Hamstring Stretches for Beginners: 60-Min Flexibility Class (Yoga for BJJ)

So for some of us it will be mean having the leg over there Of course depending on the length of your leg for some of us it might feel really good to stretch really deep But somewhere between 0 and 100% intensity is where we're going for 0% 100% and anywhere in between As a rule of thumb it's very subjective but start at 50 and then for every breath You can try to go up to 60 or 70 but this early in a class you would never want to go higher than 70% Of the max. So if this was 100 then this would be 70 and this would be you know, 30% so For myself, I think I go to the end and then back off three steps and stay there and breathe So take 10 deep breaths It will sound like the video has stopped but I'm just being quiet for you to be able to enjoy your silent solitude on your jiu-jitsu or yoga mat You Take three more breaths continue to breathe in and out through your nose And Then grab the belt with both hands and drop your right leg out to the right and then back to center So we're still stretching the hamstrings But now we're including another muscle group the inner thighs and Since we have two different labels for them it's easy to think and assume that they need different approaches to stretch but the Fact the anatomical fact is that the hamstrings and the inner thighs They connect on more or less the same places on the thigh bone So which means that whenever you're stretching the hamstrings You're also always starting to stretch inner thighs and every time you stretch the inner thighs the hamstrings are more or less Included so they overlap a little bit Which means that it's probably Probably a good idea to stretch them in the same class because if your hamstrings get super Flexible and your inner thighs are super stiff. There will be imbalances in your leg So I think it's best to stretch them together and when we're going up and down like we're doing here there is zero percent risk of injury and zero percent risk of you Overdoing it if we just hold static you might be holding like a maniac and just forcing yourself Even though your leg is screaming and shaking so the white belt level is always doing it dynamically and Then the more experienced you are and the better, you know, your own body and your limits then you can start stopping for longer and longer so I'm a Black belt level hamstring stretcher. So the first thing I did this very morning was 10 to 20 minutes in a forward fold so basically just laying in a Folded over my legs for 10 15 20 minutes and that was perfect for me You can't do that because you're not a black belt that's stretching your hamstrings.

So that's why we're using the white belt technique here switching legs left leg up Right leg down minimum 15 bends bend the leg stretch the leg bend the leg Stretch the leg and the first five ten reps It's basically just doing all the mistakes holding the belt the wrong way and placing the belt in the wrong place of the foot All of these errors will float to the surface with repetitions It's very easy to do a mistake when you try something once if you try something a thousand times then you're The fact is that you're not trying anymore You are mastering it if you just check and see if you can do it 10,000 times You're suddenly before you know with a master at it because you did all the mistakes subconsciously and you subconsciously adjusted for all the errors and you just seem to Intuitively know exactly how to do it. So repetition is definitely key to mastery So even though I don't basically I basically don't have to tell you any of the details when we're doing reps. It's boring Yes, but it's only boring because we're not paying attention when you are Present and aware. It's not boring at all.

It's super interesting to see how you're fatiguing one muscle and how much intensity affects the stretch and how much How little nuance how small changes is necessary to make a big change or just a nuanced change? All right, grab the belt Hold static for a moment and then grab the belt with two hands and Let the leg fall out to the left and then back to center And if you think my pace is too fast, it means that it's too fast So don't copy my Pace here. I'm just doing what feels natural to me Your pace might be 10% slower or 10% faster as a General rule of thumb slower is usually better But sometimes if you are really stiff you don't really want to stay there for long So you might want to go a little bit faster and then eventually when you get tired you are automatically slowing down That's why in jiu-jitsu when you have beginners you want to tire them out really much before you get them into sparring so that they You want to gas them out before they start rolling so that they will use technique or Just see their lack of technique when they don't have any power so you can use the same principle here Fatiguing yourself by going fast and then when you slow down you might Find that you start doing it correctly So hamstrings and inner thighs go together That's what we're working today mostly hamstrings, but we try to add in a little inner thighs as Often as we can remember All right release the belt throw it to the side nonchalantly grab your feet and Wiggle your butt a little bit from side to side if you want to hold both feet in either hand or wrap your hands around your feet feel free Feel free to try both Let's do a spider guard and lasso guard drill so right foot stretches out to the right spider guard and Then pull the left foot in towards your chest Lusso and then obviously switching spider your left leg Lusso your right leg and Keep going from side to side in your natural rhythm Maybe fast in the start and eventually you will start to slow down If you want to change the grips so that you grab the inside of the foot Do that or if you want to switch to grab the outside of the foot you can do that so the grip can matter a lot because if you're fatiguing your hands, then you won't be able to do the Exercise for long enough to feel the benefits That's why we want to do it efficiently so that you don't Run into some stupid error of just gripping the wrong way and then missing out on all the good stuff All Right grab your hamstrings and roll up and down. I Like to bend my knees to generate some momentum Rolling on the spine is always nice if you have a stiff lower back Some things never get old and just rocking up and down on your back is What do you call it really I Don't know the English name for it, but it never goes out of fashion It's always fashionable to roll on your roll back.

