Yoga challenge for beginners / yoga health tips

Hey everybody, it's Amber Karnes from body positive yoga.com

and I'm here today to share a little yoga flow with you that's going to help

if you have any low back pain or hip pain going on.

I know a lot of you when you're pregnant you get lower back and hip pain

(a lot of us who aren't pregnant get that too), so this

particular sequence is gonna help you to you open the hips

and hopefully help with some of the low back pain you might be having. So the first thing

we're going to do is learn how to build a little tower

with some props that's going to keep us supported while we explore some

deep belly breathing and then we're going to lie on our backs for some hip

openers and then will move on to some other poses.

So of course as with any other exercise you wanna check with your doctor before you

do this -

whether you should lie on your back or not, which we will be doing for some

of the sequence.

So please make sure that all that is cleared before you start.

for this practice you need a bolster or

a couch cushion or really big firm pillow, you'll need two blocks

or big thick books or something like that, and you need a strap

or either a tie or a tie from a bathrobe or something long

that you can use a to make your arms longer.

So, gather your props and I'll see you on the mat!

Ok, so the first thing you're gonna do is build a little tower here. This is a a great

position for you to be in

if you're in savasana or if you just want to rest and breathe for a little

bit which were gonna do at the beginning of the practice.

What I like to do is take one block

on the high height and the other block long ways on the Lower height

and then take the bolster and lean it up against this little tower that you're

making here.

So you may have to play with it a little bit but feel like you get it in a place

where it's

kind of stable and then you're gonna

sit right in front of the bolster and then just lie back

onto the tower that you built. Now you can rest your hands on your belly

or if you have some blocks or something you can put under your arms so they're not

flailing out to the sides - or this might feel really good,

and you wanna try that. Okay so you built your tower

now come and sit your butt right in front of the bolster and

then go ahead and lie back,

so you're in a nice reclining position. I just have my knees bent

with soles of my feet on the mat. I'm going to take my hands and rest them on my thighs.

If this isn't comfortable what you can do is take your feet

together with the knees wide and then take

blocks and place them under the knees to support you.

Otherwise you can just bend your knees we're gonna be breathing here for a few

minutes

so just place your hands on your belly

close your eyes and just start to tune into your breath

maybe at first just noticing

what's happening with the breath, where do you feel it your body

where does it originate?

Do you feel like it's getting stuck anywhere?

Just observing those things, just noticing

without worrying too much about what that means or

if that's good or bad. The next time you draw breath

in through the nose just invite the breath to rise beneath your hands.

So breathe all the way down into the low belly

into that lower abdominal breathing space

and feel the belly rise

as you take an inhale breath and fall back down as you take an exhale breath.

Notice

what other sensations you might be able to feel - maybe your back pressing into

the bolster

or sit bones grounding down to the floor.

And just continue this deep belly breath for a few more rounds

really deeply inhaling filling the belly up

and then lightly draw then navel towards the spine when you exhale to draw all the air

out - contract the diaphragm before you reach for another inhale.

and then slowly flutter the eyes open

just bring your hands down to the mat we're gonna go ahead and sit up

so just press your hands down and bring yourself to upright.

we're gonna move the tower and then we'll come to lie on our backs and do a

few things there.

okay we're gonna lie on the floor and you want to have your strap handy.

so, just have that nearby

I've got my soles of my feet on the floor

my knees bent and you really wanna scoop your tail bone down toward your feet

so more of your back comes into contact with the floor.

place your hands on the floor

maybe widen the feet to almost the width of the mat and just crawl the feet a little bit

away from the butt

so you're not too crunched up. We're just gonna start a windshield wiper motion

with the legs, letting the knees drop down to one side

coming back up through center, letting them drop down to the other side

nice and slow. Just let the feet roll

to the insides and outsides as it needs to

So we're getting a little blood flow to the

low back we're starting to take the hips through their range of motion

and if you'd like to create a little vinyasa here, to

sync up the breath with the movement it's an

inhale breath as you come up through center and then exhale as you go down to

one side

inhale as you come back up and an exhale down to the other side

so keeping with that deep belly breath that we did before

and then go ahead and come back up to the center.

