Hamstring Mobility: 23-Min Wall Class for Flexibility

If you feel like moving your neck from side to side, if you pay attention when you move your neck from side to side, you can feel that the movement of the head affects the stretch of the hamstrings. So these subtleties become more and more apparent the more yoga you practice. Moving still with the head creates one sensation in the hamstrings and moving the head creates a different sensation in the hamstrings. There is no perfect pattern for everyone but everybody can find a pattern that feels just perfect.

If you have the floor close to you, you can place the hands on the floor. If you want to move your feet slightly further apart, you can do that. If you are having a tough time, I would find something to place my hands on to elevate the floor up to your hands. So we are doing a wall supported straddle pose.

My feet are a little bit sweaty so I am sliding on the floor which is actually really pleasant. I am super slowly going deeper into the pose but since I am supported both by the arms and the wall, I can't just suddenly slide really far out and I don't have to create any resistance. Who knew that sweaty feet would help you get more flexible? Take a couple of deep breaths where you are.

Then walk your feet closer and squat down and sit in a squat for a second. Move on to your Jiu Jitsu or Yoga mat. Move into downward facing dog. I could do downward facing dog with one leg forward and one leg back if I was not using my left arm.

I could just do it with one leg and then I could switch. So if you have an elbow problem or you have a shoulder problem or anything like that, experiment until you find something that feels good. It's not the same but it's close enough for you to enjoy doing Yoga and that's the most important thing for you to do it is to make it enjoyable. Move from side to side and stretch like before, just a little bit more intense now since we are getting more leverage from the floor than the wall.

All fours, release the shoulders a bit in any way you want. And then sit down on your butt. Stretch your legs out in front of you. Lift the chest and move forward and don't wait on the bottom, go straight up and move forward.

So moving all the time, no pause at the bottom. When you have done three or four of these, you will probably feel this automatically that you want to inhale as you go up and exhale as you go down. Creating a very nice flow of breath. And this flow of breath will make the flow of the motion come effortlessly.

Just focus on the breath and eventually you will be surprised how much change you can generate without even trying. Inhaling as you go up and exhaling on the way down. But don't think of where your body is or what you are doing. Try to focus on the inhales and exhales.

The mistake number one that I see people do when they try something like this is they give it three, four or five tries. But what you are missing out and what you don't know if you are one of those people who give up after three, four or five tries is it takes roughly fifteen preparation repetitions before you should start counting. So you do fifteen and then you start counting. Because it takes a full minute.

It takes at least fifteen repetitions to get into the flow. If you are bored and you don't like it because it is boring, that says a lot more about your mind than it says about exercise. If you are paying a little extra attention, this is not boring, this is interesting. Stop at the top, straighten up, wiggle your feet a little bit and then walk your hands forward until you are in a downward facing dog with your arms and head.

Let's breathe together here quietly. Moving back up, lay down on your back. One leg up, grab the knee or the ankle or the calf or the foot. Bend the knee, extend the leg.

Slower than you think, just bend a bit and don't stretch to max, stretch to 85% and don't stay for long. Just repeat over and over again. Bend and stretch. You can choose to point your toes or flex the foot.

Flexing the foot might be too intense, but you can try for just half a second, flex, point and go back. Flex, point and go back. Switching legs. Bend, flex, point.

Bend, flex, point. Repeat. Both legs up. Move the ankles if your ankles are stiff.

Move your toes if your toes are stiff. Nice. Now roll up to seated. Place one foot on top of the other foot.

Spread the toes and place your heel on the ball of your foot. Then go forward and go up like we did before, but a bit more intense now for the one side, for the one leg. Just touching on that intensity and moving out of the position immediately. Small movements, slow movements.

The trick is to do it easy. On a scale of 1 to 10, you should not cross the 5. You should be between 4 and 5, never at 6, 7. This is not those types of poses.

Switching the leg, stacking the feet, rolling up, going forward. Always breathing through the nose if possible. And release. Try this.