All right sit on your butt Let's do seated some salutation We will do standing sound salutations later, but see the sun salutation looks like this sit on your butt with straight legs If your hamstrings are extremely flexible try to angle your feet out to From the center line a little bit that takes the pressure off the hamstrings a slight bit arms overhead inhale exhale reach for your ankles or feet and Then look up lift your chest only and then exhale try to get your forehead down as low as you can and Then sit back up. So we're doing this kind of fast not to overdo it inhale arms up Exhale reach forward for your feet and then lift your chest halfway and then Round your spine and fold in towards yourself. Oh and then backed back up inhale straight spine Keep the spine straight exhale forward Inhale lift out of the pose and then round your spine Tap your head as far down as you can and come up again inhale Exhale forward Inhale lift your chest and exhale round your spine and pull yourself down a few more inhale Exhale Inhale Round and exhale Inhale all the way up exhale far forward Halfway up inhale round and bend exhale One more seated sun salutation Exhale forward Half lift inhale and Exhale round hold for three two one cross your legs come over to all fours Preparing our spine a little bit with some cats and cows So drop your chest and belly inhale and then exhale squeeze your belly and round your spine Inhale stretch your front Exhale round your spine Few more Exhale round your spine Cat cow also never goes out of fashion Keep going but turn your fingers backwards so we're including some forearm stretches My forearms feels permanently stiff But they kind of respond quickly on some stretching so you don't need much to feel better in the forearms All right Sit down on your knees Shake out your hands and then set up for plank and do a few straight leg straight arm push-ups So straighten your legs straighten your arms keep your arms straight and do push-ups with the shoulders only The maybe 10 15 push-ups without bending the elbows Which might feel weird when you're used to doing push-ups using the triceps now We're only activating the muscles around the shoulder blade and the chest And Then back to down dog if you have a yoga mat you can grab the mat walk it out. I like looking at my hands first and stretching my my throat and Then as I get deeper into the pose with the hamstrings, then I start dropping my head rearranging my position of the hands bending one leg stretching the other and If you have a stiff back body like all of your back body is stiff We already warmed up the hamstrings.

So usually you might feel this in the hamstrings, but now you feel it more in the calves Because we didn't focus so much on the calves and that's fine that's exactly part of the process because as Your weakest link your stiffest link in the chain gets warmed up. Then you start noticing other stuff that's stiff That's why doesn't matter how flexible you become You will always feel stiff because you're accessing new muscles that you didn't know were stiff Walk your hands back to a squat to sit in a squat doesn't matter if your heels are up or down Doesn't matter at all Keep your fingers in the ground and lift your chest spread your knees so that give space for your belly and chest and then take a big inhale through your nose and Exhale here and Then inhale again and as you exhale lift your butt and drop your head And then bend the knees Lift your chest inhale Exhale butt up head down Keep going and never straighten your legs completely only straighten them enough For you to be able to fold fold. So the straight legs will come later We are trying to use Patience as a method to access Increase him hamstring flexibility today. So don't go too soon Don't be don't rush it and straighten your legs right now.

Be patient and keep your knees bent Absolutely, don't be Complaining a little negative Nancy and start complaining that the front of your thighs feel tired Because this is not a workout. This is just basically a movement So if you feel this in your quads right now because we're doing squats Then you're weak as shit and you need to take a hard look at yourself Don't complain when you're doing yoga complain when you're doing jiu-jitsu and someone is smashing you. Yes, I can I can see that It's not Honorable to complain but if you are going to complain complain about something real not that you're Fatiguing from doing a few squats without some weight I'm really taking the piss on your hair if you are complaining because you are officially deemed pussy All right Now walk out to a down dog again and let's do some dog squats. So touch your knees to the ground So you're all force but your butt is back and then stick your butt out behind you and almost stretch your legs completely straight and then sit down on your knees take an inhale and On the exhales stretch your legs almost straight and then do that a few times Take a rest on your knees inhale exhale stretch And then take a rest inhale Exhale So we're going in and out we're almost going to 100% so going to a 90% 95% of your hamstring flexibility But then immediately moving out of it and taking a break Just to reprogram our nervous system that it's not dangerous pain.

