Inner Thigh Stretch: 18-Min Yoga for Rocks Series

Just don't sickle your foot so that the toes lift. So you can start turning the toes out a little bit. But keep going from side to side. You can go to 100% but don't stay at 100%.

So go 10, 20, 50, 70, 80, 90, 100 and when you reach 100 go back to center. So go all the way to the limit and go back. So your body gets used to go all the way and back. You don't stay inside the same zone of comfort.

You go to the absolute most extreme and then you go straight back. Let's go back and forth a couple of times more. So we always start with dynamic and then we go static. Alright.

Knees in the ground. Let's go static. So place the right foot out to the side and then move the knee away from the foot. So the foot stays, the knee moves away.

Let's stay here for five. Four. Three. If the foot slips, good, let it slip.

Two. One. One. And move the knee in and then take the other knee and switch sides.

Foot stays, knee moves. Five. Four. Three.

Two. And the one. Okay. So a good thing you can do in between intense adductor.

Adductor means adding two and this muscles adds the leg to the midline. So that's why it's called adductors or just inner thighs. So a good thing you can do is squat down and push the knees away from each other. So never let your knees go in like this.

Push them out and lift your chest for rocks. This is yoga for rock. So if you're a rock, you're probably going to feel this tremendously. You can start from higher like a high crouch, crouch, crouch, crouch, and then push your knees away and don't lower your butt.

Stay here and rock a little bit from side to side. Okay. The next one we're going to use the towel. And I'm going to do it with the butt facing the camera.

It's going to look weird, but you're going to see what I mean. If your knees are hurting here, then you need some padding. Then you can use a thicker blanket or use some knee protection. What we want to do is relax so that the towel stretches.

So you start narrow and when you relax, you can start to stretch. The towel stretches and the idea here is that as you relax, the towel protects you from sliding further. So you can actually see, imagine that the towel is the muscle stretching. So here it's tight and when it stretches, the range of motion improves.

So my towel is a bit short, but I'm not a rock. You're a rock, so stay inside and maybe rock a little bit back and front here. If it's too much, simply start over. Slide out until it stops.

Maybe move the knees closer together. Let's talk about the difference between flexibility and mobility. Flexibility refers to muscles and tendons and fascia. Mobility is how much the joints are made to move.

So if you feel it here in the outside of the hip, in the actual femur bone connecting to the hip bone, then you can't actually stretch more there. So this is not for rocks. This is for people who are flexible in the inner thighs. They're going to feel it on the outside here.

So if you go back and forth and you feel like there, it hurts there. There it hurts on the inside. Then you can slowly learn where you need to stretch to get a beneficial effect. Because you can never push yourself with the balls to the floor if it hurts on the outside.

It all depends on how you're built and you can never change your bone structure. So be careful with that. Don't try to push yourself further if you feel it on the outside. You can go there.

It's good for you, but don't push, push, push. All right, enough with the towel. Let's use the belt. Lay down on your back, left foot in the ground, right foot up.

And we're not doing the classic belt stretch. We're doing the half happy baby. This is happy baby. We're doing the half happy baby where we try to pull the knee down.

Down and out. So not straight leg, not too bent. Try to find the perfect middle. Maybe even push your knee away with your elbow like this.

Foot can be on the ground and if you tip over to the side, you can put the knee out to the side too. So we want to reach the groin area by pulling the knee down and out. Let's stay for five. Four.

Three. Two. One. And switch sides.

Left foot up, right knee down, right foot down. And we're going to come. Push the knee down and out. Right foot can be in the ground or a knee can fall out to the side.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

One. And relax. Let's do one more. Use the wall.

So get your butt close to the wall and either try with bent knees like this and push your knees out or straight legs. This is probably way too much. So if you feel it in the inner knees or if you feel it deep in the groin, try to go with the bent knees instead. Let's stay here for ten.

I'm not going to count. Let's just stay here for about a minute. The idea is that the weight of the legs moves with gravity, which means down and the hands just push the knees away so that the inner thighs opens up slightly. Relax your forehead and place your focus on your breath.

It's a secret. It's the shortcut. It's the only way to actually relax. If you're holding your breath or forcing your breath, the stretch will not work.

Three more breaths. And get back up. Let's do the whole thing again. Now we know what we're doing.

So kung fu stretches. One. One. Two.

Keep pushing the feet down. Keep breathing. Two. Three.

Three. This is one of my favorite warm-ups before sparring because it improves your guard so much and it protects the knee and it feels so good before starting to roll. One more on each side. And get down to your knees.

Right foot out. Slide the left knee out. Five. Four.

Push the feet down into the ground so that you actually push the leg down and lift your hips. Three. Two. One.

Knee in. Knee in. Second side. Foot out.

Knee out. Five. You can come down to your elbows too if it feels fine. Four.

Three. And two. And one. Squat down.

Or squat up. Start from high or get down low. Push your knees away. Rock from side to side.

Get your blanket or get your towel. Knees on the towel or blanket. Slide out as far as you can go and rock back and forth. If it's too much, the blanket is there to protect you.

So if it's too much, just knees narrower and slide until the blanket stops you. Feel it on the inside. If you have or have had a groin injury, which is more common than you expect, then don't overstretch it. Stretch it to 50% and do that every day for a year.

And also strengthen your adductors by doing specific strength building exercises for your inner thighs. So that's a much better plan than to just stretch it, stretch it, stretch it. Because injured muscles with scar tissue are usually much weaker than you'd expect them to be. So strengthen them, stretch them, and relax them.

That's true for every muscle that you want to be healthy. Strengthen it, strengthen it, strengthen it. Stretch it and relax it. All right.

Next one. Belt. Half happy baby. Pull the foot down, knee out to the side.

Five breaths. Let's not stay for too long switching sides. Pull the knee down, push the knee out, relax the other knee. Move to the wall.

If you didn't try the straight legs, try the straight leg. Place your hands on the part that is stretching the most. Give it a little squeeze, like squeeze your hands together around the muscle that is most contracted. Not a massage, but just give it some physical feedback.

So you can dig your fingers in a little bit. And if it hurts too much, just bend your knees and just feel the muscle. It helps, it reinforces what you want it to do. You want it to relax, you want to help it to relax.

So not really a massage, but just some tactile, if I'm allowed to use a fancy word. Tactile connection, or just touch yourself. Relax your shoulders. Let's stay here for five.

If you feel your feet slipping, perfect. It means that your inner thighs are relaxing. Go all sloppy here. And let's sit back up and talk.

If your hamstrings are extremely inflexible, if you're this kind of rock, then start with inner thigh stretching. Do this video every day for a month. And go maximum five breaths or five repetitions because you're a rock. You can't just make a rock loose.

You need to use some patience and mold it a little bit, heat it a little bit to be able to change it. So start with the adductors in your thighs before you move on to hamstrings. It's going to make a big difference because the two muscle groups connect to the femur bone in almost the same way. They just work a little bit differently.

So hamstrings and inner thighs are best friends or worst enemies. So try to make them work together. Thank you guys for watching. See you in the next video or see you on the mat.