Neck, Shoulders & Chest Stretch: 13-Min Yoga for Rocks Class

Repeat, inhale, exhale, inhale. And if this breath is too fast for you then you can cheat and do two breaths in one cycle. So you can inhale, exhale and then as you go out you inhale, exhale. That's a personal preference.

There is no ideal breath for a movement like this. Just breathe in a way that feels like it's synchronized with what you're doing. Stretch the arms out so the right foot is forward, right hand comes up and catches the back of your opposite ear and then place the left hand in the hips and pull back side a big side stretch and use your head to pull the hand and the elbow back. So you're really trying to go as far sideways as you can.

Take two breaths here and back to center. Turn the other direction. Left knee is bent, right leg is straight. Open your chest on an inhale and exhale.

Catch your elbow, your forearm or your triceps. Lower the shoulders, keep your back straight and switch. Inhale as you go out and exhale as you catch. In your own tempo, in your own rhythm, find the flow.

If you hold your breath you have skipped steps and you're progressing, you're trying to progress too fast. If you feel the necessity to hold your breath you have to back out, slow down and not go as intense. Just like if you're trying to take a cold shower and you have to hold your breath it means you did it too fast. Try to lower the intensity, increase the heat a little bit and go slower.

You will notice in these videos that my yoga is on point but my metaphors is shit. You just have to get used to it. Okay, arms straight, left hand catches the right ear, right hand to the hips and then go sideways. Use the neck muscles to pull your hand.

One more breath and release. Let's switch sides, just we switch sides for simplicity's sake. Straddle pose, straight legs, doesn't matter how wide they are. Catch your elbows over your head and relax the head on top of your forearms just like this.

So hold on either to your wrists, your forearms or your elbows and find a position where you're not impinging your shoulders but you can push the head back into the shoulders. Let's take three deep breaths here and release the arms. Alright, left foot points forward, both legs are completely straight. This is a technical exercise so it's going to be a lot of right and left but when you get into it you're going to get a super nice effect in the neck.

So left arm catches the right ear, so the left foot is forward and the left arm catches the right ear. The right arm goes straight out behind you so it's just like a warrior 2 but you just catch the air and then as you exhale you go down as far as you can, pull the head slightly and lower the right arm for a deep neck stretch. As you go up you inhale and then you exhale and pull your chin to your chest. Inhale, lift and exhale go sideways, pull the head and lower the arm.

Inhale up, exhale chin to chest. Inhale up, exhale sideways. Let's slow down the breath so either increase the amounts of breath or increase the length of your breath. Inhale up, exhale chin to chest.

Inhale up, exhale chin to chest. Exhale go sideways and let's hold for a couple of full cycles. All the way up, turn your feet so that your feet are pointing the other direction. Same exercise opposite side.

Right hand catches the left ear, legs go straight, you exhale as you go sideways. Inhale come up, chin to chest exhale. Inhale up, exhale sideways. Inhale center, exhale chin to chest bow your head forward.

Inhale, exhale sideways. Inhale, exhale chin to chest pull your head slightly. Inhale, last round inhale. Go sideways and stay here in maximum intensity but don't spray in anything just pull enough for you to get to 60-70 percent of maximum.

Inhale, exhale. And back to center. Parallel with your feet for straddle pose, straight legs. This time interlace your fingers, stretch the arms up, bent elbows and the angle whatever you can manage to go as high as you can but don't let your head fall forward as if you're lifting a bar over your head.

You want to tilt your head back and look up as much as you can. Depending on your genetic mobility in the shoulders you might have to stop before you get all the way up but you never know what is genetic and not before you have tried for many years. So you try to push and go as far up as you can but be okay with being stiff for now. Release arms out to the side and open imagine you had a belt.

We're not going to use a belt because that's going to be way too intense right now. Just imagine you have a belt behind you and stretch your chest as much as you can. Really work the back muscles to stretch your pecs. So interlace the fingers behind your back and by doing that I mean you can just hook your thumbs and your elbows do not have to be straight.

Eventually they will straighten out but since you have a lot of tension on the front side you are most likely not going to be able to stretch your elbows completely straight right now but that is the goal. Lean back, don't fall back but lean back. It should be tough to breathe when you're doing a back bend with a stretch like this but it's also tough to breathe when someone is very naked choking you and that is one of the parallels the big parallels between yoga and BJJ is breathe while you're doing hard shit. That is what we're doing now that is what we're doing when we're sparring.

Get into an awkward physical position, get mentally comfortable and keep breathing. So release. Let's do a couple more of these chest opening pretending imaginary belt exercises. Inhale look up and exhale clap your hands slowly.

Inhale open, exhale slow clap. Two more inhale, exhale. Last round inhale and exhale. Feet parallel, shake it out.

Good job to Mia, good job to The Rock, good job to you guys. See you in the next video.