There is pain there but The brain shouldn't Interpret it like there is danger pain. Yes danger. No, that's what we're trying to tell our hamstrings so you can go to BAM 95% and then go out of it and then you basically you're actually getting a rush of of Dopamine because there is some kind of reward mechanism like ah Feels good, you know, it's it's not pain. It's it's a reward Do a few more I hope nobody's tuning into this class right now because the sounds I'm making and the It doesn't make any sense if you didn't do the start of the class do a couple more And now try to hold with almost straight legs for three breaths so down dog You can keep your heels lifted but almost straighten your legs don't block your knees but almost And then start walking towards your hands Walk all the way up to your hands and then walk back Let's do that at 50% speed so taking one step one breath And then taking one more step Another breath your knees can be bent.

You can stay on your fingertips depending if you need to take another step another breath Another step another breath And another step and another breath And then bending your knees looking up inhale Exhale Exhale try to tuck your head towards your knees straighten your legs almost straight and then walking back to down dog Same thing again, but now let's lift the right leg out behind you as high as you can and Then step the foot in front of your other foot Lift the left leg as high as you can and step in front of the first foot So walk all the way to the front of the mat But when you lift your leg lift it as high as you can use your hamstrings and your butt to lift your leg So using the power from my right hamstrings. I'm Stretching my left hamstrings. What a concept and then when you reach the front of the mat squat down get some blood out of your head inhale and Exhale fold over your legs Walking back to down dog, I know this is super boring But it's super effective to right leg out behind you lift up on your toes and inhale exhale small step forward Inhale lift the left leg as high as you can exhale small step forward using your right hamstring to stretch your left hamstring and Switching with the breath small steps all the way to the front of the mat And then feet together sit down in a squat with knees and feet together so instead of a wide squat we sit in a narrow squat inhale here and Exhale straighten the legs and grab your ankles So either grabbing under the knees or further down next to your feet depending on your flexibility Straighten the legs completely lock out your knees and lean into the heels so lift your toes and lean back So now basically you have four We pretend that you have four legs so your arms are straight as legs so the weight of your upper body is transferred through the chins and into your ankles So you should not have to use your lower back at all So you have built a structure here that can be really stable You can press on your knees too big but that might hurt for some so try to go under your knees And then start to wiggle your butt a bit from side to side for me this wiggle of the butt Accesses so much more than if I'm doing it just front to back So all the weight from your upper body is going through the arms Only the weight of your butt is going to the hamstrings so a nice Modification try to take your hands away You know see this is way too much There's way too much pressure and you can't really relax your hamstrings when you're taking the hands off because you need to engage them Not to to fall over Now bend the knees and come up to standing whoo I Am going to move the camera because it's a little bit of I'll do Made a mistake in the setup today, that's it Bill I Miscalculated the distance to The mat today, yeah, that's better. All right standing up Classic sun salutations we have never prepared our hamstrings this well We took almost 25 minutes to prepare for sun salutations Which is which is definitely the boring way to do it, but you will feel a tremendous difference compared to what?

