Tight Hips & Calves? 22-Min Squat Mobility Flow for BJJ

You probably felt that a few seconds ago and just gently now ease into that. So we're not forcing our body weight into that, but we're in a similar position here. And keep those breaths going. And then bring your feet up, almost like you're trying to keep the ceiling up with your feet, arms inside your knees and grab your ankles.

If you can grab the outsides of your feet, great, but just for today, grab your ankles. And if your lower back's coming off the mat now, maybe bring it back down if you can. If you're working on your knees, if your lower back's coming off the mat now, maybe bring it back down if you can. If you're wearing a gi here as well, you can hold the gi pants and you'll feel like you're in a squat here, but upside down.

And that's great. And then just slowly from side to side a couple of times, just rock your hips and feel that on your lower back on the mat. Good. And then bring your arms outside your legs and hug your hamstrings.

You can either just hold them here or you can grab your wrist or clasp your hands, whatever you're comfortable with here. But start to bring your feet over your head, rock yourself up a bit. Feet over your head again and rock yourself up. Just nice and slow.

So maybe you need to use a bit more momentum to begin with, to get used to it. But then as you get confident with this, just nice and slow leaning back and leaning forwards. And if your back makes a little click as you do this, that's fine. I hope.

Exhale, come up and maybe put your chest forwards. Inhale, come back. Exhale, back up. Good.

A couple more of these. And next time you go over, I want you to bend your right heel towards your bum. And then as you sit up, your left heel is coming in front of you and just lean forwards almost to like a seated guard position. Go back over both legs and then left heel to bum.

Sit yourself forwards, right heel forwards and back to that seated guard. So just play with that a few times, just alternating which foot comes forwards. And maybe start to lean forwards a little more each time. Good.

And next time both feet together as you roll forwards, knees facing out and we'll just stop here. The knees pointing out. And don't think to lean forwards here. Just stay upright and see where knees go.

I'm not trying to force them open today. I'm just seeing where they go. Just trying to relax into this and open my hips out a little. Okay, now come to all fours and bring your right foot between your hands and come up now to a bit of a lunge position.

But as you know, I'm not coming forwards like this. I'm upright. My hips are over my knee. My shoulders are over my hips here.

And now just take a deep breath, tense your glutes and feel a stretch in the front of that left hip. Open that out. Okay, so hands back in planks at either side of the foot, foot's on the inside and then just slowly lean your weight forwards. Keep some weight in your hands and just feel your calf stretch a little bit here.

If you need to keep that knee forwards, the back knee, you need to keep that forwards a little more, then feel free. I'm going to come up to my fist here, just to give my wrist a bit of a rest and just for your calf stretch. Okay, so I'm not forcing all my weight over here. I'm using, I've got some weight in my hands and I'm just feeling my calf stretch open.

If you're, if you've got quite flexible calves, flexible calves, you might want to keep your heel on the floor and see how far you can go over. But I don't want you to force too much weight into this. This should just feel like a relaxed stretch. And if you want the extra stretch on that left hip again, again, just tense your glutes and almost activate that similar cat movement in this pose here.

Okay, so we're not only stretching the calf, we're also stretching that back hip a little bit. Good. Come back up now, both knees under your hips, just tense your glutes and just feel, is there a difference? Like feel your hips and think what's different?

Does this hip feel a little bit more open than the other side from the stretch I've just done or is it not warmed up yet? Good. Now bring the left forwards and a similar stretch, so tense the glutes, take an inhale and exhale. Take a few more breaths.

Last inhale, exhale, hands on the side of the foot, again, hands or on your kind of knuckles here and then just see if you can move that knee over a little more to feel a stretch. And if you want that stretch on the opposite hip, go for that too. So it feels completely different this side for me. I think my left calf has a bit more stretch in it, but my right hip feels way tight at the day.

So just be mindful of that and kind of consider it consider it when in these stretches. Good. Let's come back up now and bring your right foot forwards again and travel over that foot, but keep your weight in front of you. Okay, so travel that right knee over the foot, keep your weight in front of you and we'll come into this kung fu stretching.

And if you're up here, that is fine for you. Okay. Or if you're super deep here, like whatever your body allows, but just don't force this and feel the stretch in your calf and probably a bit of inner thigh on the other side and hamstring as well. And then we'll just flow from side to side here doing these kung fu stretches.

And you'll notice as I've come to the other side, my right, the toes on my right foot are pointing up and I'm getting a stretch in the calf here as well. If I'm relaxed here, can't get as much of a stretch and that's not not what we want today. So toes up over to the other side and try and find some flow of breath here. So I'm exhaling into it, inhale, push up, exhale over to the other side.

And as you get more comfortable, you might want to sit your weight back a little more into that heel of the bent knee on that side. Come back up, exhale into it. Come back up, exhale down. And like I said, if you feel super tight and you're only here and you're going from side to side, that's fine.

You're still improving. Just make sure that knee is still going out and you're still feeling a stretch. Okay, just because you're not sitting right down yet doesn't mean you're not doing the same amount of work as all of us. Okay, next time you stop on one side, we'll take two breaths there if that's comfortable.

So one more inhale here, exhale and then the inhale, push yourself up, exhale over to the other side, take two deep breaths. Last inhale, last exhale and inhale, push yourself up, put both legs straight into the middle here and then bring your toes so that your feet are parallel with each other and your toes are pointing in front of you. Good and just find a straight back, so straighten your back like it's parallel with the mat here. Take an inhale and exhale.

Try and hinge at the hips a little. I'm not curling down like this, I'm just hinging at the hips. If you feel your back start to kind of curl down, just correct that and try and keep a straight back. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to stretch the hamstrings here and then if you lean forward slightly, just walk forwards and bring your hips forwards.

