Become a Certified
YOGABODY Coach
4.7 of 5 – Trustpilot Top Rating
To Future Coaches
From Lucas Rockwood, Founder, YOGABODY
Update 06/12/2025
If you’d like to improve your strength, flexibility, and metabolism, and launch your own business helping others to do the same, I’d love to invite you to apply for my up-coming YOGABODY Coach Certification Program so you can join our team of mind-body fitness leaders around the world.
Here’s Why You’ll Love Coaching:
- Purpose. YOGABODY Coaches transform lives through simple, science-based practices that deliver results. When your job is to help people feel better and live better, it doesn’t feel like work at all.
- Freedom. Our graduates work in cities, on rural farms, tropical islands, and even on cruise ships. Many also work online unlocking infinite possibilities. As a certified coach, you’ll finally enjoy true geographical and schedule freedom to design your work on your own terms.
- Opportunity. Coaching is one of the fastest-growing opportunities in fitness. Social media has flooded the zone with perfect bodies and photoshopped physiques, but smart students know that’s not real life. They are desperate for real connections, personalized support, and community. That’s where you come in.
- Travel. Health tourism is booming, and yoga is now an integral element in spas, wellness centers, and medical retreats worldwide. If seasonal work and travel adventures excite you, these opportunities will continue to grow for many years to come.
- Growth. One of the greatest benefits of coaching is that you get to keep learning, evolving, and improving yourself. “Student for life” is a motto we fully embrace.
Here’s the Problem
People are living longer than ever before, but most are facing very difficult health challenges all alone.
Modern medicine is amazing for acute care and treating disease, but it offers little for prevention and rehabilitation. This is where you as a mind-body fitness coach can fill the gap, and why the industry is booming.
Common Scenarios:
- A client suffers from chronic knee or back pain, and the doctor simply says “rest” and “stay active”
- A client is diagnosed with bone loss (osteoarthritis) and told to “do low-impact exercise” but receives no real plan
- A client undergoes successful hip replacement surgery but is then left on their own to figure out how to restore balance and rebuild strength
- A client loses significant weight using GLP-1 medication but now faces the challenge of maintaining results and changing their lifestyle
- A client is losing strength and flexibility faster than they’d like, and they are looking for a gentle, sustainable path to reverse the loss
- A client has a type A personality, works 60 hours a week, and has tried and failed with extreme exercise routines. The added stress backfired, but they want and need a sustainable exercise plan
As a mind-body coach, you’ll combine breathwork, functional strength, and deep stretching with classic Hatha vinyasa yoga. This provides a flexible toolkit that you can use to individualize your teaching to meet your students where they are. For your clients, this is invaluable, and as the provider, you’ll find this work extremely rewarding.
My Story
At the time, I’d taught just a handful of donation-based classes in the back of a restaurant, so my humble ambition was to see if I could fund my travels through Southeast Asia by teaching.
Things went far better than I’d imagined.
Teaching yoga helped me break free from introverted habits. I learned public speaking, class planning, private client work, and event organization. As it turns out, yoga is about much more than poses. As a teacher, you’re a coach, helping students to help themselves. That meant learning and teaching breathwork, mobility, stress management, nutrition, and more.
My Story
In 2003, I left New York City with nothing more than a backpack and a yoga mat.
I had more passion than skill in those early days, but my classes filled up quickly. That gave me the confidence to keep going, teaching, and traveling to Hong Kong, Singapore, and India.
When the travel bug wore off, I partnered with two colleagues to open a studio on a small island in Thailand. It was incredibly difficult, but the challenge unlocked better parts of me, and set the stage for an entire career that I continue to love to this day.
Over the years, I’ve done almost every possible job in the yoga market including studio ownership, props manufacturing, podcasting, YouTube, writing books, and hosting retreats. And it all started with an application to join my first yoga teacher training program, like the one you’re considering now.
It takes courage to put yourself out there in public, to learn a new skill, to stand up and lead, but the rewards and impact are bigger than you can imagine.