Move your feet out as much as possible, so turn the feet open and then go forward. And suddenly you're not stretching the hamstrings so much. It's a bit hamstring and a bit of other muscles too, but this is a trick for you. If you want to go deeper for some reason, if you're really stuck up here, it can really help to go between the legs instead of over the legs.

Just a small detail that can make a big difference for how you feel in the long run. Take a few breaths as far down as you can go. If you're holding your breath, that's a perfect sign that you went too deep. And then you're going to go back down.

And then you're going to go back up. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down.

And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down.

And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down. And then you're going to go back down.

And then you're going to go back down. Sit up, move to the wall, kick your legs up the wall. Same position here. Stack the feet, arms overhead, stretch the legs, make your butt heavy.

And if you want more here, arch the back a little bit. Most likely you don't need more here, you need less. So just laying here perfectly still. This is a type of pose that is set in stone.

Nothing can happen in this pose. There are no variables. It's 90 degrees between the wall and the floor. And you're stacking the feet to make it a bit more intense.

If you're ultra stiff, I would just not stack the feet. But stacking the feet gives this, on a scale of 1 to 10, this is about a 4. So 40% of maximum intensity. Somewhere around there.

For some it's 50, for some it's 30, for some it's 10. But still, what I like about this is that you can't make this more challenging. This pose is exactly what it is and it will never change. Perfectly permanent.

And when you're in a permanent pose, a static permanent pose that can never be more intense, it's like getting an invitation to relax. There is no question of if you're doing it right or wrong. Like I said, there are no variables. So there are no combinations of variables that can be wrong.

So you're doing the pose perfectly right because you're laying on the back, with the legs up the wall, stacking your feet. I don't have the words for this. Switch feet. I don't have the words for what I'm trying to describe.

So even though I'm struggling a bit, I know what I want to say but not how to say it. It's like the reason for you trying harder in a stretch is perhaps that you kind of expect some, I'm probably talking to myself, but you kind of expect some kind of climax, some kind of ecstasy, some kind of reward, a sudden release of tension, like something extraordinary and extravagant, something tangible and something obvious. I'm doing this stretch really hard and I can feel the intensity and it's very measurable. It's pain, so it must be good.

That's the theory behind hard stretching that almost everybody is doing. Switch legs again. The message of yoga, one of the messages of yoga, the message of yin yoga, the message of this part, this aspect of yoga is that you're completely wrong. The assumption that you're looking for something extraordinary is a false assumption.

You're on the wrong path when you're trying to push. It's as counter indicative, as counterproductive as saying shut up and talk or maybe push really hard so that you fall asleep or something in that. You're not trying to use force to relax. There is no climax.

Switch legs again. There is no sudden reward. It's not tangible. It's subtle.

It's not a whoa. It's a huh. I didn't realize that I relaxed. It was so subtle.

The pain or the resistance and the friction is gone and I didn't notice when it left. That's what we're looking for. Release the legs and spread the legs. If it's too much intensity with straight legs, bend the legs slightly.

This is the last pose. Sabotee doesn't sell well. I can't sell a car or a yoga pose by talking about salties that cannot be named. You sell on the extraordinary bullshit that baffles the brain.

The more extremes I can provide, the more claims I can make, the more I can be heard over the others. But the people who actually know how things work, they don't talk much, they don't say much, and they never go for the extremes. Sit up. You have a sensation in your body now.

This sensation, for me, I did the exact same class as you did. We did some variations differently, most likely, but the sensation I have in my body now is peace, quiet, calm, equilibrium, balanced. I feel very, very good and my hamstrings are relaxed. They were tense before.

I did Romanian deadlifts yesterday and I had really, really stiff hamstrings this morning. But the reason that they're relaxed now is that I didn't try to force a stretch on them. My hamstrings right now, they trust me and they're grateful that I didn't push them harder because I didn't try to tear the muscles apart. I did that yesterday when I did the strength training.

Then we tried to kill the muscle, but we don't do that when we do stretching and yoga. When we do stretching and yoga, we have to create balance. Not more of one thing, not one extreme. Yoga balances out the strength and the jiu-jitsu to make it sustainable.

Thank you very much for doing this hamstring focus class with me. See you in the next video or see you on the mat. Osu!