Sunsultations usually feels like arms overhead inhale and Then exhale fold over your legs bend your knees slightly Inhale come back to that position where you lean your weight through the arms and Then exhale bend your knees step back to down dog Stick your butt up and back lift your heels and press your knees completely straight straight straight legs and Then roll forward to a plank and go through a normal vinyasa coming down to your belly do a couple of back bends So inhale lift your chest and exhale roll down And then finding your way back to a down dog And now since we prepared really well look at your heels if you can see your heels on the inside of your feet Try to spread your heels so that you can't see them anymore. So hide your heels Behind your ankles so you have slight toe in like five degrees toe in And then you can bend the knee and you will feel how your anus How your how your behind is spreading open a little bit and That gives me a really nice hamstring release so when you have the butt together and the heels together The hamstrings feel tighter when you spread them a little bit and you stick your butt out you get More you get more space for your hamstrings Take a breath And then let's start the way forward again lifting the right foot as high as you can inhale Exhale step forward a little bit Inhale lift the left leg Exhale step forward inhale lift high Exhale step forward inhale lift high Exhale step forward and then hands to chins inhale Exhale Exhale bend your knees and fold over stay down here with bent knees and drop your head as deep as you can if you can Grab your ankles and use the hands to push your calves Then your head will come in deeper So you can give your lower back a nice stretch here as well with bent knees if you're doing this with straight legs You're taking the black belt approach. Don't be a black belt to be a white belt. That's so much better Come all the way up to standing I Feel heat in my legs because I focused so much on doing it all this prep work my legs feel Awake and energized and I think yours are doing the same if you're checking with yourself Let's do another quicker sound salutation now inhale arms up Exhale fold Inhale half lift and Exhale step back to dog Inhale plank Exhale down Back bend inhale Exhale down Back to down dog Now try the other variation where your heels are together and your feet are like a penguin toes out and heels together You feel how this is?

No hamstrings basically almost no house you maybe a little bit of outside of the hamstrings But now you completely took away the hamstring stretch. So when you go really wide or Really the other way toe in You kind of cheat your way from stretching the hamstrings So somewhere in the middle where the feet are more or less straight is where you get the most Resistance, but that's not always what you want Sometimes you want to press and try to increase your flexibility And sometimes you want to cheat around it and not provoke the hamstrings so much those two Those are two important gear in your toolbox in your gearbox to use you're not always going for a deep stretch Sometimes you're trying to alleviate the stretch as well Let's step the right foot forward between our hands and place the back knee down low lunge So First activate the inner thighs inner thighs on and then drop down a little bit not stretching the hamstrings whatsoever And then leaning back without placing the hands in the ground Straighten your right leg flex the right foot and lean over your leg And then bend the knee again low lunge activate the inner thighs If your left knee is hurting pad it a little bit so that you're not rolling on top of your Knee cap that's not very nice if you have a hard surface so straight leg lean over it and Try to press your heel down into the ground while you're going down So we're going in and out of this and doing some strong active stretching You know PNF activating and releasing activating and releasing I Don't know what PNF stands for but that's the main idea of that type of stretching is yet that you're contracting and then releasing Contracting the hamstrings by pushing your heel down and then going out of the pose a couple more Almost trying to drag your heel backwards towards your left knee One more Stepping back to dog switching sides left foot forward Starting with a low lunge activating the inner thighs dropping your hips down and forwards No hamstrings at all completely resting left hamstring if you give it a little wiggle it should be completely soft and relaxed and then Leaning back flex the left foot lean over your foot and then into low lunge again activating the inner thighs Drawing the heel backwards In and out in and out in and out You One more And then stepping back to dog doing a vinyasa inhale plank Exhale low push up or down to the belly Inhale back bend Exhale plank down dog Take five breaths in down dog Maybe bend your knees and lift your heels and then for every breath you can try to straighten the legs 20% Maybe notice for the first time that your hamstrings are not twitching You All right lift the right leg as high as you can bend the knee open the hips Using your outer hip your right outer hip to lift the knee Look at your left knee lift the kneecap so that you're engaging the front of the thigh To lift the kneecap and then drive your back heel down super mega intense hamstring stretch Activating the front of the thigh dropping the heel lifting your toes on the left foot and then stepping the right foot forward Oh my god, that was intense Arms out to the side for balance for now high lunge no hamstring Well, you can activate the the top of the left hamstring by lifting your knees or straightening your legs Will activate the knee a little bit Will activate the hamstrings a little bit sorry Straightening the knee will activate in the hamstrings But now when you lean forward airplane pose lift your back heel without bending the knee So lift lift lift your leg and this should really tense up your hamstring and keep it super straight Then balance on the right foot grab your left knee Pull the knee in relax the hamstring We're returning to airplane pose Stretching the left leg out behind you make it super straight and strong imagine you're standing your left foot on the toes and then stand up Pull the knee in do this a few times And if your right ankle is suffering your right ankle is officially a pussy A couple more of these activating the hamstrings Oh My ankle is officially pussy hands down standing splits Bend the left knee lean over your right leg Activating the left hamstring Stretching the right hamstring do a few handstands straight legs Rock up and down And Do a vinyasa down on plank push up back down Down Left foot up and back bend the knee open the hips stand on your toes And then look at your right kneecap lift it so that you're squeezing your thigh the front of your thigh And then dropping the right heel down Lift the toes on the right foot squeeze the quad Squeeze the front of the thigh Drive your knee into the back of your knee And then step forward high lunge Arms out to the side Airplane pose lift the back leg if you don't know where your hamstring is Place your right hand on the hamstring and feel how tight it is Because your hamstring is what's keeping your leg from falling down like this Your butt is helping but you could relax your butt and use almost only your hamstrings to keep your leg up here Don't open your hips keep your hips square Open your hips keep your hips square and then grab the knee and pull it in And go back five six times back and forwards activating the hamstring relaxing it One more Instead of going straight to standing splits now step back Straighten both legs and let's do a straddle before the standing split so chest up inhale Exhale lean forward and place the top of your hands in the ground Starting in a 90 degree position if you're not at 90 degrees walk your feet wider apart So both hamstrings and inner thighs The more inflexible you are the more you have to widen your feet. Otherwise you look like this and this is no bueno so chest should be Facing forward and your spine should be more or less straight and then start doing micro push-ups Inhale as you look forward exhale as you drop down going from micro push-ups to mini push-ups And then going from mini push-ups push-ups to semi push-ups And then doing full-on push-ups try to touch your head to the ground If you're really far away again widen your feet but not so far that you feel like you're slipping And then rest your head in the air Or on the ground or rest your elbows to the ground If all of this is unavailable Do a down dog but with most of the weight in the feet so down dog where you can basically Not use your fingers and palms so much And that is if you cannot do the full-on straddle position You could also angle your heels in and bend your knees You could also angle your heels in and bend your knees to alleviate some of the hamstring pressure But only modifying exactly as much as you have to in order to do the pose The only time you fail right now is if you come out of the pose and stop doing it That's the worst thing you can do The pose is what it is deal with it The only thing wrong with you is your attitude Nothing else is wrong. Everything is perfect and exactly as it's supposed to be but your attitude is wrong That is if you gave up All right walk forward standing splits bend your right knee drop your head straight in the left leg And hand stance jump up and down up And down up And down Or just up and stay up vinyasa Let's take a rest in turtle give ourselves a little break And then sit up on your chins feet together wide knees Lean back and stretch the front of the thighs.