Our Origin Story
In 2005, my studio group had a major problem: there were plenty of “certified” teachers, but almost none with the real-world skills to lead a great class.
To solve our staff shortage, we launched invite-only private training and hired every single graduate. The results spoke for themselves. Our internal program was so effective that when we opened it to the public, it sold out immediately.
Our graduates stood out with a level of practical training rarely seen in the industry. They were in demand from day one, and many have gone on to open studios, write books, lead retreats, and become trainers themselves.
That job-ready focus is why our school is continuously in the top 5 courses all around the world and is considered the #1 school for business and marketing in the industry. We’ve made it our mission to provide you with the skills to inspire students, change lives, and launch your career with confidence.
In this program, you’ll learn to:
- Transform stress into strength with breathwork
- Unlock joint flexibility for pain-free movement
- Build lean muscle for strength and health
- Balance metabolism
- Launch your own profitable teaching business or club to serve your community
Your Training Curriculum
Each module in the course provides one specific qualification, and each module builds toward an unmatched coaching credential you’ll use to serve your community. Upon graduation, you’ll be fully qualified to teach:
- Breathwork: 30-min private, 1-hr group sessions
- Science of Stretching: 60-min private or group sessions
- Functional Strength: 30-min private, 1-hr group sessions
- Yoga: 45-60 min private or group sessions
Our teachers lead group classes, private sessions, workshops, retreats, and even corporate wellness programs. Many work in traditional fitness centers, but increasingly, our entrepreneurial graduates work for themselves.
Module 1
Breathwork
10 days, live & online
Module 2
Flexibility
10 days, live & online
Module 3
Strength
10 days, live & online
Module 4
Assessments
2 days, online
Module 5
Business
2 days, online
Yoga breathing (pranayama) has exploded in popularity because it’s science-backed and the results are immediate.
Even more popular now than meditation or mindfulness, breathing practices provide students with a self-soothing toolkit that helps them optimize their nervous systems at home, at work, and in sports.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to improve digestion, reduce stress, and encourage sleep
- How to prime your nervous system for exercise
- The importance of nose breathing and slowing breath
- The symbiotic relationship between CO2 and O2
- How to choose state-desired practices appropriately
- Nighttime breathing optimization
- How rate and ratio impact your autonomic nervous system
- How to coach people with chronic breathing problems
- How to use breathing to self-manage stress and anxiety at home and work
- How to strengthen and train the diaphragm and other breathing muscles
- How to create a client plan
- How to measure and track starting point and progress with clients
- 10 core breathing practices and their specific uses
- Standing yoga poses with breath
- Sun Salutes A&B
Your Training Day (2hr session):
- Practice (15 min): guided breathwork practices
- Lecture (45 min): mixed-media, interactive learning
- Practicum (60 min): seated breathing teaching practice, yoga pose sequences, breathing “in-action” practices
NOTE: this module includes seated, breath-only training, but also extensive movement training including Sun Salutes, standing poses, brace breath (for lifting), and recovery breath for sports.
Breath is the backbone of any wellness practice and all movement practices, so we rightfully start our journey with the science, anatomy, and biomechanics of respiration. You’ll learn how breath directly influences the autonomic nervous system. You’ll also learn how to integrate breathing into everyday life, exercise, yoga, and training.
Each session includes both theory and practice: the first half is a focused practice and lecture, the second half is hands-on breathwork where you’ll apply techniques directly to exercise, yoga, stress management, and more.
By the end, you’ll be a Certified Breath Coach, qualified to teach breathing as a stand-alone practice or as a powerful part of a mind-body fitness practice.
When we’re young, almost everyone enjoys full range of motion in their joints. With age, stiffness, pain, and limitation are the norm.
Students complain about tight hamstrings, locked up hips, and a painful lower back. Most people assume there is nothing that can be done about it, but they are wrong.
By studying the Science of Stretching®, you’ll learn that anyone, regardless of age or starting ability, can learn to regain basic range of motion (bROM), massively reduce joint pain, and improve their quality of life.
