How to Use a Yoga Strap

The short answer

A yoga strap extends your arms. Anywhere a pose asks you to hold a foot, a shin or your own hands and you cannot reach, the strap closes the gap without you rounding your spine to get there. That is the whole principle, and it is why a strap is more useful to a stiff beginner than to a flexible one.

The second thing it does, which far fewer people use it for, is hold a shape. A strap looped into a fixed circle keeps your feet, knees or elbows a set distance apart so you can stop gripping and actually rest in a pose. That is the use that justifies a D-ring over a plastic buckle.

Setting the loop

Most of the strap's uses need a loop rather than a straight band, and a loop that slips under load is worse than no strap at all.

With a D-ring strap: pass the free end up through both rings, fold it back over the top ring, and thread it down through the lower ring only. Pull it tight. The webbing now pinches against itself and holds. If your loop is creeping, you almost certainly threaded both rings on the way back instead of one.

Set the loop size with the prop in place rather than guessing. Put your feet where you want them, then pull the strap to length. Adjusting it in the air and hoping is how people end up with a loop that is two inches too generous to do anything.

Seven things to do with it

1. Supine hamstring stretch. Lie on your back, loop one foot, hold both ends and raise the leg. The strap means your shoulders stay on the floor instead of lifting to chase the foot. This is the single most useful thing a strap does and the reason most people buy one.

2. Seated forward fold. Loop the strap around both feet and hold the ends. Instead of rounding the back to grab the toes, you keep a long spine and hinge from the hip. The fold looks smaller and does considerably more.

3. Shoulder opener, overhead. Hold the strap wide in both hands, raise it overhead and take it back behind you. Start much wider than feels necessary and bring the hands in over weeks. This is the use that eats strap length, and the reason eight feet is the sensible default.

4. Reverse prayer substitute. Hold the strap behind your back, one hand high and one low, and walk the hands toward each other. It is the cow-face arm position without forcing a clasp that is not available yet.

5. Holding a reclined bound angle. Make a large loop, pass it around your lower back and over both feet, lie back. The strap holds the shape so your hip muscles can let go. This is the clearest example of a strap as a resting aid rather than a stretching one, and it pairs naturally with a bolster under the spine.

6. Keeping legs parallel. A loop around the thighs in bridge, or around the ankles in shoulder stand prep, stops the legs splaying so you can feel the work where it belongs. Props that hold a position teach faster than cues do.

7. Dancer, pigeon and anything that catches a back foot. Loop the strap around the raised foot and walk the hands down it. You get the shape of the pose and the shoulder rotation long before the flexibility to grab the foot arrives.

What a strap does not do: build strength, replace a block, or carry a mat properly. For the first, blocks and body weight do more; for the last, a cinch sling exists for a reason.

Which use needs which length