Lower Body Yin Yoga: 60-Min Deep Stretch & Recovery

So you should feel this stretch through the outer right leg. And for your right leg make sure the ankle is on the quad. You don't want the shin on the quad. Make sure that ankle is on the quad and you can go ahead and flex the toes on the right leg.

If you'd like an even deeper stretch instead of having the hands interlock behind the leg, option to interlock the fingers around the shin. However, I don't want you to go to a hundred percent. I want you to be sitting at sixty four percent. A few cycles of breaths.

Keeping those five second exhales. Inhaling into wherever it feels tight. Exhale to release that tension. Gently releasing the feet to the ground.

Moving to the other side. Left ankle on the right quad. You have the option to stay here with the foot on the ground or reach the hands through the thighs interlocking the fingers behind the leg. Take a look at your left foot.

Make sure the ankle is on the quad and maybe even a little bit of the foot on the quad. Go ahead and flex those left toes. Find your breaths. Inhale into wherever you feel that tension.

Exhale to release. Last deep breath. Slowly releasing both feet to the floor. Find your belt.

Loop around the ball of the right foot for your hamstring stretch. I like to loop the hands around the belt. Just a few times bend and straighten the right leg. Foot should be facing the ceiling as if you were to step on the ceiling.

After you've bent and straighten that right leg a few times, find a place so you're comfortable with the leg straight or almost straight. If you can't have the leg completely straight because it's too intense, that's okay. I want the belt around the ball of the foot to allow the hamstring to stretch along with the calf, allowing the calf to join the party. The left foot can either be on the floor.

That can be nice for the lower back or the left leg can be extended out. Try both. See which one you like. And find two to three cycles of that five second breath.

Deep inhale. Exhale. Inhale into where you feel the tension. Exhale release.

Last one. And release. Take the belt in your right hand. Extend the leg out to the right side.

You can rest the right elbow on the floor. And with the left hand, place the left hand on the left hip. Seeing if you can keep both hips centered on the ground. And for the right leg, again the elbow can be resting on the ground or the leg can go all the way to the floor.

But sometimes this is quite intense and we tend to move into the intensity instead of benefiting from the stretch. So if you need to elbow on the ground. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Last one. Inhale.

Exhale. Use your inhale to pull that leg to center. Extend the left leg out straight. Take the belt in the left hand.

Bring the belt over to the left side. And again, left elbow will be on the ground. And it's okay if the right hip comes off the ground a bit, but I don't want you going all the way over to the left side. Leg is allowed to be bent.

I just want you to feel that stretch through the outer leg, through the outer right leg. And it can be really intense here. So finding your your breath cycles. Five second inhale into the intensity, finding the intensity with the inhale.

Exhale, relax. Inhale. Exhale. Last one.

Using your next inhale, come to center. And place both feet on the floor. Take a moment, close eyes and recognize the difference between the left and the right side. Noticing the difference in only a few minutes of stretching, recognizing what an entire class will do for us.

So looping the belt around the ball of the left foot, extend the left foot to the ceiling. Bend and extend the leg a few times. It's nice to bring some movement before we go into our static hamstring stretch. So as you're bending, extending, recognize where it feels really intense, where it feels tight.

And notice how that begins to loosen a little bit. Not a lot, not a lot yet. That's why we're doing this class. It will be a lot, but recognize how it begins to loosen.

The tension begins to release a little as you move and bring blood flow. Eventually extending the legs straight or almost straight. And again, right foot can be on the floor or extended. Finding your deep breaths.

Deep inhale. Exhale, raise the heel towards the ceiling. Last one. Taking the belt into the right hand, left hand, left hand, extend the leg to the left side, elbow on the floor.

And the right hand on the right hip. Keep both those hips to the floor. And if you would like more intensity, you can lower that left leg down more. If you would like less intensity, you can prop yourself up more on the elbow.

The leg doesn't have to be straight. You want as straight as you can, but if it's not straight, that's okay. All that matters is you feel that stretch the inner quad. Finding your breath cycles.

Deep inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Last one. Inhale. Exhale. Using your next inhale, come to center.

Take the belt in the right hand and bringing it over to the right side. And again, elbow can be on the ground. Elbow can be on the ground. Leg does not have to be straight.