We haven't focused so much on the back A little bit of the front. It's a nice break just to give the hamstrings some rest And notice that we were we worked really intense with the hamstrings so far But we didn't really put our hamstrings in any danger because we didn't do anything with leverage Like we didn't do the full-on splits if we would have been doing splits Like this where all of our body weight is resting on top of our hamstrings Then for the really stiff one out the stiff people out there we would probably risk tearing our hamstring attachments uh, so splits and things like splits is best done, uh For people who are already strong and flexible. It's not something that should be attempted by white and blue belts That's more brown and black belt level unless you use my methods and you cheat a little bit But that's for other classes Take another breath stretching the front of your thighs And then stepping back to down dog take five breaths in down dog and feel how a down dog feels when your hamstrings are super warm And super stretched Take another breath And let's do five rolling knees lift the right leg bend and open lift as high as you can And then knee to chest Lift as high as you can stretching your left hamstrings Knee to chest three more inhale Exhale Inhale deep stretch And exhale squeeze Inhale big stretch Feet between the hands place the back knee down Low lunge Almost the same thing we did before before we did we did this Same thing now but with the back leg straight so hands in the ground inhale here Low lunge with the knee off the floor And then as you exhale you straighten the front leg go in and out of it at least 15 times So 50 percent 54 percent 57 percent 60 percent starting over 50 percent 60 percent 70 percent Starting over 50 percent two steps forward one step back Keep going the more reps The more you're retraining Reprogramming your nervous system to trust your brain that you know what the hell you're doing because you're really not but you're trying to trick your nervous system into Thinking that the brain knows what it's doing Now try to try the impossible try to go for 85 percent go really deep and And then out of it and then go back to 50 for a couple of reps 90 percent And do this while you're breathing inhale here and then exhale 90 percent get down and then out of it Can you see when you prepped for 40 minutes? You're allowed to do stuff like this crazy stuff like going into the most intense hamstring stretch of your life Bam 99 percent and then out of it.

