Yogi Fitness

(waves crashing) Hi, how are you? My name is Robert. Welcome to Yoga Anytime. It's great to see you again, or nice to meet you. This video is called, or incorporates, high-intensity interval training, all right?

It's kind of a popular phrase these days, HIIT. We'll be doing like a sun salutation, squat version of burpee followed by a little rest, and then a mountain climber version, right? So, I'll give you those numbers when we're actually going through it, but the idea is to really challenge yourself. The idea is to not be able to control the breath as much as you can in normal postures, okay. So, it's actually, you're getting to the point of anaerobic.

An anaerobic state, which is without breath, okay? So don't worry if you're panting. Which you'll see, I will be as well. So we'll do it together. But, here's the thing: is I want to enter it mindfully.

We're not gonna be doing sort of mindless movement, right? Mindful movement, okay? But really challenging ourselves in a short period of time for maximum results, all right? And that's maybe what you're watching this for, is maximum results. We're gonna warm up a little bit.

We'll move into and then we'll warm down. All right, so grab some water, grab your mat. Be prepared to sweat a little bit, and always, always, always watch your body, modify as you need to, all right? So, we're gonna start in child's pose. So, let's meet there.

Okay, comfortable child's pose. Toes maybe touching, knees kinda wide. And you know, just use this time to settle into yourself. Find yourself. You may be, or may have had, like a crazy busy day so far, and use the warm up to really kind of like (inhales) settle into your breath.

And really like (exhales) ground down. And if it's first thing in the morning, well, same thing. Here we go, here we go. So a little child's pose. (heavy breathing) You may take the hands back along side your knees for a breath or two.

I mean, this by far, this pose, this child's pose is one of my favorites. You know, first thing in the morning. I think it's the first pose I do. Sometimes I don't even leave my bed before doing it. (heavy breathing) Okay.

Once you've kinda tuned yourself up a little bit in child's pose. Let's stretch it out a little bit and come up into a table top, okay? So, table top, either toes curled or uncurled. We'll move through the spine a little bit, and by moving through cat cow, this is cow pose, exhale into cat pose, and by doing this you start to get into the rhythm of breath, body connection, right? So your inhalation, you move through cow, arching your back, finding the right movement of your neck.

You can keep your neck neutral or you can look up. Sit bones, high. Or right on the exhale you round it out, you look towards your thighs. You pull your belly up and in. Maybe rock back just a little bit.

Good. Inhale, back into cow pose. Again, think about this as a warm up, so if there's anything that feels good, like a little side stretch you can incorporate. Any kind of funkiness you're working in your body, working with in your body. You know sometimes it feels nice to create these like, those little circles.

You know, think about your body when you're practicing some of this yoga. Whether it's this video or any other video you might be watching or just your own self-practice, as real service. Right, you're servicing this physical instrument. So, maybe by doing this you're creating a little space for more blood flow. You can sort of think about that as like your car getting an oil change.

You gotta lube up the joints. So, do that for a little bit. Warm up through the hips, and then come forward into table. Let's take a little shoulder stretch, slash twist. So you take your left hand out a little bit, reach the right arm out, then sweep it under.

Land on that shoulder if you can. Maybe even rest the head. I like to use my left hand as leverage. To create like a stable position there. And then reach out.

Find some balance in your hips. So, square off the hips. (heavy breathing) Good, slowly come back out. Maybe get back into that child's pose, right? And then come up. Walk the right hand forward.

Reach out with the left. Weave it under. (heavy breathing) sometimes it's really nice for you to like, catch yourself, you know. It's like when you come into a position and you feel stuck, pull back out. Pull back out for a moment.

Take a full breath. Re-enter with a relaxing exhale. (heavy breathing) Good, slowly transition back out. Push back into a child's pose once again. Good, back up into table.

And then step the right foot up to the right side. Maybe get into your lunge for a moment. What we're gonna be doing, you know, kinda begin to talk you through it as we're preparing, right? So this lunge is preparing for the squat that we're going to be coming into shortly. And in the squat we'll be doing and incorporating into the HIIT section, okay?

So, get groovy with the hips. Maybe step the right foot back and now the left comes up. (heavy breathing) Straightening a little bit. Bending, leaning, tilting, exploring, right. Okay now let's step the right foot up into the squat.

So you notice how my foot is on the edge of the mat with a little bit of an angle, okay. Wiggle in. (heavy breathing) The squat is going to look and feel different for so many people. So, if your squat doesn't look quite like this, and you have to be up a little bit higher, that's okay. You don't have to be, you know, as far down as I am.

