Yes, you can modify sun salutations so more students can do them comfortably. The core fixes: step back into a lunge instead of stepping or jumping back to down dog (removes wrist and shoulder load), swap the full forward fold for a standing cat-cow with hands on the thighs (removes the dizziness risk for students with blood pressure or vestibular concerns), add side bends and twists so the sequence moves in more than one plane, and keep the whole thing hands-free when a student needs it. None of this waters down the practice—it just makes it accessible to the students actually in front of you.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
Sun salutations are a staple in many yoga classes, but have you ever considered whether they might be driving students away? For some students, these sequences can feel discouraging, inaccessible, or even overwhelming. But with a few simple modifications, you can make sun salutations work for everyone—and set your classes apart as creative, inclusive, and engaging.
Here, I’ll explain:
- Why traditional sun salutations might be alienating some students
- How to modify sun salutations to reduce strain and frustration
- Creative ways to add variety and accessibility
- Adaptations to make your class more inclusive for all levels and all ages
- How these changes can boost retention, reputation, and revenue
And to bring it all together, I’m sharing two follow-along videos: one explaining the issues with standard sun salutations and another guiding you through a hands-free, spine-friendly variation. Follow along to feel what I’m saying really land in your own body—then serve it to your students.
why sun salutations might be driving your yoga students away
Sun salutations are NOT one-size-fits-all. While they can be a great way to warm up, they also introduce challenges that can make yoga feel unapproachable for some students.
potential problems with traditional sun salutations:
- Too Many Up-and-Down Transitions: Students with blood pressure issues or vertigo may feel dizzy moving between standing, forward folding, and stepping back.
- Wrist, Elbow, and Shoulder Strain: Plank, chaturanga, and down dog put a lot of pressure on the upper body, which can be painful for students with sensitivity or injuries. Do you remember how long it took for your wrists to condition when you first started practicing yoga? For me, it took months, if not years, to build up the strength that keeps my wrists comfortable.
- Strength Barriers: For beginners or those building strength, holding planks and lowering through chaturanga can feel overwhelming.
- Flexibility Challenges: Stepping forward from down dog into a lunge isn’t accessible for everyone, making transitions feel frustrating or even humiliating.
When students feel unsupported or incapable, they’re less likely to return. And when retention drops, so does your class attendance—and ultimately, your teaching momentum.
how to make sun salutations more accessible
The good news? You don’t have to eliminate sun salutations—you just might need to tweak them to ensure everyone can participate with confidence.
try these simple modifications:
✅ Reduce wrist and shoulder load. Instead of stepping back to down dog, have students start at the front of their mat and step back into a lunge. This eliminates weight-bearing on the hands. (Bonus: it keeps the front-leg knee in a comfortable position, too!)
✅ Minimize big postural shifts. Replace full forward folds with standing cat-cow, where students keep their hands on their thighs. This reduces dizziness while still allowing for spine movement. (Bonus: it allows for students to customize the back stretch without overloading their hamstrings.)
✅ Incorporate more planes of motion. Traditional sun salutations keep students moving only forward and back (sagittal plane). Add side bends and twists in mountain pose, in chair pose, and in lunges to introduce movement in the frontal and transverse planes, creating a more balanced practice.
✅ Offer hands-free options. By focusing on standing movements rather than floor transitions, you give students a chance to build strength and confidence without the frustration of inaccessible steps forward.
With these adjustments, sun salutations become more welcoming, ensuring that every student can engage fully in class.
And when you engage your students, they return. As you retention increases, so do your referrals and your class numbers—and then you are helping more people with yoga! Win/win.
watch these videos to see these concepts in action
Want to see the difference these modifications make? Watch these two videos:
Why Sun Salutations Might Be Sabotaging Your Classes
Follow Along with a Hands-Free, Spine-Friendly Sun Salutation
Apply these tweaks to create a class that supports all students—keeping them engaged, comfortable, and coming back for more.
How do I sequence a class around sun salutations?
Most of us inherit the sun salutation as the default warmup and then never audit what it actually covers. So here is the audit for you!
A classic sun salutation gives you spinal flexion and extension, the front and back lines of the legs, and a generous amount of articulation—moving sequentially through the spine, over and over. (There’s some stabilization, too, in the lowering from high to low plank.)
But there’s a lot of movement missing: side bending in either direction, rotation in either direction, targeting the inner and outer lines of the legs. Run it against the 6–4–2 framework—six moves of the spine, four lines of the legs, two core actions—and a sun salutation fills only about half the boxes, all of them in the same sagittal plane.
Which makes the sequencing fix simple enough. If sun salutations are your warmup, the rest of the class owes you side bending, twisting, the inner and outer lines of the legs, and something that asks the center of the body to hold steady. Warrior II, extended side angle, and triangle cover the outer line and the side bends. A revolved lunge or a seated twist covers rotation. A wide-legged forward fold covers the inner line. Plank or a standing balance covers stabilization.