Can you see it's not dangerous Your nervous system knows what's up go really deep forehead to the shin bone Up and then out stepping back vinyasa And then resting your arms a bit before we do the second side So again we're doing this without basically any leverage so we really have to make effort into going into the pose It's not like the splits where we would you know, the more we relax the deeper it becomes safe Even though it's intense lift the left knee bend and open the hips inhale Roll underneath your chest five times Inhale stretch your left right hamstring as much as you can Exhale squeeze three more inhale Exhale inhale Exhale inhale exhale step your foot forward low lunge Low lunge And then hands down back knee off the ground inhale exhale 50 percent You can keep your toes in the ground if that helps your hamstrings to not be as stretched I need the flexed foot to get the right intensity. That's optional You don't have to straighten the knee completely Go to 50 55 60 and then start over and You can stick your butt out to the left You can stick your butt out to the right Both will produce a different sensation in your left hamstring try to go on the next one to 85 percent inhale and then And then out and then back to 50 60 70 80 and back to 50 And then 90 And then 60 and then 70 percent and then 100 Oh, I feel like i'm doing jiu-jitsu almost I feel like somebody's trying to smash my guard And my shin bone just came down into my forehead and the guy looks at me really weird like aren't you gonna tap and then just smile And i'm like, yeah Fuck no, i'm not gonna tap I like it when they smash me I get more flexible It's like throwing gasoline on the fire Stepping back to all fours doing a vinyasa And then take a rest sit on your chins This was hamstring focused 45 minutes 45 minutes of proper hamstring focus. Let's chill out calm down Sit down on the butt Do a spready wide legs Try to sit up straight for those of you with stiff hamstrings And a stiff lower back. Maybe this is the first time where you can sit in a straddle With your chest lifted so that you can breathe maybe you usually sit like this and it's impossible to breathe Now you might be able to enjoy yourself Let's start going sideways like this 10 10 10 10 30 30 Inner thighs and hamstrings together start doing circles 10 circles Groin Groin again, I hope no one is tuning in right now to me saying groin Because it seems ridiculous from the outside, but you're not on the outside.

You're inside your body You have come out of your head and into your body. So, you know exactly what I say when I say Groin, you know what I mean? Sideways 50 50 Inhale center exhale go right Inhale center exhale go left Make a 50 circle Other direction Now walk your hands forward keep your chest straight Think plank pose and then think up dog. So draw your chest through Through and then around like cat pose you're doing cat cows inhale chest forward draw your belly forward exhale round your spine So we're tricking ourselves away from thinking about the hamstrings focusing on the shoulders and the spine And Low and behold leandro low and behold We are more flexible now than we thought was possible even me with Pathologically flexible hamstrings feel so much better than I usually do All right back to center, let's go for gate pose gate pose looks like this This Holding the head doing a big side stretch reaching for your foot.

Maybe you can touch the big toe Maybe you can touch the small toe. Maybe you can touch the toe with your elbow. No, that's too much That's when you're a weirdo like me with really short legs But try to go sideways like this holding on to your hand and for those of you with the right proportions you might Be able to touch your opposite foot to right hand to left foot that is if you did this whole class 600 times You probably will be able to do it Most people don't and most people will never be able to Do the impossible what they think is impossible, but it's actually very possible Just take some determination and patience All right enough hamstrings cross the ankles fold over your legs Hopefully we we didn't only do hamstrings today Perhaps we got to loosen up our hips and our lower back as well so usually you might be sitting up here and now you're sitting down here, which is From your perspective, I Infinite improvement because usually you feel like shit and now you feel like not so much shit which is I did more than my part of the job. You did all the work But my job is to inspire you and and encourage you and piss on you when you when you don't put in the effort That's my full-time job Take a piss at people that try to excuse themselves out of the absolutely possible Relax and breathe You could write scientific articles about hamstring flexibility I have met people Who write articles about?

muscle inflexibility and flexibility And based on that interaction It doesn't have much value Because it's the subjective Experience that you get on your mat that matters for you So it doesn't matter if someone says you can only improve your muscle flexibility by 10 percent That doesn't mean anything because 10 per muscle might add up to 250 increased Uh flexibility in a jiu-jitsu pose and one percent improvement might feel for you like 600 improvement because you feel better you used to feel like shit and now you feel normal next week. You will feel great Uh, so it doesn't matter how much more flexible you became. Maybe you were just as inflexible. You just change your mindset So all those scientific stuff I respect science, but science is not the answer to everything switch the crossing of your ankles Okay Just doing what we did today, which is basically just we just did a flow with some poses And we feel so different.