There are people who can touch their butt all the way to the floor, and some people who can only go down a certain way. Remind yourself, it's not because you're inadequate or your out of this practice, or you're, whatever's going on in your mind. It could just be the shape of your bones, the way that they're structured in your body. The way they attach. It just won't ever happen, right?

So it's no big deal. At the end of the day, no big deal. Find your squat, pause. Once you've been in your squat for a few moments and you've explored what that feels like, okay. We're gonna press through the heels.

And, you know, every time you come down into a squat, I'd like you to be very mindful of how your knees are. You wanna keep your knees pretty wide, stacked over those ankles or your foot, right. So, come up. (exhales deeply) Maybe take the right knee up and open the hip. Do a couple things like this, right.

Again, there's no real, every pose can be a yoga pose, or a movement, right. There are those postures that people associate with yoga, but this is as well, right? It's just how you pay attention during the experience, right. And you then involve your breath with the movement. All of it, really, at the end of the day, is about feeling good.

Taking care of your body and feeling good. I think. Keep it simple, all right. So, here we go. Now we're gonna have some fun.

Now your heart rate's gonna be elevated. All the stuff I talked about before. For those of you who are watching this who have limited upper body strength, who don't wanna come back into a plank position, for instance. You might wanna just stay with the squat, okay. So that's going to look a little something like this.

We'll do five. Right, so you're gonna come down. Your butt's gonna reach back. Your gonna get this little hip crease thing. You're gonna reach out in front of you.

Lower. And one. Two. Three. Four.

Five. The next part of the HIIT is the 10 second rest, which is gonna be a transition. So, then you'll come down, step back onto your hands and knees, and it's mountain climbers. It's 10 taps on each side, so it looks like this. So it looks like one, one.

Two, two. Three, three. Four, four. Five, five. Okay, and so on.

Once you've done that, you're going to then step up and rise up, okay? So those of you who are going to do that version, do that version. And in fact, we'll do that one all together. Those of you who are going to build up with us, do this one as well, because it'll be good warm up for you. And those of you who have, you know, that's where you're gonna stay, it's a perfectly amazing place to stay as well.

So, you'll still get that heart rate elevation, which we're looking for, okay. So, once we've done that round, I'll then queue you into the next phase. So let's do five together okay? So healthy squat, right. Knees wide, hips back.

Inhale, exhale. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Come down. Pause. (exhales deeply) One, one. Two, two. Three, three.

Four, four. Keep your belly tight. Five, five. Six, six. Seven, seven.

Eight, eight. Nine, nine. 10, 10. Step up into the squat. Look forward and rise.

Take a few breaths, and then you do it again, okay? So now I'll give you the next layer. (clears throat) The next layer's a little bit more dynamic. Same squat we just had. And here's something to consider.

If you're not even comfortable with being on your hands and knees in that table top, you can do the same movement we were just in, with your arms out, bring your knees as close to your elbows as you can like so. When you do this, firm up the belly and try to move and isolate through your hips as much as you can. Okay, so that a good option. We've done the squat, we've done the mountain climbers on the knees. Now it'll look like this.

Arms up, squat down. Step back. Step up. And rise, right. Down, step, step, step, step, rise.

Down squat. Step, step. Step, step. Rise, okay. The transition, is once you've done five, you then come back down.

Step into plank. Bring the knees down for a big breath, and then exhale full plank. (exhales deeply) One, one. Two, two. Three, three.

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Good now step up. (heavy breathing) That would be one full, complete version. We're doing four. Before we get to the final version I wanna give you three different ways in which you can do this.

The next one is definitely a little bit more dynamic now. Arms are up. Come down. You either step back, if you're gonna jump back, I want you to soften through the elbows and lower into the push up right away so it looks a little something like this. (heavy breathing) And up, or, you jump up.

I'll do this version as well, okay. And you can kind of figure out between these two options within this one option. I hope that makes sense. So you come up and down. (heavy breathing) okay, so if that's five, come down.

Step back, bring the knees down for a moment. Deep breath in. And then fire away. One, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Step, step, rise.

(exhales deeply) Okay, so, now we're gonna begin. Right now you have up to this point, you may have even built up a little bit of a sweat, you maybe like, all right, done. I'll try this a little bit later, or you're gonna continue on. My heart rate is up, okay. I like that.

It shows that I'm like challenging myself a little bit. I'm doing work to maintain a good, healthy, strong body. Okay? So, let's do it. Take a moment right now, okay, think about the options I've given you, okay, and really think about which one is going to feel best for you right now.