What You’ll Learn:
- Anatomy and physiology of flexibility
- Two phases of range-of-motion gains
- Anatomy of the hips, hamstrings, and spine
- Teaching techniques for effective classes
- Injury and pain management
- Sequencing: warmups, transitions, and peak poses
- Client onboarding and management
- Workshop structure
Your Training Day (2hr session):
- Posture Clinic (15 min): guided tutorial of poses
- Lecture (35 min): mixed-media, interactive learning
- Teaching Practice (10 min): working in pairs
- Guided Class (60 min): themed sequences led by trainers
Your training day starts with posture clinics that walk you step-by-step, in detail, through exactly how to practice and teach. We’ll then move into our hands-on lecture, a short practice teaching session for the pose of the day. Then we’ll finish with a guided practice where you’re the student.
We do not practice or teach contortion. We focus on deep squats, hinge movements, and the spinal freedom we should all have – but most have lost. By the end of this module, you’ll be a Certified Stretch Coach, fully qualified to teach private students, group classes, or integrate these stretches into a mixed modality class.
Lean muscle and functional strength are crucial to long-term health. We’re not chasing aesthetics, we’re building lower body power, upper body push, core stability, posterior chain strength, and balance.
The benefits of muscle, especially as we age, are remarkable:
- Improved bone mass
- Increased resilience to illness
- Metabolic and hormone balance
- Mental health
- Reduced risk of slips and falls
- Joint health
Strength training does not mean bulking up, spending hours in the gym, or lifting impossibly heavy weights. We teach safe, simple exercises that delivery mensurable results—often noticeable in just two weeks.
What You’ll Learn:
- Anatomy and physiology of strength
- Newbie gains vs. muscle fiber size adaptation
- Muscle tension, progressive overload, metabolic stress, microdamage
- How to use bodyweight, blocks, and resistance bands
- How and when to progress to dumbbells
- How to train tendons to keep up with muscles
- Feet positions, grips, and alignment
- Spine-bracing and safety practices
- Recovery techniques
- 10 lower body exercises
- 10 upper body exercises
- 5 core exercises, 5 balance, and 5 plyometric practices
Your Training Day (2hr session):
- Posture Clinic (15 min): guided tutorial of poses
- Lecture (35 min): mixed-media, interactive learning
- Teaching Practice (10 min): working in pairs
- ‘Hot Seat’ Class (60 min): trainees and trainers co-teach
By the end, you’ll be a Certified Functional Strength Instructor, qualified to lead one-on-one coaching, group strength classes, and our signature Yin-Yang Flow—a unique blend of dynamic yoga, functional strength, and stretching.
You’ve made it to the finish line, and now it’s assessment time. Over two focused days, you’ll complete and record your practical exams.
There are no trick questions, no confusing instructions, and no complicated technology. Our trainers will guide you step by step to ensure you feel confident and supported throughout.
Our goal is to help you demonstrate your teaching ability while strengthening any weak areas, so you leave fully prepared to teach professionally.
Assessments You’ll Submit:
- 30-Minute Yoga Flow
- 15-Minute Strength Class
- 15-Minute Stretch Class
- 10-Minute Applied Anatomy Presentation
Assessment Day (2hr session):
- Preparation (30 min): Review, warm up, and get comfortable before recording
- Teach & Take (75 min): Record your session with a partner while your trainer observes
- Debrief (15 min): Receive immediate feedback, insights, and improvement tips
Exams are designed to be challenging but practical. Most trainees describe this phase as the most rewarding part of the training because the material they create becomes the foundation for their first real-world classes.
Each submission receives detailed written and verbal feedback. If you need extra help to refine your skills or retake an exam, we’ll work with you personally until you meet the standard and graduate as a confident, capable instructor.
Now that you’re fully qualified to teach, it’s time to learn the essential business skills so you can offer your services to the world.
At YOGABODY, we’re career teachers and have no time for theory or generalities. We need results that can be demonstrated with new clients in classes quickly.