This is a really intense, this can be a really intense stretch. And very important, especially in this posture, to inhale in wherever it feels tense, and to consciously release that intensity as you exhale. Five second inhale. Five second exhale.

Again. And our last one. Use your next inhale to pull that leg to center. Go ahead and release the belt.

Lay flat for a moment. Close the eyes. And take just a moment to recognize how good this feels on the body and how important it is. Keeping your deep breaths.

Part of the purpose of these deep breaths, and I call them pockets of pause, taking a moment to recognize what the work is doing, is to also bring the nervous system down, because life can be so busy and complex, and even when we're training, that nervous system is quite high. So the deep breaths and pockets of pause allow us to slow everything down, so we can get the most out of our session, and even the rest of the day or rest of the evening, depending what time you're doing this, this class. Last deep breath. Exhale.

Turning on to your belly, rolling over onto your belly for Sphinx pose. Moving through some TLC for the back. So elbows under the shoulders, hands on the ground, and the legs can be together or apart. It doesn't really matter.

Whatever is comfortable. I like mine apart. I want you to engage the quads. Engage the legs.

Engage the quads. Engage the glutes. Engage your butt. Engage everything, because that keeps us from dumping into the lower back.

And that's what we're doing, because that keeps us from dumping into the lower back. So engaging through those legs and with the hands, using the fingers to pull the torso up. So engage strongly through the legs, pulling the chest up. Think of making that spine long.

So this posture will be our only back bend during class, but the body, the body really needs it, because life is lived forward, always bending forward. So this is unbelievably healthy for the spine. Using the fingertips to pull the torso up and forward, and maybe even digging the elbows in to pull the torso up and forward. Gently releasing, pushing yourself to turtle or child's pose, knees wide.

And you can either have your elbows between the knees or you can rest your forehead on the mat. Option for the hands, whatever feels good for you today. Reach the hands forward or rest your forehead on the hands or hands beside the legs. So find a place that is comfortable and find your deep breaths.

Inhaling into the tension, exhale, release. Moving forward into a second Sphinx pose, elbows under the shoulders, engage through the quads, through the legs, through the glutes, maybe so much that those kneecaps lift. Elbows under the shoulders, and use that even the elbows and the fingers to pull the chest forward and up. And look up as much as is comfortable.

So there is activation through this posture, but at the same time not a crazy, crazy amount where you're sweating profusely and getting a massive workout. And releasing, pushing yourself to your child's pose or turtle, hands anywhere that's comfortable. Last breath. This last one to your belly again.

Instead of Sphinx, we will move through a Cobra to target between those shoulder blades. So we've moved through the lower back and middle and upper back, hands under the shoulders, fingertips underneath the shoulders. This time bring the legs together as much as you can, engaging through the quads and pushing through the hands to pull the torso up and forward, shoulder blades towards the spine, towards the spine and down. For three, two, one, lower down, hips to heels, child's pose.

So there are a few postures in this class that are a bit more intense, but they all work together to create what we need, balance. Balance so that those two back bends are very effective in creating balance to how we're always living forward. Okay, here we go. Releasing the, I call it the back chain of the body.

So this is amazing for those in the back of the legs calves. They're called calves. So right now my foot is on the ground. The heel is against the wall.

So you do need wall space for this class and it's worth it to move the furniture. Trust me, it is worth it. So I'm almost in a down dog. My right heel is against the wall.

Right heel is on the floor. Back of the heel is against the wall and you'll feel that stretch. It's pretty intense. Again, right heel is on the floor.

Back of the heel is against the wall. Now if this, if you would like more intensity, you can go ahead and lift the opposite leg up. Eventually moving into a full standing splits against the wall. So finding five breaths.

Release. It's a good one. Place the left foot on the ground, the right shin on the wall, and all I want is for the heel to be touching the leg. Okay, so we want the heel touching the leg.

And I might go off camera a little bit here, but that's okay. You guys know I'm here sitting up, right? So I want you to sit up as much as you can and you'll feel that stretch of the front of the quad. And again, this is a really an intense stretch, but we're loosening the front of the body so we can loosen through the back of the body, those hamstrings too.

So wherever you are, whether both of your hands are on the floor, that's fine. Whether you're able to sit up like me, that's great. Just make sure that you can touch, you feel your heel. I don't want your foot out to the right because that puts stress on the knee and potential injury.

