Despite a 14 hour day at her studio Stratusphere, when Trish Stratus walks in the room she’s as energetic and humble as they come. Count this down to her yoga. Her tiny frame is also toned to perfection. Put that down to yoga too. Seeing her lean muscles and sculpted backside in person has me convinced. If yoga can get me looking like that, I’m in.

“It doesn’t really work the muscles it kind of just maintains them,” Trish explains. “You keep a leanness.”

After five years of yoga, Trish’s muscles were long and lanky. But she didn’t have the tone required to play a bounty hunter in a movie, her next project. So Trish added weight training and Israeli Special Ops fighting Krav Maga to her routine. Multi-tasker that she is, Trish turned her yoga into a full body workout to tone her muscles.

“I’m like, ‘what if I do my yoga and I’m in the poses and I’m using the weight training movements,’” Trish says. “So I’m getting to tone up my muscles and I’m also doing my yoga flow.”

She admits she looked a little odd practicing yoga while wearing a pair of beanbags Velcroed onto her arms. She didn’t look so crazy when people started asking how she got such definition and started showing others her new workout. Those crazy Velcro beanbags turned into her FitGloves, non-slip gloves with an extra pound of beanbag on the back.


She took me through a few of her moves that combine traditions yoga poses with her own weight training and by the end of the 15 minutes I was sweating.

Triangle pose

“I’m in triangle pose and since I’m here I’ll do tricep extensions,” she explains as she demonstrates the moves. And when her arms are lower, she can add a bicep curl. Killer arm moves: check.

Warrior II into Tree

To get a “yoga butt” Trish changed Warrior II, a move that isometrically works the legs, into Leap of Faith, leaping from the pose to the standing Tree pose. “You do this repeat motion and it’s stimulating the muscles,” Trish says.

The Chair pose, when help long enough, works your abs, thighs and butt using isometric contractions. But when Trish adds a few squats to the end of it, you can feel your glutes burning. 

Trish's Plank

Her flat stomach is credited to the plank pose-- lots and lots of plank. Normal plank, Dolphin plank, and Side plank will work your muscles. Holding your body in a straight line works your core until you feel it burn.

But getting Trish’s body and toned figure is more than just the workout. “It’s actually what happens to you that makes you take over a new approach in life right,” she explains. “You start to feel so good about yourself you don’t want to put the junk in there. And you realize like, you know, junk food is good once in a while but I don’t eat it all the time.”

It’s a little early, but I’m making my New Year’s Resolution now. It’s time to start holding those poses and work on my “yoga butt.”