just gonna scoot my feet in a little bit

and then pick up my right foot and bring my knee toward my chest

and then go ahead and start to do some hip circles

so when I come close to my body and bending my knee

and then as you go away from your body you're going to extend the leg

so just let your hips rock from side to side really wanna take

the leg through the full range of motion here

and just do a nice and slow it's definitely not a race

go ahead and switch directions

continuing to breathe

and return that foot back down and we'll do the other side

think about scooping the head of your femur

into your hip socket like your kind of trying to get

the last little bit a peanut butter out of that jar - scooping around

to get the synovial fluid moving in the joint, warm up the joints

so a lot of times if we have back pain it's because our hips are super tight

and for those of us who are carrying children

our center of gravity is a little bit off so our body doesn't quite know what to do

with itself!

alright so once you finish that side here we're gonna return

both feet down to the mat and then we'll go ahead

and take the strap - you wanna loop the strap

around the ball of the foot intake the leg

straight up into the air

so we want the leg along and arms long so if you're

trying to be really close by to your face and

your knee is bent and you're straining up off the floor that's not what we want. so

take your leg as far away from your face as you need to

to be able to have the leg comfortably straight. so for some of us the

hamstrings are talking to us right now and that's okay (laughter)

Just breathe into the hamstring

kinda just a little imagination experiment

inhale deep into the belly and then as you exhale see if you can

imagine sending the breath to wherever you're feeling the sensation

wherever you're feeling the stretch just hold here and breathe for a few minutes

if you like you can take that

other leg and lengthen it along the floor and really press out through the

heel so that leg

doesn't go lazy and just fall off to the side really press through the heel

if you do that and it hurts your low back just keep the knee bent

alright so I'll take both sides of the strap in the left-hand

take your right thumb and put it into your right hip crease you can sort of roll

that hip away from you

and then just come across your body about three or four

inches and you're gonna feel some sensation on the outside of this right leg

if you come over like this and your hip rolled up off the ground you went too

far

So just breathe here.

all right we're gonna come back up to center you can either bring your foot

back down to the floor

or you can just catch the strap with the other foot. and we're gonna do it on the

other side

so leg is long arms are long

the side might feel completely different Think about flexing your toes

toward your face

notice

if kneecap is kinda to the center to the midline of the body

or if your leg has splayed out to one side or maybe to the inside even

Then take both sides of the strap

in the right-hand take your left thumb, put in your hip crease and roll the hip away

from you

and then just come across the body just a few inches

until you feel that sensation that outside of the left leg

all right come back to center and let go of the strap

bring that foot back down

and this time you're gonna bring your right knee into your chest

and then take the knee wide, like out toward your armpit or toward your

shoulder

and then you're just gonna bring the lower leg up toward the ceiling

and I'm gonna show you with a strap -

just put the strap around the foot and then think about pulling

that knee down toward the floor, toward your shoulder or armpit

now you want to make sure that this hip stays down we don't want to roll over to one side

so maybe even take your hand and press the hip down you can let the knee

fall out to the side

but the main thing we want to work on is bringing that knee

down toward the floor and have your foot flexed

like you're doing a half a sumo squat on the ceiling

this is actually happy baby pose we're just doing on one side

so if you know happy baby and you wanna do both legs at the same time that's

totally fine but sometimes one side

it's a little bit easier on us if our hips are really tight or back is

really painful. Alright, go ahead

and remove the strap, we'll do that on the other side

bring your left knee up and out toward

your armpit, and lasso your foot

and go ahead and find that on the other side to really bring the knee down

toward the shoulder, toward the floor keep this hip down

with your hand and breathe.

alright, so release that strap

and return that foot to the mat.

and we're gonna come to our hands and knees so gently roll to one side

and then you can press yourself up and will come

to hands and knees. If your knees are sensitive

I recommend putting a blanket underneath them

you can also take another yoga mat and kinda double that up

and stick it underneath your knees.

so we're gonna do a couple rounds of cat and cow

so bring your hands a little bit in front of the shoulders, let the index fingers

point straight ahead

and spread the fingers wide. knees are directly under the hips

and the feet come straight back you can tuck or or untuck the toes, it's up to you

On the inhale let the tailbone rise belly drops down toward the mat, lift

the chest, lift the gaze. On the exhale let the tailbone drops, bellly draws in,

arch the upper back like an angry cat head comes down last.

