thanks
on December 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises - Free Book of Kundalini Yoga Poses & Kriyas - Ch 3 - The following set of Kundalini Yoga exercises builds the naval center and works on the 3rd Chakra (energy vortex) of the Kundalini Energy System. […]
on January 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Opening and balancing the navel center will give you willpower, strength of character, confidence and energy. Certainly worth the effort.
Best,
Anmol
on January 9th, 2009 at 2:46 am
anmol, can i hug my knees while doing popcorn pose, its quite difficult when my legs are bouncing and around
thank you
on January 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Yes you can hug your knees, they tend to extend away from the body because of the effort to “pop”.
Best,
Anmol
on January 16th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Anmolji,
Can a pregnant woman practise core abdominal yoga? Till which month of gestation can this be practised?
Can you please post some yoga which can be practised in pregnancy?
thanks in advance..
Regards,
srividya
on January 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I don’t recommend strenuous abdominal work if you are pregnant. I will work on posting yoga exercises for pregnancy. One of the most important things for you is to be in a happy, peaceful and spiritual state of mind during this time. It will carry over to the baby as well.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
on March 6th, 2009 at 2:22 am
anmol, can i do streatch pose with this kriya?
and i find i feel this kriya more in my hip flexors than i do in my abs, especially in the popcorn exercise
thank you…
on March 10th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Yes Stretch Pose can be done with this Kriya. Initially you do tend to feel it more in the hip flexors, see how it goes after some time and let me know.
Best,
Anmol
on April 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises […]
on April 6th, 2009 at 5:07 am
I am just starting to do your core workouts and I cannot find for the beginners. how many reps and how many sets to do to start off. Any advise would be appreciated.
————————–
Karen Walter
ab workout
on April 15th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises […]
on April 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
anmol when im doing the yoga popcorn i get about an inch or two off the ground is this ok? or should i be trying to stay on the ground
on April 20th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
No it’s fine to pop off the floor completely. Just make sure of course that you are doing this on a soft surface :-). The bottom line is that you should be feeling it in your abs if you are doing it right.
Best,
Anmol
on June 10th, 2009 at 11:26 am
anmol,
do we need to do the weight loss and abs yoga everyday or every other day?
on June 15th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Anmol,
Am I ever going to get an answer from my question..?
Plz, check June 10th, 2009 at 11.26am question. Thank you.
on June 15th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
So sorry for the delay. I would suggest starting every other day and allow your body to get accustomed to the sets first, and then you can do it daily.
For effective long term weight loss and stomach shaping, you will want to vary your routine after a month or two. There is another Ab Set on the website which would be good to switch to at that time.
Let me know how it goes.
Best,
Anmol
on June 21st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Thanks Anmol for the response on June 15th 10:16pm. Sorry for rushing you to get an answer from you, I’m sure you are very busy man. If you can send the other Ab Set on the website which you recommend it will be very helpful.
Also, the fire power breathing is very effective. I feel better then ever, and I think it helped my asthma.
Thank you again, Anmol.
on June 22nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Great to hear Breath of Fire is benefiting you. It has helped others with asthma as well.
Here is the link to the ab set to build and shape your stomach.
Ab Yoga to Build and Shape Your Stomach.
Best,
Anmol
on July 10th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
[…] For the power yoga fans who have been enjoying the high powered sets such as Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises and the Yoga for Full Body Fitness, here is an advanced yoga pose that is sure to challenge and test you as well. Of course, if you are a beginner yogi looking to learn yoga or if you are looking for more gentle yoga sets, you will find plenty of those on Mastery of Meditation and Yoga as well, such as the Yoga Poses for Beginners Set and the Kundalini Yoga Best Beginner’s Yoga Set, to name a few. […]
on July 16th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Exercises […]
on August 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
[…] Core Abdominal Power Yoga Set (This set uses Boat Pose) […]
on August 9th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Hello,
I have a question about the third chakra. Every time I am
scared, shocked or just surprised, I get a quick sharp pain in that area. This has happened for as long as I can remember.
Does this mean the chakra is weak, or maybe over stimulated?
Thank you in advance!
on August 13th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
It would mean the chakra is open. It is ok to be sensitive to life and to have such events reflect in the body and chakra system. The only concern would be if such experiences are internalized and become a source of stress or worry.
One question that does arise though, is if you sharply gasp or exhale if there is any discomfort in the abdominal region, as that would be the respiratory response to the events you have described above. If not, then your response is more due to sensitivity, which I think is fine.
Best,
Anmol