Don't think for a moment that the third option is the best. It's just where I happen to be. I've been doing this a long, long time. If you're just getting back into it, respect that. Try it and if you don't really feel much from it, try the next option the next day.

Okay, really do your best to do that, because so many people get fired up and they get excited about exercise, yoga, whatever, and they go big, big, big, and the next day they can't move, and they get discouraged and more days go by, and then done. Moderately kinda progress into it. Whew, enough talk, all right. Enough talk, let's move. Four rounds of that.

So, really choose it, right? I'm gonna do the third progression of both. All right, and if I like, whew, I can't talk as much, I'm breathing heavily, that's just the way it is. All right, (exhales deeply) take a moment. Front of the mat, find that squat stance.

And mindful movement here. This is not mindless exercise. Okay, mindful movement. (heavy breathing) this is my body, this is my breath, and I am so grateful for as it is. I am content and grateful as it is.

Doesn't mean that I'm lazy and I'm gonna stay like this. I'm gonna do the work, and show up for myself. So let's do this all right. Here we go! Up. Squat down.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

(heavy breathing) Take a deep breath, and mountain climbers, here we go. One. Two. Three. Four.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

10. Step it up. Maybe pause. Rise up. (heavy breathing) Okay, that's one.

Here we go, three more. (heavy breathing) One. Two. Three. Four.

Five. Whew. Transition down. Here we go. One.

Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. Step up with the opposite foot.

(heavy breathing) All right, breath in. Ready? Here we go. Stay with it, and here we go, here's another option. If you've gone for the biggest progression, lay your back.

Lay your back if that's where you begin to find yourself. Okay, here we go. Up. (heavy breathing) One. Two.

Three. Four. (heavy breathing) Whew. Down. (heavy breathing) Here we go.

10. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Step, step. (heavy breathing) Last one, stay with me. Feels so good. Up. And down.

And back. And up. Whew. (heavy breathing) Three. Okay, last one here.

(heavy breathing) 10. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

(heavy breathing) A little downward dog. Step up. Step up, squat. And, whew. All right, so, take a few moments.

Do whatever you need to do. Sometimes people need to really like shake out the arms, move the legs a little bit. Take a few deep breaths. Try this, stay still. Deep breath in, and.

(heavy breathing) Okay, tree pose. So, start by, which requires some balance and focus. Start on your right leg. Bend, turn the left open. Bring the left heel just above the right.

Find a focal point. Slide the heel up below the knee. If you're way up the inner thigh, go for it. Just make sure it's not on the knee. And now press that left foot into the leg.

The leg into the foot. Squeeze your glutes. Get tall. Tree pose. (heavy breathing) If you're looking directly at me, and I'm moving, look elsewhere.

I'm looking directly at you right now, and you are still. I can see that. So, you're my focal point right now. Good job. Good job.

Balance. Stability. And, ah, calm and relaxation. Before we do the other side, inhale the arms up. And exhale, calm, relaxed.

Full extended exhale. Now bend the right, turn the right hip open, place the heel. So as much of a balancing pose, it's also a bit of a hip opener, right? A little more of a passive hip opener. Maybe not so passive for you.

Find your position, keep your toes there if that's helpful. Or draw them up and then push the foot into the leg, and the leg into the foot. And squeeze your buttocks my friends. Breathe. Find your arms raised up high.

Find a fixed gaze. I'm watching you. Good job. I'm not watching you in like a weird way. I'm just watching you and making sure you're dong it correctly.

Which correctly means, you're just doing it. Right, you're there. You're showing up. That's correct enough. Woo, waddling is good.

And exhale. Shake it out. Think about this next time you're in a balancing pose, if you really start to wobble, a lot, instead of it being a negative, turn it around. Make a conscious choice, that's a positive. You're probably recruiting more and more muscles that don't get used very often, okay.

So it's a super positive. The more you shake, the more you kind of move around and catch yourself, right? The more your gonna be able to do that if you're walking down the street and you fall off a curb or something. You'll be, "Oh, I caught it." Let's warm down, let's chill out. Let's relax, okay?

So go ahead and make your way down through squat. You've done enough, I know, but we're going to do it anyway. We're gonna work down through squat. Down to our seat. Once you meet your seat, lower down onto your back.

And hug your knees in. Massage your low back. Maybe rock side to side. If you can't hold onto your chins, hold onto the hamstrings. Try to keep the back of the neck lengthened out.