That's what matters You What I love about yoga is that it's free even though you're paying for a subscription to the website when you learn this No one can take it away from you if you go to prison for the rest of your life for some random reason You can do yoga every day in prison and you can feel great for the rest of your life instead of suffering from inflexibility, even though you're Locked up you still have the the knowledge and understanding and the self Introspection value that you're learning from yoga. That's absolutely free when you know it it's it's free And it makes you feel free. That's what my main point with a incarcerated example. It makes you feel free.

I'm free Right here where i'm sitting no matter what's going on around me. I feel In charge in control and I feel freedom And when you do yoga in the right part of your life in the exact right moment of your life Feeling like your hamstrings can become flexible Can be the reference point for something much much much bigger that changes your the course of your life Like I can I can feel great. I can I can fix my stiff hamstrings if I can fix my stiff hamstrings Those hamstrings haven't been stiff for 45 years that I can fix anything That's the power that yoga can have over us lay down on your back grab your belt Let's do the first exercise again, but now static reward no bending no stretching. Just keep it straight Can you see how the reaction is different right now from your hamstring if you were to do this 50 minutes ago Just holding your legs still There would be shaking and holding the breath and tense and and suffering The intense intensity and the pain is still there But the nature of it is very different Try to grab higher and pull a little bit give it a little tug And then release it a bit can you see The difference there Place your mind your inner eye into your right hamstring And not using the word relax but the sensation relax keep telling your hamstring the sensation to relax Relax not actually wording relax relax in your head, but the sensation of relaxation And then grab the belt with both hands and let your right leg fall out to the right as far as it goes Of course If you're a guard player if you prefer to play from the bottom and you have a jiu-jitsu tournament Two hours from now imagine doing 60 minutes of hamstring focused stuff Imagine what that will do to your first fight when you're super nervous So you do this for one hour and then you do your standard warm-up where you run and and and Do drills and spar with your friends?

Imagine going into the first fight feeling this flexible In the first fight So usually we tend to lose the first fight half of all First fights are lost by one of the people in the fights. So most of us will lose the first fight But imagine going into the fight feeling this prepared and the other guy Hasn't done this and he feels tense and full of lactic acid And you feel loose nimble ready efficient Switching legs. Oh left side So Last competition I competed in I felt great Absolutely great. I did three see homemade sequences of really really tough yoga.

I went into the first fight I fought the whole 10 minutes Against a great guy Great competitor and a great opponent And I lost by points But I was smiling after the fight because I felt like I did my best and I put all my effort into the first fight And he was crying from the exhaustion of the fight because we warmed up in different ways I warmed up with like 75 90 minutes of yoga And he just did the stuff everybody does It changed my my day completely warming up with some proper yoga Instead of just running and high knees and having a hoodie over your head Go for big intensity And then back off Drop your left leg out to the left If you're new to the website or this is your first time your first class with me I'm sure that some of you will think that I'm a Perfect stereotypical a weirdo And that's great because I love weirdos weirdos Makes you consider your categories Weirdo isn't a category. It's the lack of a category when you can't play someone in a category you call them a weirdo And I think those people are really important even if what they are saying is trivial or mundane Or obvious I still think it's important and another angle is authenticity Release Your hamstrings and just lay down on your back Being authentic people that say authentic is usually Really stereotypical and not very authentic But daring to just be yourself and speak your mind I feel is authentic. So when I show up Here today I'm trying to be completely genuine transparent and honest and authentic And that's why i'm weird because i'm genuinely weird So deal with it because I have accepted my weirdness and I feel good about it take a minute in silence on your back Just soak in the experience of today's class You You Take a big inhale Hold the breath 10 9 8 7 6 keep holding your breath 5 4 3 2 1 through the nose exhale And then And then rock back up to seated Thank you guys for doing a 60 minute hamstring focus class with me today if you like this hamstring class we have others And we will put all of these classes in a sequence so that you get 600 hamstring classes in a row if that's what you like but make sure to check out the other videos as well because we have all the specific body parts, but what I like most about the The video library is that you have all around that you can do your whole body and all of your aspects can improve Instead of just focusing on one you can start with focusing on one But make sure not to miss out on the other stuff as well Front of the thighs really important feels really good to stretch them, too See you guys next week. See you in the next video or see you on the mat Stop up