You should feel that come onto your calves a little more and maybe a bit more in your hamstrings. You might want to fold at the hips a little more. Again, we're not going for this like super intense fold here, we're just going for a nice straight back fold forwards. Good, now ease off that stretch.

So reverse the steps you did to get into it. And now turn to the left so I'm facing the bottom of my mat now. I'm just pushing back into a little bit of a fold here but with my knees bent. And take an inhale and then exhale.

Just let everything come down. You can let your back curve a little now. Just cross your arms, relax your head down. So if you're looking at the screen, just let the top of your head relax down to the mat.

Take an inhale, exhale into the fold more. Maybe lean your weight a little more over the balls of your feet and feel that stretch come on a little more now. One more breath. Good.

And now just sit yourself back down on the mat and then bend your right knee and keep your left leg straight in front of you. And now just try and bring your hands either side of your hips on the mat now. Try and pick yourself up here as you come forwards and just feel your right calf open out as you come forward. And now sit yourself back, straighten out that left leg, push yourself up again.

Okay I'm keeping a lot of weight in my hands here as I move. And just feel that a little bit and just transfer your weight over as you step forwards and back. So it's almost like we're going from this pistol squat position. I'm pushing my weight up so I'm not using all my weight in my leg.

I'm pushing my weight over my hands coming forwards and I'm curling my left heel down in the mat which pulls me forwards and then my right knee touches the mat and then I sit back straight and good. So you just, it's just one movement and you're just reversing that but using your arms here. Good. We'll do two more of them.

And then we'll switch. Okay this shouldn't feel like a crazy workout on your leg because we're not pistol squatting. We are using our hands. So same thing.

So as I pull my weight towards me with this heel I'm pushing up my hands and I'm just traveling forwards with my left knee, touch the mat and back. Good. Just do a few of them and this will come up again in a second but I want you to get used to not just having to use your legs to do this kind of thing and just kind of a friendly way of guiding you into this without adding anything else to begin with. And you should feel your calf stretch as you move forwards as well and as you come back sit down.

Good. Let's do two more this side. And back down. Okay so we'll add that, we'll add that roll again that we're doing at the start and then we'll add a movement on the end which we've kind of just covered a little but we can go over it more.

So grab your hamstrings, curve your back a bit, roll yourself back and as you come up bring the right heel to your bum, left heel's going over and then I'm coming forward. So I'm pulling this heel towards me as I come forwards. Again you can use your hands, come forwards here and then back. Switch.

So left heel, your bum, come up, hands and then my right heel is pulling myself up and back and this should feel quite jiu-jitsu-y if you haven't noticed. You've probably done similar things in the warm-up and if you don't use your hands you'll be coming up like this and back. Good. So do a few more just like that.

And as you get a little more comfortable you might consider again use your hands here, you might consider coming forwards, dropping that knee down and then back. Okay if your body doesn't allow that yet though obviously don't force it to. So come forwards, touch down and back. Good and then the next stage for that is to come forwards, stretch your hips up and then back.

Again up, forwards, hips up and back. So you're kind of stretching your calves out and your hips as you go over them and it's kind of like you're shooting for a double or you're coming up and shooting for a takedown as well. Maybe you've been playing a seat at guard, maybe you sweat them and you're coming up to get that top game. So you're going to come up to the top of the game.

So it should feel very jiu-jitsu-y. Good. Let's do one more each side, hips up if you can, tension glutes at the top and back and switch. And now just sit your bum down and we'll get into a squat here.

Similar to what we're doing at the start. Again if you're up here and this is your squat today, that's fine. But now that we've moved and stretched a little bit, let's just move from side to side. So I'm just with my knees, I've got my hands in the mat so I've got a bit of weight in my hands so it's not a lot of pressure on my knees and everything.

I'm just moving my knees around. Okay and that's stretching my calves out, that's moving my hips around as well and everything. And the deeper and deeper you go you might want to touch the knee on the mat, switch, touch the knee on the mat, switch. And as you start to open here you can start slowly shifting your heels towards each other and seeing if you can get deeper into a squat doing that.

Keep moving around. Good and just notice the work you've done on your on your calves, on your hips and your legs and everything and opening everything out and how much that's helping. Maybe sit your weight back a little bit and see if you can sit into a deeper squat than usual or maybe you feel more comfortable than you did at the start. So at the start when we're in this squat how did your hips feel, how did your knees feel, your calves, your back and everything, how did you feel there and has this opened you out?

If it has, notice that change from a few minutes work and come back and do it more. Okay, you know sit yourself down, stretch the bottoms of your feet out, your knees on the mat, sit back, stretch your feet out as well, like stretch your calves out more. Every few minutes of work you do towards your goal is going to get you closer than you were before. If you don't work towards that goal you're not going to get there so that's the long and short of it.

So make sure before a class if you've got a goal test yourself in that goal, sit in a squat, how do I feel today, what's tight, what do I need to do? Do the class and then see how you feel after and do it for a few days in a row, see how you feel after that and just notice those those like tiny improvements and and that's how you stay consistent just realising that you're achieving your goals. So just keep going, maybe sit in a squat for a little longer or if you're getting a bit achy here you can move from side to side, just work on your movement and then when you're ready to finish get back on your back like we did at the start and get back in this kind of upside down squat position we're in or this happy guard position and start to slow your breath down even more. Let your knees come heavy down towards the mat, flare them out a little more than you did earlier and just take five deep breaths here.

Last inhale and slide that out. Let your feet come down to the mat and in your own time sit yourself back up. And that is it for today's session, hope you enjoyed it, let me know how you got gone in the comments and if you felt any improvement and I'll see you in the next video.