Let's take the arms out. You can keep them down, palms down. And let the knees drop over to the right. Breathe in, and as you breathe out I want you to pull your belly in. Again like, if I gave you a swift little punch to the stomach, you would instinctually, instinctively, one of those words, brace, right?

Do that, to lift your knees up. And breathe in here. Breathe out. Twist. Breathe in.

As you breathe out, firm the belly. Ground your back to lift your knees. Pause here, breathe in. And breathe out, twist. This time breathe in, engage core, ground your back, and roll all the way to the left.

So, (exhales deeply). Pause, breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe in.

Back to center. Feet down. Arms along side your body. Take a breath in. Big breath out.

Feet, ankles, below your knees. Hip width. Don't let your knees flayed open. Press into your feet to lift and then once you lift, maybe bring the arms like so, like a robot, right? And press into the triceps version of both of your arms to push your chest up and walk your shoulder blades toward one and other.

You can then rest your hands on your belly, or your hips. If you love to interlace your fingers, you can interlace your fingers underneath your body. I personally don't love that. It kinda messes with my neck a little bit. I usually just stay right here.

Breathe some full breaths across the front of the body. Keep lifting. And maybe, you know, the glutes, right now you can probably feel your bottom, like gripping. Maybe only allow it to grip 50%. In the fitness world it's all about glute activation, right?

Maybe for this one you get a little loose in the seat, that way it won't kinda grip up into like your lumbar sacrum region, sacral region. We've been here for a little bit so we're gonna exit now. The way I learned this years ago, and some of you have probably seen her videos on here, this is from Kira Ryder, is you lift up and then the work you've done, to like engage and bring the shoulder blades together, you're not gonna release that. Reach up, reach up. Now lift your heels, take a breath in and then roll down one vertebrae at a time.

(heavy breathing) When your low back lands, arms down, full releasing, relaxing exhale. Bring your feet a little wider. Bring your arms up. Windshield wiper casually from side to side. When you come over to the right, both knees over to the right, place y our right ankle somewhere around the outer edge of your left thigh.

This'll add a little weight to maybe increase the stretch through the left hip region. Your low-left waist, through the hip, top of the thigh, maybe. Maybe take the gaze in the opposite direction. Feel the stretch across the chest. You start to enjoy the, (exhales deeply) the slower relaxing moments, post-exercise.

Come back up. Breathe in. And breathe out the other side. Foot over the thigh. Add a little weight.

Soften through the face. Let the breath be a little bit more relaxed. Maybe look toward the right. Acknowledge your efforts thus far. Thank yourself for making the effort, for showing up.

Release that, come back up to center. Bring the bottoms of your feet together. Let your hips open. Find a comfortable resting place for your arms. Allow your body to relax.

All of your efforts to pay such close attention to your body and your breath, begin to let that go. Let that fade. (heavy breathing) Anywhere you may feel holding or tension or stress, locate it, feel it, keep your attention and focus on that one region, breathe in. Exhale softly into that space. Relax your entire body.

If you're not able to relax your entire body here, create a physical shape that allows you to relax completely. Please, please, please stay in this relaxed shape for as long as you'd like. When you're ready to come up, you're gonna bend your knees and roll to your right side. Rest your head on your right arm. (heavy breathing) Take a couple moments there.

Usually a pretty comfortable space, or comfortable shape. And push up. Find yourself on your seat. And whether you've done this and you're in front of me and we're connecting or your on your own and the video's done, take a few moments, right? Take a few moments.

Sit with yourself. Maybe there's a one minute, a 30 second, one minute, five minute meditation. And that meditation is simple. It's difficult but it's simple. What I encourage you to do post-practice, is sit and listen.

Watch. Pay attention. Just try not to hold onto any one thing. All right? All of it, just be around, within, right?

And do your best. The way I've been thinking about it lately is music. You play your radio in your car, or you put music on in your house, because you enjoy listening to it. Right? Can you find that in a seated, or whatever shape your in, meditation.

Where you're just simply in the experience of listening. And you can maybe, eventually find some sense of pleasure in that, maybe. All right, that's my suggestion for you. So, comfortable seat. Closing out, really I think it's really important to acknowledge the fact that you personally have made the effort to roll out your mat, wear whatever clothes you've wearing, right?

And you showed up. For no one else but yourself. Okay? That takes a huge amount of effort. So, I acknowledge that, but most important, acknowledge that within yourself and that's it.

That's all you need to do. I think, right? And then just, boom. Forehead towards your thumbs or your fingertips, bow down. Namaste.

(heavy breathing) Thank you, have a beautiful day.