Shoulder & Posture Fix: 20-Min Yoga for 40+ w/ Belt (Part 3)

And exhale. Inhale. Exhale. And now take five seconds where you really push hard, hard, hard, hard, hard.

Give it everything you got. Push your shoulders back, back, back, back, back. And suddenly release. Swing your arms from side to side.

Take a couple of arm circles. Can you feel how much looser your shoulders feel just from this simple trick? If you did this three times a day for two or three minutes, you would completely reset. It's like pressing the reset button on your posture.

So your head moves back, your chest moves up and your shoulders move back. And those three together makes it so much easier to breathe. You look like you're enjoying life more and you feel much less restricted in your jiu-jitsu. Okay, place the belt to the side for now.

We're going to use it more later. Step back into down dog and walk the dog out. Just stretch your calves and your hammies, your hamstrings that is. Move your neck around.

It doesn't really matter how the dog looks. We're just going to stay here for a couple of breaths. Walk your hands back slightly and place your right foot forward as far as you can. And now snail your toes like a snail.

Just caterpillar snail your toes as far forward as you can go. Let's take five, six breaths in a low lunge here. So your back knee off the floor. So you can tense up your back leg, but try to drop your hips down so that you can feel either the front of your hips or the back of your hips.

We're all restricted either in the front or the back. And you will probably immediately feel where you have resistance here. But one thing that is really important is to not wear pants that are restricting you because jeans and stiff pants prevents us from going deep enough in the stretch. So always wear loose fitted shorts or pants in order to get a nice stretch.

Take another breath here in low lunge. And now instead of stepping back and switching feet, we're just going to move our hands back to the back of the mat. And let's do the same pose here. Engage your back leg and relax your front knee so you're dropping your hips without dropping your knee down.

You can place a lot of body weight from your chest into your knee. So you don't really need your hands much here, more for balance than for support. So don't use your arms to keep yourself up here. Try to drop on top of your thigh.

Now between the rounds, let's sit down again and use the belt. So sit down on your knees, throw your right arm up and your belt behind you. So just like you're using a towel to scratch your back. Let's do that.

But instead we focus on our shoulders. So straighten your right arm up until it's completely straight. So that action is pulling your back arm up behind your back and then switch. So you're stretching your left arm, bending the right one.

Keep going up and down. And you should be at 50% intensity. This is not stretching. This is more mobility.

So we're not trying to make the muscles longer or making them stronger. This is more for the joints than for the actual muscles. So working your shoulder and elbow joints to the limit without pushing it too far. You're not fighting yourself.

You're not trying to submit yourself. It's really easy to be stuck in that Jiu Jitsu mentality that you always have to go until a joint cracks. Don't do that. Try to be nice to yourself.

Switching sides. Left arm up, right arm behind you. It's very likely that one shoulder is much stiffer than the other. And when you're on side two, you usually notice which one it is.

Try to pull all the way to straight and all the way to bent. But don't go past 50% intensity. If you're super duper stiff, don't use your belt. Use a rubber band instead.

It's like $2. So go buy yourself a rubber band if you're super, super stiff and use it because then the band will automatically adjust to your stiffness level. So don't use a rubber band. It's like $2.

So go buy yourself a rubber band if you're super, super stiff. And use it because then the band will automatically adjust to your stiffness level. Release it and step back to down dog. Same round, but now we start with the left foot.

So walk your left foot forward and snail the foot forward. And now drop your back knee down for a deep lunge. So now you really let your hips sink towards your front heel. So hips towards the left heel.

I like lifting my toes here to relax the sole of my foot. So when I'm gripping my toes down, I'm tensing under the foot. And I think that translates up through the whole chain. So when you're gripping your toes, you're tensing your calf, your knee and your hips.

When you lift your toes and relax the sole of your foot, it makes it easy. I think it makes it easier to relax the inside and drop down. It's not a theory. It's more just a feeling I get when I lift my toes.

It's like I engage the front of my the upside of my foot, the top of my foot. I can relax the bottom and I can drop down more. Let's do half splits. Move your butt back and flex your toes.

