Sebastian Brosche · 17 min · 1,572 words
Previously titled: Video 2 Yoga for Rocks Legs - Quads
Hi guys and welcome back to the Yoga for Rocks day 2 of the leg week. Today we're going to work the front of our thighs and you need some kind of distance, a thick pillow or a block, maybe both, both to not get sore knees and in order to do the first exercise which looks like this. So lay down on top of your object and pull your left knee in to your chest as close as you can so you can grab the thigh or the pants or use your belt to hook around your thigh and then relax the top, the bottom leg so that you get a slight stretch for the front of your hips and thighs. Let's take a minute here.
When you breathe deeper you relax quicker. You know you're breathing deep when you can feel a pause between the in-breath and out-breath. Let's switch sides, pulling the right knee in, stretching our left leg out. So you might have to engage a little bit in order to get the stretch for the front of your hips so if you keep your knee completely bent you're not going to feel anything.
You have to straighten it out slightly but this is not so much of a stretch to be much more flexible, this is more for getting in tune with your breathing while you're stretching the front of your thighs and hips. Let's take three more breaths here. And then release, move your thing away from under you and lay on your left side pulling both knees in first aka beach pose and then grab your ankle or foot with your right hand and push your knee backwards first and then downwards. If you can get your ankle on top of your knee to push it down more that's fine but try not arching your lower back, try to engage your core and push your knee back and down.
And of course breathe all the time. Five more breaths. And then karate kick your leg out, stretch the back of your leg and switch sides. Lay down on your right side, pull both knees in first, prop your head up, catch your left foot or ankle with your left hand so you can bend the knee in first and then slowly go backwards and if this is impossible of course just wrap your belt around your ankle and hold with your hand, that's okay.
Push the knee back and down, maybe place your foot on top to push the knee down but even though you let your shoulder roll back try not arching your spine so engage your core almost so much that you can't get a straight angle on your left thigh so don't go for a full arch or extension, try to squeeze back and rather instead of pulling the knee back it down, squeeze your butt and your core and breathe. Take five more. And release. Sit back up, place your hands behind you, your feet in front of you and do windshield wipers from side to side.
So again this is not to be super flexible, the last pose we did was for flexibility, this is more for hip mobility because when you have really lubricated and healthy hip joints stretching the legs just feels good. If you're inflamed in your hip joint and if you're not mobile there at all then it's going to be impossible to access the deep stretches because it just hurts too much. So always do hip mobility in order to improve your flexibility as well. Three more from side to side, try to push the knee all the way down if you can without hurting your MCL of course so the inside of your knee you should never feel this on the inside of the knee, just inside your joint.
Alright use the wall, grab the closest wall and then perhaps prop up a pillow under your knee and a block in case you need it. So left foot forward and the right foot against the wall. So I'm just going to pretend there is a wall there so you can see from the side. So we're setting up for lizard stretch, so you can lean your weight on top of your knee or you can use a block here to push away from the floor, if you don't need the block then place your hands on the floor, just take five breaths in lizard pose, so really drop your hips down here, relax your whole back muscles, the only thing that's engaging here is your left foot and your left calf to keep yourself upright here.
Maybe not upright but keeping yourself in the pose. You can choose if you want your toes, the ball of your foot in the wall or if you want to put the top of your feet in the wall, that's up to you. Now place your left hand on your left knee and start pushing backwards, as much body weight backwards as possible for the King Arthur stretch, you should probably feel this really well on the front of your hips and your thigh but try to not arch your back, try to squeeze your belly in and push your hips back into your right heel and then let's combine these two. So move forward and take a full breath, lizard stretch and then move backwards into the King Arthur stretch.
Take one breath or two breaths in each pose and try to find the rhythm between them so you're stretching the quads in one way here and when you move back you get more intensity but also target different areas of your quadriceps. Dropping your hips down and pushing your hips back. When you find a juicy spot just stop there and enjoy the pain. Now walk back as far as you can with your left hand and grab the ankle and move forward and surely that is impossible for many of us so use the belt, grab the belt around your ankle and move forward.
What I like to do is put the belt over my left shoulder here, having a block under my hand and then using my upper body to lean forward into the quad stretch here. So use any variation that you want, if you have short arms and the foot is far away I don't recommend holding on to the foot with your hand because that way you will only turn and the stretch will not be as precise as we want it to be. So use the belt so that you can have square hips instead of turning completely sideways. It's better to go forward when you want the deep quad stretch.
Take another breath here and release the belt. Move your right knee forward so you can sit down on your own heel and if you somehow feel compression inside the knee you can place a bolster under you like this. You can use any way to set up so that your knee is not completely bent and that you have more weight into your props and then lean back towards the wall so your shoulders are touching the wall and you're again bending the other knee in order to take the lumbar curve out of the equation. So here it's more backbend, here we can target the front of our thighs better.
Take between 7 and 10 breaths here. And release. Stand up and shake it out. Move your thighs and let's set up for the second side.
So right foot forward, left knee back. Let's start in the lizard stretch with our left foot towards the wall. Going to drop down for 5 breaths. And then right hand on the right knee, push yourself back in towards the wall so your butt is pinching your heel in and pushing into your toes.
And then moving forward, hips down for a full breath. And hips back into King Arthur. Just flow between these two poses in your own rhythm. Don't think about what we're doing as hard work.
Think of it as something you like to do in your leisure time. So you have free time, instead of watching an episode you're doing this. Perhaps you're doing both but don't think about this like something that you have to do. Try to think of it as something you want to do.
Move back and grab the left ankle with your hand or better use the belt around your ankle and pull the belt either over your hips or over your shoulder and lean forward. Try to not scrunch up your face if it's intensive here. Rather relax your face, breathe deeply and just release 2% so you can stay here for longer instead. A couple of more breaths before we release.
And let go of the belt, move your left knee forward and sit back. Perhaps use padding under your right hip. Lean back with your shoulders against the wall so your chin is tucked in towards your chest, bend your right knee and squeeze your butt here to get one last good stretch for the front of the left thigh. Three more.
And release. Alright, hopefully the front of your thighs feel a little better now. Tomorrow we're going to attack the calves. See you guys then.
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