Hamstring Flexibility & Forward Fold: 11-Min Prep

You inhale, squat down, chest up, hips down, exhale, drop the head, lift the hips, shift the weight forward. Straighten your legs as much as feels good. So inhale, hips come down, chest up, exhale, shift forward, lift the hips, drop the head. So it's pretty simple.

This should flow, so not too much cueing. Just the things I pointed out in the beginning is really important. If you don't do that and you have someone really tight, it will look like this. They will bend their knees a little bit, inhale and they will exhale, just flex their back so they won't really get any benefit.

So if you just make sure to give them the option to bend their knees, shift the weight forward and pay attention to the back, this should feel really good. And between three to six times depends on how much you want to do, but at least a few rounds. And then you end up in a forward fall on the back of your mat. And you take a breath.

And then we just roll up into standing. So then you bend the knees and just let the head be the last thing to come up. And you let them have a moment to roll the shoulders back, push into the legs. And then we're moving now into the half salutations, which is really nice to just start to get some breath and movement together.

So on the inhale, the arms up, maybe gaze up and exhale, fold forward and down. So if you just say down, people will do the same thing again. They will just bend from their back and not from their hips. So you want to make sure when you exhale, you fold forward and down.

So same thing, try to bend your knees, keep your spine long and drop your head, relax your neck on the bottom. So now it's the half lift. So inhale, it's half lift. So most people won't look like Sebastian if you do the your variation fingertips, straight legs, straight spine.

Most people won't look like this. Most people will probably do something. Just be the typical half lift person. Okay, something like that.

Okay. I was thinking more something I see a lot of this. Same thing, they think they have a straight spine, but the spine is rounded. So the most important thing is not again, not again, it's not the straight legs, it's the straight spine.

So half lift, want to reach forward so you can have fingertips on the front of the shin. So you can really lengthen the spine and not round the spine. It's very common. That's just why I keep nagging about it.

Okay, so when you do the half lift, if people can be on their fingertips, straight spine, good for them. If not, fingertips on the shins so they can straighten the spine. And then you exhale again, you fold, drop the head, relax the neck, weight forward into the toes. Inhale, you push down to lift up.

And exhale. We call it the mountain pose in yoga. You can just say standing also. So how we will look when you flow with the breath.

When you've been the first round, you just give the cues. The second round, you just flow. So inhale, arms up, chest up. Exhale, fold forward and down, drop your head to relax your neck.

Inhale, half lift, lengthen the back. Exhale, fold back down, relax the head. Inhale all the way up. Exhale to standing.

Inhale, arms up. Exhale, fold forward and down, weight in the toes. Relax your neck and hand. Inhale, half lift, fingers on the floor or on your shins.

Exhale, fold back down. Inhale, push down to reach up. And exhale to standing. So it's a really nice flow to just get into the breath and some movement.

And this movement a lot of people can benefit from. So this is a good way to get in some cues before we start the full salutations. Anything you want to add? On this one.

Yeah, when people say, look at me, I can't do yoga, I'm this stiff. They always talk about the hamstrings and how hard it is to do a pose because the hamstrings are tight. And that's why we use a sequence like this. Squat, fold, squat, fold and slowly, incrementally build up progressively to a more intense stretch.

And we use all these cues that Stine mentioned to not do everything at once, but bit by bit warming up the hamstrings and sitting here for two minutes is very different from doing this two minute sequence for the hamstrings. It's a completely different experience. And that's why people get this mind blowing experience that, wow, I'm not as stiff and miserable as I think because I was doing it incorrectly. You're basically helping people to do it the way it's supposed to be done so that they can.

Yeah, and I just remember when I started yoga, I thought I was more inflexible than I actually was. I was really inflexible, especially in my back body, but I didn't fold from my hips. So I would be the person that folded here from my back and I would be like this. But you want to fold from the hips.

That's why we do the flat spine instead of the rounded spine. Because if you say fold from your hips, a lot of people won't really know what that means. But keep your back straight, then you have to fold from your hips instead of your back. It's impossible with the rounded spine to fold from your hips.

So just be, if you want to be really, what do you call it? Strict with something. It's the long spine when you fold because then people will fold from the hip and they will get all the benefits from the pose and the flow. One last thing that came into my mind is the reason that you can't go further when you did it like Stine did it is because luckily your nervous system is a lot smarter than your brain.

So when you do it incorrectly, your nervous system basically shuts down the movement so that you won't hurt yourself. So when you start doing it correctly, your nervous system starts trusting your brain that you're doing the right thing and suddenly you have a 600% increase in flexibility because the body is moving the way it's designed to move. Yes. Okay, so moving on.

We are in a fold on the back of our mat. And then after the third one, I would say third one, Sebastian sometimes would just do two, but it's nice you use the first one to cue and then you can flow on two. And you're down on the floor. So from here, you just walk into your dog and drop your head.

Relax your neck. I just keep saying that over and over again because people will be like this trying to look at you and then they will come out of yoga class with a really strained neck. Okay, so just to recap from dog walking the hands back, take a breath, drop your head, relax your neck. And then we squat down, bend the knees, lift the chest, inhale, exhale, we fold, lift the hips, drop the head.

We continue to do that three to six times. And then we roll up the spine, head last, and we are standing. Half salutations, inhale, arms up, giving all the cues on this first round, long spine, bending the knees, weight forward, using the shins instead of the floor. And then continue two times with the breath, inhale, arms up, exhale, we fold, inhale, you straighten the spine, exhale, you fold down.

And then on the third one, we walk forward into the dog. Okay.