So I want you basically almost sitting on your heel or if the heel is just to the outside of the hip, that's okay too. Finding five breaths. So in here, inhale into the intensity. Exhale, release.

Last breath. Both hands to the ground. Walk the left foot out for lizard stretch, lizard stretch variation, and create some space. So left foot out, create some space.

You can comfortably post both hands on the ground. This will target the quad in a different way. So find your deep breaths and now becomes really deep. So find your deep breath.

And now becomes really valuable. Inhaling to find the tension. Exhale to release. Last breath.

And release. So take a moment anywhere that's comfortable. Anywhere that's comfortable, you can sit on your shins if you like, or you can sit, you can sit down and hands behind you creates windshield wipers. So take a moment anywhere that's comfortable and feel the difference between the right and left side.

It's actually pretty crazy, isn't it? Okay, other side. This is the last intense set, I promise. After this, it's all amazing.

All of it's amazing, but slow stretches after this. Find your dog, heel on the floor, back of the heel against the wall. To bring up the intensity, the right leg can lift, and you can either lift as much as you want, allowing the hands to walk closer to the wall. Eventually one day, we'll be into standing splits.

But this is good for me. So I'm going to stay here. Five breaths. Slowly releasing.

Right foot on the floor, the left shin up the wall. So my knee is as close as I can get it to the wall. Left shin up the wall. And remember with our, remember with our shin, we want it basically to be almost like sitting on it, or it can be just to the outside of the hip.

Both of those are fine. You need to be able to feel your heel though. What I don't want is for that to heal to be out to the left side. You can already feel it doesn't feel good.

So sitting on or having it just outside of the hip, do not expect both sides to be the same. They won't be. So they'll both be different. So on this side, you may need, you may be able to prop yourself up like me, or you may need to have that left hand down.

Or maybe both hands down, and that's okay. So find your five breaths. Five second breaths. Slowly releasing.

Place both hands on the ground. Walk the right foot out. Mitt toes might even be pointed out at the 45. And this will target, notice how this targets the quad in a different way again.

Find your five second breaths. So breath. Last breath. Gently releasing.

Find a seat anywhere that's comfortable on your shins. You can windshield wipe your legs or simply extend the legs out. Few breaths. And finding your blocks.

So if you have your blocks or books or pots or pounds or whatever, make sure they're close by. Make sure they're close by so you can reach them. Here comes the, well, the whole class is the best part, but this is really the best part. Scoot yourself as close as you can to the wall and bring the legs up the wall.

Hands can be stretched out to the sides or you can cactus the arms. Or if you want a bit of a shoulder opener, you can grab opposite elbows. So find whatever feels good and breathe. So here for one minute.

Last deep breath. And finding your block. Keeping the left leg exactly where it is, extended towards the ceiling. Place the block if you have one on the floor.

The long side, this is the longest way, placing the longest way up and bring the right leg down to the right side. And it's nice to have the block because this can be really intense through the inner quads. So play with it a little bit. You can either have the block on the longest setting or you can put it on the medium setting or you could have none at all.

But if you find they have none at all, it might, it might be too much because we will be here for a few minutes and you want to feel slight tension because it will intensify with time. So if this is really intense on the inner leg, it's too much. And even if you don't have a block, you can even place a pillow or blanket under there. But if you do have a block, find the setting that you like, find the setting that feels good and find where it feels, where it feels okay on the leg.

Right? So either you might have your books there, you might have your pot there, some pillows there or blanket or your block. So whatever it is, find a place so it's not too intense. You honestly want it like 50% intensity.

Once you found that, go ahead and find your, your deep breaths. I like to place the block the long way against the wall. And even if you don't have any, they're not that expensive and they're just such a great investment because I do use these a lot. Find a place that's comfortable for the arms, either extend the arms out straight or create your cactus arms, wherever is good.

Close the eyes if you want. Find your five second breath. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale to find the tension. Exhale, release. Exhale, release. And you may find if you've been here for a few moments, you might like to keep the setting, whatever your setting of the block is, or you might want to make it so that it's the settings lower so you can lower your leg even more as everything begins to release.

But this is again, this can be a very tight, very tight through the inside of the legs. You don't want too much intensity. You want like, honestly, 70%. Inhale.