We’ll show you how to get your initial students in the door, how to manage that new client relationship, how to turn clients into members, and how to build a successful, thriving business.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to build your online profile
- How to get listed on Google in two weeks
- How to cold email for jobs, clients, and collabs
- How to use no-cost software for booking, payments, and emails
- How to get reviews
- How to create an “about me” video and resume
- Smart ways to use social media
- How to tap into existing local communities to quickly get started
- Launch party and case study strategies
Your Training Day (2hr session):
- Lecture (45 min): real-world business training
- Workshop (75 min): hands-on setup, outreach, and business launch
Extra Tools
In addition to the core training, you’ll get access to our on-demand video library with specialized modules designed to help you go deeper and achieve better results with your clients.
- Food and Flexibility. Discover which foods and micronutrients support collagen synthesis and connective tissue recovery to improve mobility and resilience.
- Nutrition for Strength. Learn how to calculate optimal protein intake and use evidence-based micronutrient and supplement strategies to enhance strength and muscle development.
- Mind-Body Weight Loss. Understand why exercise alone rarely drives fat loss, and how breath, awareness, and nervous system regulation can reshape hunger and metabolism for lasting results.
- Ethics of Coaching. Learn best practices for maintaining professional boundaries, managing finances, and teaching responsibly while staying within your scope of practice.
- Discovery Class How-To. Master the art of running free introductory sessions that build trust and consistently convert into premium, long-term clients.
- No-Cost Marketing. Use simple, proven search and email outreach techniques to attract clients, find teaching opportunities, and create partnerships—all without paid ads.
Schedule & Access
- Live Zoom Classess
6pm Spain, 5pm London, 12 pm NYC
*Replays available 2hrs after live class if schedule is not right for you - Course Content
Web and phone applications (all devices)
Personal tutoring available as needed
Group chat for students and teachers
Are You Ready?
One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How do I know if I’m ready to become a coach?”
I always give the same answer. The best time to start coaching and teaching is when you’re most excited to start. Sure, you could always prepare more. And you could always wait another few months or another few years. But one of the most valuable resources you’ll ever have is excitement and motivation. If you’re feeling that now, my suggestion would be to hold on to it and get started.
As a prerequisite, you’ll need to complete at least 50 guided yoga or group fitness classes. Yes, online classes count, and you can complete them after registering, but they must be completed before the course starts.
This class requirement is not about physical fitness. It’s important you gain enough on-the-mat experience to begin shifting from student to teacher.
You should also be in generally good health, without any serious conditions that would prevent you from participating. It’s perfectly normal to have minor injuries or joint issues; most of our students do. But if you have a condition that prevents you from speaking, practicing, or teaching, this may not be the right time to train.
This is a seven-week program with classes Monday through Friday, requiring two hours per day, plus homework. The schedule is structured and effective, but there are no shortcuts. You’ll need to be ready, able, and committed to work, and we’ll be with you every step of the way.
Meet Your Trainers
Lucas Rockwood
Master Trainer & Director (E-RYT, YACEP)
An internationally renowned yoga trainer, TEDx speaker, author, podcaster, and entrepreneur. Lucas is the founder and managing director of YOGABODY® and the YOGABODY Teachers College®. His corporate training clients include Meta and Noom.
Camilo Carreiro
Trainer (E-RYT, YACEP)
A senior staff trainer at YOGABODY since 2015, Camilo specializes in sequence development, teacher mentorship, and training programs. Certified in multiple yoga disciplines, he plays an active role in curriculum development, lectures, and alumni.
About YOGABODY
YOGABODY began at the back of my first yoga studio in 2007. It was built on a single mission: to make professional, science-based yoga education accessible to everyone. Since then, we’ve grown from a small training school into a global education and wellness company with over 23,000 graduates in 41 countries.
Over the years, we’ve manufactured nutritional supplements and yoga props, sold more than half a million at-home training programs, built a social media community of over two million monthly followers, published books, delivered a TEDx talk with 3M views, and produced more than 600 podcast episodes focused on health, wellness, and performance.
