Yoga works great for some people as a standalone exercise. But it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t want to limit yourself to just that. As it turns out, yoga is flexible enough (no pun intended) to serve as either a warmup or a workout.

Rather than cutting into your lifting time, developing a steady practice can actually help you get stronger in the long run.

Putting your body through any repetitive movement—yes, including weightlifting—will eventually create muscular imbalances and lead to injury. Yoga trains your body to withstand more stress and become more flexible and malleable. Therefore, incorporating yoga into your existing routine might be exactly what your body needs to improve durability.

What follows are five ways to accomplish just that, and integrate yoga into your workout regimen.

Brooke Roberts is the founder and CEO of YogaTravelTree.com, a Yelp/Tripadvisor style resource for the yoga community, connecting yogis with retreats, trainings, events, and studios at home and around the world. After rising to the top of the youth travel industry as the Senior Vice President of GoAbroad.com, she left it all behind to launch her own start-up. She began seriously practicing yoga five years ago on board a ship traveling from Brazil to Namibia and it’s been a part of her fitness regime ever since. You can also find her on Twitter.