Last few deep breaths. Inhale. And now using your hand, use your right hand to help your leg back to center. So the hand should be doing most of the work coming back to center.

And you can either keep both legs extended or even bring the heels together, knees out, finding a place where you can allow the intensity of that stretch neutralized so feet can be together, or it might feel nice to have the feet on the wall legs bent a bit, or you might just like to keep the legs extended. See the legs extended, feet on the wall legs bent, or feet together, knees out. Next one, make sure you scoot yourself close to the wall again, legs extended up. And if you want, you can have your block this time on the left side, and we'll find the setting that we want.

Bring both legs straight down to the left side. And you might want to have a block here. You might not. It's up to you.

And extend the right leg out. This is a spinal twist with an outer hip stretch. And you can play a little bit in the posture to find what variation works best for you. And sometimes for me, I like not to have a block depending on the day.

This week I've done a lot of training. So I'm more stiff, so it's nice to have the block there. And you feet don't have to be stacked, feel it's like without the feet stacked, and then try stacking the feet so they're even and opening up. So basically it's finding whatever's comfortable for you.

Once you've found that, relax. And there's no like, specific right or wrong way in this posture. Like as long as you're feeling a stretch, then you're doing it right. Like every this, this, this will look different in every single body.

And every single day will be different. When we stretch. It's a crazy thought because we're different every day. We're always changing, always evolving.

Like we were different than we were last year. Next year will be different than we were today. And every day will be different. So don't expect every day of stretching to be the same.

Even if it's the same class, you will come to the exact same class, the exact same sequence, perhaps the exact same video. And it will be a different experience. And that's because the postures don't change, but the body changes every day. And so it's really cool.

So I'm getting at is there is no exact perfect way to do any stretch or any posture will be different on every body. So wherever you find that, that's my Sarah Ted talk for today. So wherever you find this posture, settle into it. Coming back to those deep breaths.

They may be slightly harder to do, slightly constricted, because we are in a passive spinal twist. So just be aware if it's a bit harder to breathe, it will be harder to breathe here because we're twisting the spine and that's okay. Still find those deep breaths. Last deep breath.

Because I blabbered through most of this side, slowly, slowly taking your time. Find your way back to center, bringing both legs back to center and use your hands if you need to. And again, it's nice here to have both legs extended towards the ceiling. Or if it might feel better to do something different than do something a little different.

Sometimes it's nice to bring the feet together, the soles of the feet together, knees out. You can try it and you'll know right away. Nope, don't like that. Okay, yeah, this feels good.

You'll know right away. Your body will tell you. What we're doing in between the postures is allowing everything to neutralize, the spine to neutralize. What we've done when we were in the stretch was actually rearranging the fascia.

So when we come back to a neutral place like this, we're allowing the fascia to reorganize and reset. That's why it's like, oh, I need a second. That's why that's what's going on. So while we're here, feel the difference between the left and right side.

If your quads are engaging, if your legs are engaged, release. And finding our way to the other side. So if your hips have moved away from the wall at all, move them, move them again in close to the wall as you can, keeping the right leg extended, extended up straight and lowering the left leg out to the left. So if you're going to move your hips away from the wall at all, move them, move them in close to the wall as you can.

The right leg extended, extended up straight and lowering the left leg out to the left side. Make sure you have your block handy and find the setting that you like. So you can do the highest setting or you can do, and again, I like it to be against the wall, the long way, not the short way, the long way. So you can find the highest setting and stay here just for a moment.

And reminding, I will remind you again, we don't want this to be crazy intense because this posture with the stretch through the inner thigh, it will intensify with time and we will be here for a few minutes. So this is already really intense. You need to figure something out to make sure it's at 60%. So you can either put some blankets or pillows or something underneath, a blanket is nice because you can unfold or refold to adjust the height.

Or for me, this is okay, like I could go more intense. So I'll change the block, change the setting on the block to go down more and then find a place on the leg so it's supported. And again, don't expect the right and left side to be the same. They won't be, they'll be different.

And once you found the setting that you like for the block, settle into the pose, find your deep breaths. Hands can be anywhere that you like, might be nice to reach the arms out. Sometimes I like with my left hand to find where it's really tight and you can, you can give it a little massage there. Like for me, it's tight near the knee.