We'll go the other way - inhale, tailbone rises

belly drops down toward the mat, lift the chest, lift the gaze

exhale, tailbone tucks, belly draws toward the spine, heart draws toward the spine,

head comes down last like a Halloween cat. Inhale lift

exhale tuck

so you're gonna do this at your own pace with your

own breath for a couple more rounds really flexing and extending the spine

finding that whole range of movement all through the spine

pressing through the hands

really pressing into the upper back on that arch

and coming to neutral.

so we're gonna do a couple lunges next

all right so you're gonna want your blocks for this next part

we are gonna do some some low lunges

what I'm gonna do is have the block to give me a little bit more room to get my

leg through

especially if you have a belly that's growing then you're gonna want to

not run into yourself here so I'm gonna take both blocks and bring them

to the left half of my mat

and then step my right foot forward. I'm using the block to keep my chest

lifted up

my right toes are pointed straight ahead my left knee is down on the mat and I've

got my toe extended

you can tuck that toe if you want or keep it long and then I'm just gonna start to

drop my hips down toward the mat

so the main thing you wanna check for is this knee -

we don't wanna go past the ankle so if that happens you just use scoot your foot

forward

I'm really pressed down through

equally through the front foot and also through the back knee to ground it down

to the mat

and then just let the hips sink down toward the mat

so you can bring your hand up on your thigh

you can stay on the block you walk the block back in really just find a way

to start to let the hips relax let gravity do the work

and breathe. if you feel like your belly is crashing into your thigh just kinda

move it off to the side so you can move it to the center

if that still doesn't work for you you can crawl your right foot

a little more toward the side of your mat you've got a little wider base for

your lunge

alright

bring both the hands to the blocks and gonna straighten this leg

then just drag that that back so my knees meet up

Walk my blocks to the other side and bring my left foot forward this time

so again I wanna make sure that I'm stable here

and then I'm gonna start to sink my pelvis down towards the mat now for me

it's a little more comfortable to bring my hand

up to my thigh and can give myself a little bit a leverage here

or you can keep your hands on the blocks

maybe it will be more comfortable for you to be this way

with your hands kinda framing your foot just experiment

see what feels good to your body make sure to make room for your belly so you're

either going to

kinda just move everything to the center or crawl your foot out toward

the side of the mat

lift the chest, let the pelvis

sink down toward the mat opening up through the hip flexor

keep breathing into the belly

good

alright so I'm going to plant my hands on the blocks and then

drag this foot back to meet the other and then I'm gonna come to standing so

I'll bring my blocks out front

and then just step one foot up and step up the other foot up so you kinda

come into

a low a forward fold here and then I'm just gonna roll up

gently one vertebrae at a time until I come

to standing. We're gonna do a couple poses here that are really great for

the hip

and the low back - standing poses - the first we're gonna do is

parsvakonasana

side angle pose - to come into this you're going to stand facing the long side of

your mat

and then go ahead and widen your feet to a wide stance - turn your right toes

out

so they face right to the short side of your mat and the left toes

in just about 30 degrees. You may have to play with the angle that

to see what's comfortable for you for your knee, for your hip

and they were gonna do is bend into this front knee

again make sure the knee doesn't come past the ankle if it does just

crawl that foot forward a little bit take your right forearm place that on your

right thigh

take your left hand to your hip and spin your chest

open so this is a twist and also a lunge, and

at the lot of things but we really want that twisting motion. So your shoulders

are stacked one above the other use that leverage if your arm on the thigh and

spin your chest open

and then you can lift your arm straight up into the air

take a moment here

and if you'd like you can try taking that arm up and

over the ear with the palm facing the floor so this where you have one long

line from your back heel

all the way up the side body and out that arm and then use that left arm to

cartwheel yourself back up

parallel the feet and then left toes go out

right toes go in, go ahead and bend through that front knee

left forearm comes to thigh, spin the chest open

and then lift that arm up and you can either stay here

or maybe tried arm up and over the ear

experiment with where the neck feels good to look - maybe up at the lifted arm,

maybe at the floor, maybe just straight ahead in front of you

and use that left arm to bring you back up

then parallel the feet and then just step 2 feet together

that's it! thanks for downloading and practicing with me

I hope you come see me again at bodypositiveyoga.com

Namaste!