Saturday Morning Yoga for Recovery: 40-Min Slow Flow

Try to make the muscles move together with minimum effort. And if you've been practicing Yoga for a while, you might start to synchronize the breathing with the movement. Even if it's just one time, it feels so much better when you breathe and move at the same time. Let's move back to our first down dog.

Don't care about how it looks. If you have a mat, you can grab the mat. Walk from side to side and stretch out the back of your calves. You can shake your head slowly from side to side, look under each armpit and relax your neck.

Make sure your chest falls down to the floor and that you're not halfway in a plank, but try to really move your butt back and push your hands down into the ground. And place your hands normally and walk forward to your hands. Bend your knees, inhale, straighten the back and exhale. Try to really flop down.

Don't stand like this, but really bend your knees and fall all the way forward. When you inhale, reach up and exhale back to mountain pose. Grab your elbows and inhale your arms over your head, lift your chest and exhale lower down to the ground. Inhale, stretch, you can bend your knees, walk back to up line.

This time just lower down a little bit slower. Knees can touch the ground, elbows into your sides, all the way down. Try to come up on your fingertips, place your hands wide, lift up and look from side to side. Try to integrate your neck in the motion.

You're probably going to feel your lower back slightly here. If you feel any pain, just lower down and do it close to the ground. Look once more from side to side and roll back to child's pose. This time in child's pose, place your toes into the ground so you're stretching the soles of your feet.

Your head can touch the ground, you can also float the head between your biceps. Now try to stretch your legs back to down dog and roll forward to a plank. Place your knees down in plank and let your chest and belly hang when you roll back. Then you stretch your legs again to down dog, lifting your heels, rolling forward to a plank and as soon as you come forward to plank, place your knees down and roll back.

Do two more on your own with a deep, slow and nice breath. Last one. Let's meet back in down dog. Take a breath there.

Now stretch your right leg out behind you. So lift the right leg, you can bend the left knee, but lift the leg just for a moment. Then bend the knee and open your hips. Try to really lift the right knee up and roll your right foot forward and step it to the outside of your right hand.

You can come up on your knuckles. We're going to stay here for a breath or two. Try to extend your back leg so it's straight. Many of us probably feel this in the front of our left hip, maybe in the inside of our right thigh.

Place your left knee down and flatten out your left foot. Make three big circles with your right shoulder so look to your right hand when it makes a big circle back and forward. Make sure your left shoulder is back so it doesn't support all your weight in the joint. Pull the left shoulder back one more big circle with your right arm.

And now point the right arm back towards your foot and try to look back at your foot without collapsing your left shoulder. If you have deep hands you can grab the pants. If the foot is close you can grab the toes and if you want a lot you can pull the heel in. But for me this is too intense.

I'd rather just hold the heel. And find symmetry in this pose. It's a weird pose but it feels good when you find this kind of rare symmetry where you let your right knee fall out and your hips is in between your knees. Slowly let go of the foot if you're holding on to it.

Place your hands down. Imagine a down dog with the hands but straighten your right leg. So you're in a super short down dog with the right foot forward and on your knee. So really try to straighten your leg here and pull the toes back and if it's too much you just move forward.

If you want more move back. Take three nice cycles of breathing here. Relax your neck and relax your shoulders. Move forward.

Place your toes on the ground and lift your right leg up and back. Stretch, stretch, stretch. Meet in down dog. Second side.

Left leg out. Bend the knee. Lift the knee. Pull the foot forward and place it on the outside of your left hand.

Stretch the right leg straight. Let the hips be heavy here. You can come up on your fingertips or on your knuckles if you have any problems with your wrists. Relax your neck, shoulders back.

Right knee down. Lift your left arm. Straighten it and make a big circle with your left shoulder. Follow the hand with your gaze and roll the right shoulder back so you're supporting yourself.

One more big circle. Let your left arm point back and try to look back on your right foot. Grab the deep hands or grab the heel. If you want to be technical you can put a belt around your foot to be able to catch the foot.

It's okay to stay here too. It's a hip pose, not a foot to butt pose. Just try to even out the pressure between the right hand and the left foot. Try to get equal weight in all three points of balance.

Let go of the foot hands in plank and then roll your upper body back to down dog and straighten your left leg. Flex the foot. Lean back or lean forward. Create a sensation in your left hamstring, your left calf.

Forward to plank and stretch the left leg up and up and up. Stretch it out and back to down dog. Bend your knees, look forward and take a big step to the front of your mat. Look forward and exhale.

Bend your knees and try to place your feet in your palms. You might have to bend your knees here but try to lean forward and relax your head. Stay here for a moment. Let your hands come out from the feet.

Inhale, look forward. Exhale, fold and then come all the way up. You can catch your elbows on the way up. Reach it up and back to mountain pose.

Grab your elbows in the opposite direction. Look up and inhale. Lean back and exhale. Fold forward.

Inhale, reach. Step back to plank. Let's just do a couple of side planks here. Lift the left arm up.

