Sebastian Brosche · 9 min · 958 words
Previously titled: Tight Calf Muscles Stretches - 10 minutes follow along routine
Okay guys, welcome back to the Yoga for Rocks week for legs. Today we're going to attack the calves and I just have two poses for you but I think these are so effective that you will not find you need much more than these to stretch out your calves. So the first one, grab a belt and I really like the version where you have a round circle like this. So put the circle around your torso and lay down on your back.
So you might have to need a longer belt than the jitsu belt, maybe two belts together. Place your right ball of your foot on the belt with the bent knee, stretch the other leg out and from here push your right knee away from you. So if you feel this only in the hamstring then you probably have to stretch your hamstrings first enough for it to become a calf stretch because if your knee is bent and you pull the foot I'm not completely sure that you will feel the calf stretch. So you have to probably start with the hamstring first and then flex your foot as much as you can and push the heel away from you.
So it's hard for me to hold on to the belt for long hair, that's why I like the version where you have the torso around so no matter how much you push you're not exhausting yourself. You can keep pushing the knee if you need that. For me this is a really intense calf stretch but in my experience some people are super flexible in the calves and others are super super stiff so even the most simple poses are excruciating intense for some people while others almost never feel it. So I'm assuming you're one of these people that feel the calves in almost any pose then this one is probably super effective for you.
Let's stay here for an extra minute. If you feel like you don't want to keep your leg balanced you can just move it out to the side so you have to engage your right hip here but you don't have to keep the balance so much towards the left. So don't push your toes away, push your heel away. Let's take five more breaths.
Switch sides. Left foot up, right leg down. Make sure you have the belt over the ball of your foot and push the left knee as straight as you can. Find the perfect placement of your foot and then push your heel up and away.
Relax your face. And if it's too unbearable place your hand on your calf and tap it a little bit and stroke it a little bit. Might be enough for you to not feel it to get cramps and feel your calf starting to fall asleep. If you like moving your foot out to the side do that now but keep pushing your heel away from you.
Keep trying to straighten the knee. If you're fine with a bent knee then stay here as long as you feel the stretch not in the joints but in your calf. Relax your jaw and relax your cheeks. And release the belt.
Let's sit up, move the belt to the side and if you have a yoga mat you can roll it up the top of it and hold on to this rolled up, that was a bad roll, hold on to this roll because we're going to do downward facing dog and we don't want to have to be have to focus on our upper body. That's why we roll the mat up or have something under your hand so you're absolutely not slipping. And then the first variation of down dog is just walking from side to side bending one pushing all the weight into your other heel. Ten more on each side, switching every second or so.
Now step the left foot slightly forward so you're using your arms and your leg to push back into the back. So lift your back toes and push your body weight backwards so you're using this bent leg to alleviate the pressure from your arms and just pushing back. It's okay to just keep the knee bent also so you only have one all the weight into one leg. Switch sides, so just on one leg or step the foot forward to get some extra pushing.
Try to lift the back toes and dig your heel down into the ground. Now let's take a break on our knees, release the arms. Then set up for down dog again. So this time cross your ankles so your pinky toes are close to each other and then just push back.
If you want to walk your hands back slightly that's okay. So try to use this crossing and turn the heels away from each other and go backwards here. For me this is a super intense calf stretch. Take another breath and then walk forward and switch sides.
So depending on how much you need you walk back more. Try to push one knee into the other knee and release. So instead of doing 50 variations we just do two effective ones and if this was enough for you you stop here. If you want another go then do this two times in a row.
So it's always different the second time around you do it. It's never boring because you're probably going to feel really different after just we did these two poses and when we do them again you're going to feel different sensations. You can do it two or three more times and that's it for today. Hoos!
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