How Long Should You Hold a Yoga Pose?

Short Holds: Vinyasa, Power Yoga

Yoga styles that involve short holds for their poses tend to emphasize a technique known as "one breath, one movement."

Medium-Length Holds: Iyengar, Hatha, Ashtanga

There are numerous styles of yoga that fall into the Goldilocks area of not too fast and not too slow. These can be Hatha, Iyengar, some forms of hot yoga and Ashtanga. In these classes, you tend to hold poses for about five breaths each, Payne says, and that gives you time to settle in and adjust a pose, but then transition out again at a steady pace.

She says a faster practice, like power yoga or a fast vinyasa flow, can feel overwhelming if you don't know your alignment in every pose or you're trying to connect your breath to your movement.

"The meditative nature of yoga and the way you move is all about your breath, so the length of your hold comes down to how that feels in your body," she says.

Long Holds: Yin, Restorative

The two main types of yoga that feature long holds are Yin and restorative, and they might look similar, but they each have different goals.

Restorative yoga is usually done with numerous props, like blankets and bolsters, that get your body into a certain position where you can rest for 5 to 10 minutes per pose. Although there's passive stretching, restyorative yoga doesn't require much effort, you're just sinking into the supported pose.

Although there can be some prop use in Yin yoga, this type of practice involves more active holds, and it creates a beneficial type of stress in your body, Payne says.

"This is a slow, meditative practice designed to mindfully stress your body's connective tissues as you breathe into the ever-changing sensations that arise in long-held poses," she says. "It takes a minimum of 2 minutes for this process to take place, so holding a Yin-style posture for 5 minutes or more is ideal so your body can soften around the sensations that arise."

Yin poses can be challenging — for example, frog pose is designed to stretch the connective tissue in the groin, and it gets intense — but Payne says this type of "positive stress" ultimately leads to a stronger, flexible and more balanced body.

The Bottom Line: It's Up to You

Although some of the examples above mention specific yoga styles, the fact is there's a great deal of variability from one class to another, or even in one section of a class compared to the rest.

Some Iyengar teachers might offer shorter holds, for example, in favor of more repetition of getting into and out of the same pose, and then follow that with a single pose held for a longer time.

If you're doing your own sequences at home, or even if you're in person at a class, remember your practice is ​your​ practice. If you want to hang out in butterfly pose a little longer, go for it. If you want to move through the classic vinyasa of plank to upward facing dog to downward facing dog at your own pace and with your own breath, that's up to you.

Like many other variables in yoga, playing around with different options can help you personalize the practice in a way that feels nourishing instead of rushed.