Now lower the hips all the way to the ground so that you're stretching your right side. Push the ground away and feel your ribs and your waist here. Let's do the opposite. Stretch the left arm overhead and now feel your left side.

One more time down and up. Switching sides. Right arm up this time. Lower the hips.

Place down into the ground but make sure you feel it in your left waist and your left ribs. Then stretch the arms overhead so that you're stretching and elongating your right side. Last one down. And up.

And back to plank and all the way down. Keep your thumbs behind your butt. Lift your chest slightly but make sure the shoulders are not rounded forward like mine are now. Roll the shoulders back.

Lift your chest a little bit. And place one ear to the shoulder. Other ear to the other shoulder a few times. Try swimming with your head like a fish from side to side.

If there's even more back integrate your toes and press them down into the ground. Keep breathing. Even though you're laying flat on your belly keep breathing with the belly. Pushing back to child's pose and back to down dog.

Stretching the right leg up again. Bending the knee and rolling it forward to your chest. Placing the foot down. You can inch it forward with the toes like this so that your knee comes high up to your chin.

But if that's impossible just grab the ankle and help the foot forward. Come up on your fingertips and place your left knee down into the ground. You can push on your knee or you can hook the elbows. Grab the elbows again and lean back.

Press down with the right foot but at the same time sink in with your hips between your knees. Try to let the arms fall back behind you. Take a breath more here. Then place your hands down on the ground and do the same pose as we did before.

But this time flatten out your foot and try to sit down on your left heel and let your whole body fall over your right leg. One more breath here. Moving forward and pushing the right leg up and back behind us. Stretch it out three-legged dog.

Back to the other side. Second side stretching the left leg out, bending the knee, rolling the knee forward, helping the toes forward. Up on your fingertips and placing the right knee down. Hands on the knee or grab the elbows again.

Let your arms fall back behind your head. Activate your feet but still sink in with the hips. Nice, slow, even breathing without tensing the face or tensing the shoulders. One more breath.

Hands down and move your butt all the way back to your right heel. You can stop here or you can lower down, down, down, down, down as far down as you can. If you don't push you will never get injured here. So you have to accept and relax instead of pushing and keeping going.

Two more breaths here. You can flex your left foot if you need more. You can come back up if it's too much. Moving forward and stretching the left leg up and out.

And back to down dog. Let's do one float. Bend the knees and float forward to a squat. Land in a squat.

If you have knee problems do this. Place your wrists or forearms between your calves and hamstrings. If you still can't do this try the penguin. Squeeze your biceps between your legs.

But if you can just sit here and press your knees away. Let's take five breaths here. And before we sit down, hands to the ground and stretch the right leg out to the right. We could do it like this.

Pull the right leg in and stretch the left leg out. But I think this one is more interesting. Place both knees out and move your hands from side to side. So this is a dynamic crotch stretch.

Just move from side to side. And make sure your knees point the same direction as your toes. So just like a heel hook when the foot turns away from the knee. That's when we injure the knee.

So always try to point them and move them from the thigh, not from the knee. So every time you twist your foot, twist from your thigh bone instead of twisting at the knee. Healthy knees, happy life. Two more on each side.

You can do like me, come up on the toes. Or you can keep a lot of pressure in your hands to make your feet lighter. Now we can slowly find our way down to a seated position. Place your feet together.

And let's do this. So this is, place the hands behind us and just up and down with the knees 20 times. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Let's try the activation tension exercise.

Elbows on the inside and squeeze your knees in everything you've got. Three, two, one and relax. Hands behind you, up and down a few times. So this is a very efficient way of relaxing your muscles.

Let's try it one more time. Squeeze the knees into the elbows, everything you have. Three, two, one and relax. Do a few more of these.

Can you feel the inside of your thigh is relaxing? These muscles are SOB. These ones and these ones on the outside we're going to focus on. Because I almost never meet any BJ guy that has no problem with the inside of the thigh, the outside of the hips or the lower back.

So let's stretch these ones out. If you have something to sit on like a blanket or something, you can sit on something. It's a good idea if you feel that you're sitting like this. So just elevate your butt.

Let's move forward and sit here for one minute and breathe. So you might be up here, you might be lower. You can move your feet away like a penguin if that helps your knees. But try to go as low as you can without pulling yourself down.

Let's stay here for one minute. You can count to ten breaths if you want. If you are close to the ground you can place your head onto something which is really nice for your neck. Otherwise just hang me there which can also be very nice.

Four more breaths in this pose. And slowly come back up. Feet wide, knees slowly from side to side. Do it so slow that you can feel the parts of your hip that you usually don't pay attention to.

So stay for a while and listen. You can even squeeze your butt slightly to get a more intense stretch. And if you really push down into your hands too you're going to feel it in the front of your shoulders where many of us, me at least, have a lot of tension and stiffness and soreness. Often of all of BJJ.

Let's try the splits. You can keep your butt elevated, stretch your legs away from each other. If you have a wall, great, sit up close to the wall here and try to move your legs back like this. The wall is great because you can put something behind your back which makes you move forward or you can just sit straight to the wall and feel the inside of the thighs.