From day one, YOGABODY has remained a science-based, agnostic school. We do not teach or promote any religion or ideology; instead, we welcome students from all backgrounds and beliefs who share a commitment to learning, movement, and better health.
Tuition
Your tuition investment includes the seven-week online immersion, all books and materials, ongoing access to the eLearning Center and Teachers Groups, and personalized feedback and review of your graduation submissions. Certification is for life, there are no required recertifications or future expenses.
Free Bonus Materials
Essential Course Materials Box
$135 value – FREE!
When you enroll, you’ll receive a complete box of essential course materials delivered straight to your home. This includes three of our core training books – Yoga Business Mastery, Science of Yoga, and Science of Strength, plus a resistance band, strap, and block—the same tools our trainers use every day. Everything arrives together so you can dive into practice immediately and stay fully supported throughout the entire training.
Personal Webpage
You’ll get a custom webpage where you can take online payments, stream or sell video classes, schedule and set up Zoom classes, and create a 100% personalized online web presence. Best of all, it takes about 10 minutes to set it all up. Free lifetime access for all graduates.
Contract + Student Liability Form
Our ready-to-use contract template will save you time and money. For insurance and data privacy reasons, it’s also essential that you have a new student form with a liability waiver for classes. Software companies charge $100-180 a year. You’ll get lifetime access to our simple online system, including custom URLs for free.
Teaching + Promotional Resources
We try to check as many things off your to-do list as possible. Get access to more than 20 free music playlists to help create the right atmosphere in your classes, as well as royalty-free images and ready-to-use social media templates to post online and promote your sessions.
Exclusive Networking Group
As a YOGABODY graduate you’ll join our private YB Teachers Group in Telegram. In this commercial-free zone, graduates teach and take classes together. You’ll access live classes weekly and join graduates worldwide for professional networking. It’s a fantastic way to make connections and gain practice and teaching experience.
Certification
We meet or exceed every industry standard for coaching, teaching, and trainers. This means that as a Certified Coach, you’ll enjoy unmatched credentials for life with an internationally recognized qualification that gives you complete control over your career. Our graduates are immediately employable and highly entrepreneurial, serving as leaders in their communities.
Accreditations
- Yoga Alliance 200hr Certification
- ACE Certified Trainer
- American Council on Education (ACE) university credit
- International Coaching Federation (ICF) Coach
Customer Reviews
Verify on Trustpilot, Facebook
or Yoga Alliance
“The online learning platform is super informative”
Studying with YB Teachers College is a supportive experience and the online learning platform is super informative. Lucas and his team of teachers are excellent at sharing knowledge and encouraging your growth. I highly recommend!
Jadielocks Stott
“Highly recommend all YOGABODY programs!”
I appreciate the quality of the courses. The necessary info is clear, concise, and often repeated. Lucas and the team have you instructing from the very beginning in a way that helps you defeat your uncertainties and gain confidence. The access to the online modules is for forever.
Rachel Fletcher
“A transformational experience!”
I’m tremendously grateful to have discovered YB Teachers College and completed the 200-hour course. What a transformational experience it was! Ever since I continue to sign up for other courses whenever I’m available. I highly recommend any skeptics to take the plunge into any of the YB courses.
Manching Tom
“Worth every cent”
I have participated in many YOGABODY challenges. I recently completed the 200hr training and again was incredibly impressed by the instructors’ professionalism and depth of knowledge. The pace and organization were outstanding. I would highly recommend all their programs and look forward to my next.
Samantha Glickman
“I couldn’t wait to bring home what I learned”
Teaching yoga is not just about getting into the most difficult position, it’s about learning more about the anatomy and the physiology of the body so we don’t get hurt. Lucas and Camilo were always available to answer any questions that may help us improve our practice. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to bring home what I learned.
Nelda Crawford
“Focuses on producing the best from all trainees”
This school focuses on producing the best from all trainees by delivering comprehensive anatomy and physiology classes, yoga technique with potential modifications for injured clients, and business acumen. I am very happy that I chose to train with them and have taught in different countries using their approach – it works!
Mish Robinson