Do that and your sun salutations stop being the whole movement diet and start being just one course in a multicourse meal. If you want the full planning process rather than this one piece of it, how to plan a yoga class in fifteen minutes walks through it end to end.
A sun salutation sequence for a mixed-level class
Here is the hands-free version written out, using the four modifications above. Every transition happens standing, so nobody has to get down to the floor and back up, and nobody bears weight on their hands.
- Mountain, arms overhead. Extension, and a moment for everyone to arrive on their feet.
- Standing cat-cow, hands on the thighs. Flexion and extension with articulation through the spine, and no head-below-heart position—which means the students with blood pressure or vestibular concerns stay in the sequence rather than sitting it out.
- Step the right foot back into a lunge, arms overhead. Front line of the back leg, back line of the front leg.
- Side bend toward the front leg, then away. Lateral flexion, twice, in a shape everyone is already standing in.
- Step forward to mountain and twist. Rotation, without a single hand on the mat.
- Repeat, stepping the left foot back.
- Chair, and chair with a twist. Stabilization plus rotation on the other side of the body.
- Mountain, arms overhead, hands to the heart. The same finish every time, so the round has a recognizable end.
Teach that as your standing warmup and you have covered all six spinal moves, two lines of the legs, and both core actions before the class proper begins. Repeat it three times with one small addition each round—a longer hold in the lunge, a deeper twist, a pause in chair—and it becomes the standing chunk rather than just the opening.
Sun salutation alternatives when half the room can’t do one
Sometimes the answer is not a modified sun salutation but a different warmup altogether. I love it! Here are my go-tos:
A seated or table-based warmup. Cat and cow on all fours, thread the needle for rotation, a side bend from seated, and a low lunge from table. Same movement coverage, no standing transitions at all.
A supine warmup. Pelvic tilts, knees-to-chest, supine twists both ways, a bridge lifted and lowered a few times, and banana-asana—a reclining side bend. This one is underused, and it is the warmup I reach for when I know the room includes people who will be more comfortable starting on their backs.
A standing warmup with no folding. Mountain, arms overhead, side bends, standing twists, a slow march in place, a gentle knee bend and straighten. Heads never go below the heart.
Any of these three will warm a body, and each one leaves you with a class that looks different from everyone else’s—which, as it turns out, is what students remember!
get more creative sequencing ideas inside my Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership
Making sun salutations more accessible is just the beginning. If you want to feel more confident in your class planning and learn how to create sequences that are both inclusive and engaging, join Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership (MMM).
Inside MMM, you’ll get:
- Expert guidance on sequencing for different student needs
- Ready-to-use lesson plans that save you time—get a full month of creative, sustainable lesson plans that your students will love
- Personalized feedback and mentorship to refine your teaching
- A community of like-minded yoga teachers supporting each other—this group is fantastic!
Join us and immediately start crafting classes that keep students coming back!
Your students deserve a practice that meets them where they are and makes them feel successful and at ease in their practice. And you deserve to feel confident in your teaching. Try these sun salutation modifications and see the difference they make in your classes!
Take a finished plan with you
If you would rather not build the rest of the class around your sun salutations from scratch this week, take mine—it is already built and battle tested.
My Greatest Hits Lesson Plan is a complete, balanced class that runs the whole 6–4–2 checklist, written out and ready to teach. Use it as is, or lift the middle of it and put your own warmup on the front.
Grab it here: the Greatest Hits Lesson Plan. And if you want more of these to riff on, here are yoga sequence ideas for five different styles, each built on the same checklist.
Why do traditional sun salutations lose students?
The classic sequence asks for a lot at once: repeated up-and-down transitions that can trigger dizziness, wrist- and shoulder-loading positions like plank and chaturanga, and a forward step into lunge that isn’t accessible for every hip or knee. When students feel unsupported, they’re less likely to come back.
How do I modify sun salutations for students with wrist or shoulder pain?
Have students step back into a lunge from the front of the mat instead of stepping or jumping back to down dog or through a chaturanga. This removes weight-bearing on the hands and wrists entirely while keeping the same rhythm of the sequence.
What’s a sun salutation modification for students who get dizzy?
Replace the full forward fold with a standing cat-cow, hands resting on the thighs. This keeps the spine moving without the head-below-heart position that triggers dizziness for students with blood pressure issues or vertigo.
Can sun salutations be done without any floor work?
Yes. A hands-free sun salutation keeps every transition standing—lunges instead of stepping back to plank, standing cat-cow instead of a full fold—so students build strength and confidence without ever needing to bear weight on their hands.
Do modified sun salutations still count as a warm-up?
Yes. The goal of a sun salutation is to warm the whole body and link breath to movement—modifications keep that goal intact while removing the specific transitions that create strain, so every student in the room can actually warm up rather than brace through discomfort.