So let's do the second inside stretch. If you can move your hands to down dog, perfect. If you're already kind of flexible you could put your elbows down. Let's stay here for a little bit.

I guess it's tempting to put a belt around our feet and pull. But then we usually lose the nicest part about this and it's just sitting still thinking about nothing, breathing and rejuvenating. We're not trying to turn this into yet another training session. This is our day off.

So this is just to help our body and mind focus on something else. I would actually relax the focus completely and just be more meditative than focused. Keep breathing. And let's do the next one.

If you have a wall, use the wall. It can be nice. Otherwise, just prop up your knee, place left foot forward and right knee down and try to not do this one. We did this one already.

Try to keep a straight line from knee, hips, chest and head. And now thrust your hips forward without actually leaning forward. So activate the back and push your right side forward. So we're stretching the hip flexor and the quadriceps femoris, the pine hustle.

If you have a wall, very nice. You can point your toes like this into the wall and lean back. Oh, mama mia. This one feels good.

You can grab your heel like this. Just place your palms on the heel. Let's stay here for seven breaths. Just enjoy the pain.

The pain of our biggest muscle in the whole body stretching out. A slight amount of force is okay. And switching sides. Left leg back, right foot forward.

You can stay here if you're using the wall. Hands on the knee, hands on your hips or hands on the heel. If you're feeling restless, if you're feeling anxious in a place, you can stay here. You can stay here if you're using the wall.

Hands on the knee, hands on your hips or hands on the heel. Take a deep breath. Try to inhale and pause. Then exhale.

Pause. Then inhale. Make the exercise a breathing exercise. Your focus and your awareness will shift slightly.

We all know how to breathe, obviously, because we're alive. But to breathe well is a different issue. It takes a lot of practice and patience to breathe well. Alright, if you have a lot of sensation, you can come down to your knees and just shake your feet out.

Let's do the outside of our hips. You can keep sitting on a blanket if you have one. Legs like a swastika. Left leg forward, legs like a half swastika.

Which is actually an Indian sign, originally. Like this. Then move hands forward. If you can't feel anything, just move the leg back slightly.

Out of the swastika, more into a straight leg. Try to move this knee back. If you feel knee pain, lean to the side instead. Don't try to force yourself forward like this.

You can put a block on your left knee. Do whatever you have to make the stretch feel on the outside of the left hip. Move around until you feel it nice. Until it feels just about right.

I'm going to stay here for a minute. Resist the temptation to get maximum sensation in the beginning. Let it slowly creep up on you. The goal is not to force the muscles to relax.

But to actually encourage your muscles to relax. Our nerves requires a certain amount of conviction. We have to convince the nerves and the muscles to let go and release the grip they have over us. Come back to the breathing exercise.

Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Exhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

And come back up and switch sides. Right leg forward, left leg back. Start in half a swastika and then move your left knee back a bit. Prop up with a pillow or something on your right knee if you have to.

And find the pose slowly. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

Two more breaths here. And slowly come back up to seated. If you have the wall, sit to the wall. Cross your legs.

If your knees are high, prop up your knees so that you can relax your hips. Grab your four left fingers with your right hand and slowly bend the fingers backwards. Let's stay here for five breaths. So stretch the fingers, palm, wrist and forearm.

Switching hands. Grab your right four fingers, flex the hand, pull it back or push it down so that you feel a nice intense stretch in your forearm, fingers, palm, wrist. Shake both hands out. Put your left hand behind your back and grab your left ear with your right hand.

And don't pull, just relax your shoulder. Lean back to the wall if you have a wall. Stretching out the neck. Don't pull, just a slight weight to the side.

Slide your right hand down to the right ear and push your head back up. Switch sides. Right arm back, left arm up. Don't pull your head, just let the weight of the arm weigh your head to the left.

Slide your left hand down to your left ear and push your head back up. If you have neck problems, try this exercise. Grab your cheeks like home alone. Squeeze your elbows in.

Don't move your neck, but move your whole torso from side to side. So you usually feel our neck problems most when we try to twist our neck. So a nice way to let the neck relax is just to grab your head. Don't move your neck at all.

Just move from the waist, twisting your back and your core instead of your neck. Do this a few times. It actually feels super good even if you don't have neck problems. If you do have neck problems, do this ten times on each side, three times a day and see what changes.

Maybe start moving in new patterns which will make the neck problem go away. Let's finish in seated for a couple of minutes. Just grab your knees. A wall is perfect here because you can push yourself back to the wall and then completely relax.

Put your shoulders down. Let go of the stretching and the movement that we did. Prepare yourself for the rest of your day of training. Let the breathing be natural.

Just sit there for a minute more. Take a big inhale and sigh it out. Smile to yourself for a nice session. Enjoy the nice feeling the rest of your day.

Remember to drink a green juice or something healthy because this is only half the job. The rest is nutrition and sleep for you to really get a chance to recharge your batteries. Thank you guys for watching. I see you in the next video or on the mat one day.

Take care guys.