And then you can go back to the left hand, but yeah, and find your deep rest. And you may find some of the pose that you might need, you can bring the block in a lower setting, or sometimes if it gets too intense, put it to a higher setting. Like for me, I was okay there. Then as I started to release, it started to get like really intense.

And I'm like, okay, I actually need to go to a higher setting because we want to feel the stretch, but we don't want it to be too intense. Otherwise the muscles will tighten up and the nervous system will start to be like turned on to protect the leg if it's too intense. And that is the opposite of what we want to do. So so and take your last deep breath.

Slowly, really, really slowly taking your time using your left hand, and you're right if you need it, use the hands to bring that leg back to center. And here you can take a few moments, you could shake the legs out, keep them straight, or place the feet on the wall legs bent, or you can place the soles of the feet together, knees out. I find that especially that outer with that inner inner quad stretch, I need to move a little bit to release that tension for this one. So find a place that's comfortable, and it might change, you might be one spot for a moment or the other, allowing everything to neutralize.

That can be intense through the inner inner leg because we don't stretch it very often. So this is an exceptional stretch for that. If it's intense, it means that we need it. If the quads are tensed, they secretly like to tense up, go ahead and release them.

And scooting yourself back to the wall if you've traveled away at all, and lowering both legs to the right side for your spinal twist, and opening opening up that outer hip. So find a place that's comfortable, extend the left arm out, and bring that leg back extend the left arm out, and breathe. So finding your last deep breath. So slowly come to center, bringing both feet up the wall.

And from here, I actually want you, you can use the blocks or not, but I want you to try bringing the right leg out and the left leg out as much as you can. So you can use the blocks if you have them, and if you don't use the hands, and if it's too intense to have the legs straight, go ahead and bend them, bringing the feet almost to the wall. So either legs bent, feet on the wall, or legs straight, and you can either use your hands for support or the blocks for support. But this one with the legs straight can be quite intense through those inner thighs.

So if it's too intense, just bend the legs, bringing the feet to the wall, and close the eyes. Deep breaths. So we have spent 52 minutes focusing on deep breaths within postures. Obviously become more flexible, but also allow the nervous system to have a break.

It's really nice to have our back on the mat to give the back a break, being fully supported. My point is you should be feeling really nice, really relaxed. This is so important for recovery. The recovery, the slower postures, the breathing, the bringing the nervous system down to relax, is just as important as the hard training, because we need a way to recover from the hard training, to recover from the hard days, have a recover when we're like all the way up to our nose in intensity.

It's just as important to do the other side. Use the hands to support the legs, bring the feet together, bring the feet together, and you can gently rock side to side. Use the hands to push the knees out, elbows supported on the ground, hands supporting the knees. So you can either stay here with the feet together, or bring the legs up the wall.

So we will actually take our shavasana with our legs up the wall, legs up the wall or feet together, whatever is comfortable for you. Find a comfortable place for your hands. Feet could be together or a little bit apart, it doesn't matter. Closing the eyes.

This is the part where we allow the body to process and integrate all the work that we just did. And allowing the body to do this is just as important as doing the work. And so for me, this was always the hardest part, taking a few minutes and not thinking about what I have to do next, getting out of here. I can use this time better doing something, doing to me physically productive work, clean the kitchen, do my laundry, do the next thing.

But then I learned that these few minutes is how the body processes all the work we did, how the body integrates all the work we did. And just by breathing and let ourselves feel how we feel, that's how we get the most out of our practice. And being on this yin side and being on this yin side allows us to do the yang so much better, the training so much better, the work so much better, the productive productivity so much better. Because we've had a break from it.

So if you're like me, you're always on doing stuff, you'll be able to do that better because you're doing this. You need the yin and you need the yang. You need both sides. You need that balance.

I'm going to run this video for another four minutes, a minimum four minute shavasana. And I'm not going to say goodbye, nothing like that. After the four minutes, I'll end the video because I want you to stay here a minimum of four minutes, maybe longer. And if you fall asleep here, it means I've done my job.

So find a way to become five or 10% more comfortable. Arms to the side, palms up, close the eyes. Enjoy how it feels to have the spine completely supported on the ground. And allow the mind to be blank.

And just focus on how you feel and breathe.