So it's normal to sickle your foot like this. So your big toe is closer and your pinky is far away. Try to turn the foot so you're engaging the outside of your ankle, pulling your left pinky towards your knee and stretching the ankle, calf, knee and hamstring. Take a breath.

Let's start moving back and forth between deep lunge and half splits. I like angling my back foot in a little bit, so it's more of a technical stand up stance. I like dropping down deep, but you can do as you want. Just keep going back and forth.

If you're tensing up your eyes or biting your teeth together, stop doing that. It doesn't help at all. Two more reps. Let's do a half split.

Let's do a half split. Two more reps. And switch sides by walking your hands all the way to the right foot. Deep lunge for a few breaths.

Deep lunge for a few breaths. Drop your chest weight into your thigh. Lift your toes and drop your hips down, down, down, down, down. Half splits.

Lift your right foot. Pull your pinky toe towards your knee, so you're tensing up the front to relax the back. Take a couple of breaths here. And switch sides by walking your hands all the way to the right foot.

And let's start moving back and forth. I like inhaling when I go forward and exhaling when I go back, but you can go even slower and take two breaths on each movement. Why not? There are no set rules that are true for everyone.

If I say inhale and exhale, you might be thinking, well, I'm going to do this for a long time. I'm going to do this for a long time. There are no set rules that are true for everyone. If I say inhale and exhale, you might want to do the complete opposite because you're in a different situation.

So when you're new to something, you can look for the black and white answers. But the more you practice something, the more you realize the zones are gray and even colored. And you can't really compare green to orange. It's two different things.

So what I'm saying is, even though I say do this, don't do that, it's just because you're new. It's because you're a white belt in yoga. One day when you're a yoga black belt, you are going to see that everything I say is within a very narrow little box that's only created to help you have a foundation to stand on. All right, let's do another mobility drill that I like.

Sit on your knees, toes tucked under, grab your heels and then don't go fast. Slowly start engaging the front of your thighs to lift up here for camel pose. So you might only lift up slightly off the heels. You might even not lift up from the heels at all.

But try to get that same feeling in the shoulders that you had when we used the first belt stretch there. Take a breath in a back bend. And then drop your butt, stand into a forward fold with bent knees. Try to get your head as close to your legs as possible.

And then on your fingertips, kneel down again, catch your heels and go back to camel pose. So focus on your upper body, only push your hips forward if you feel that your body is okay with it. So you can squeeze your butt and engage your belly, pull your belly in to not hurt your lower back. And let's move back and forth between these two positions.

Bent knee forward fold and a modified camel pose. As soon as you get it, start breathing and you will get it even more. As soon as you understand the movement, add on a deep breath. And you just added the yoga dimension to the stretching.

One more full round, camel and fold. One more full round, camel and fold. One more full round, camel and fold. Alright, let's move back into down dog.

One more round, step your right foot forward, snail it all the way forward. Drop your back knee down and let's add on a twist. So right hand towards your right knee and then try to drop your body weight down here. So instead of going up and twisting today, we drop our hips and you can even slouch your left shoulder here.

Something I normally don't recommend. But just get a deep twist so you can look under your right biceps towards your left foot. So you're turning your gaze towards your left foot, dropping your hips deep. So this is a side stretch for the left body and it's also a nice hip opener.

Take five deep breaths here. Try to get as low down as you can. If your left shoulder is troubling you, place the elbow on the ground instead. So it's a twist, a side stretch and a hip opener at the same time.

Let's switch sides. Slowly walk all the way to the left foot. Left hand to the left thigh. Start nice and slow and then you twist, move deeper and side stretch.

This side is so much stiffer. It's a big difference between saying this side is stiffer as an observation and a judgment. Observation is just stating a fact. Putting a label on it and judging isn't really good for anything.

So let's switch sides. One more breath. And let's sit down on our butt. Let's feel the hip.

Let's feel the hip. Let's feel the hip. Let's feel the hip. And let's sit down on our butt.

Let's finish today's little workout with one minute of seated silence. So sit down, close your eyes, relax and breathe. Inhale and exhale. Thank you for the class.

If this was in the morning, have a nice day. If this was in the evening, sleep tight or don't sleep tight, sleep loose and relaxed. See you tomorrow. Us.