Day 7: Athletic & Kinetic

(waves crashing) Hey, welcome back. This is number seven, we're gonna work toward side plank. Side plank and a little upper body strength. So, without further ado, bring yourself to your mat. Let's get ready to roll, alright.

So, here we go. Oh, by the way, we have blocks. So, I know you've got your blocks with you, if not, stack some books, make it stable. Blocks here, we will use them right now. Okay.

So, once again, we are starting at the front of the mat, standing. Standing strong, standing tall, confident, grounded. Take a couple deep breaths. (deep breathing) Breathe in. And breathe out.

(deep breathing) Inhalation, draw the arms up high. Pressing the palms together, get tall. Add a little side bend for just a moment, right? Just a little awakening up through the side body. Take another breath here.

Breathe in. Exhale, forward bend. Inhale, half lift so you can put the fingertips on the blocks or still on the shins. Up top, good. Breathe in and now exhale, plant the palms.

Downward facing dog. Take the right leg, lift it up. On the exhale, bring the knee to the elbow. Inhale, send it high. Exhale, knee to the elbow.

Inhale, send it high. Exhale, knee to the elbow. One more time, breathe in. Breathe out, knee to the elbow, strong midsection. Send the leg up on the breath in.

Bring it down. Good, now before we do the other side set the knees down, tabletop. Keep the arms nice and strong, back flat. Okay? Now shift your weight forward without dropping your hips.

Okay? Shift the weight forward, if you have to walk your knees up a little bit, do so. What I wanna make sure you do, is keep the elbows somewhat stacked over the wrists. So, you don't wanna bring them back, like so. We're gonna do a couple knee pushups, to build some strength.

So, elbows hug in. Shift forward, breathe in, lower down about, maybe even just a quarter of the way if you're feeling kind of not super strong today and press back up when you exhale. If you're feeling like daring and you can make your way back up, lower down about half way, keep your gaze about a foot beyond the mat and exhale, push back up. Through three more, breathe in, lower down, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

Last one, breathe out, toes curled, downward dog. Good job. Left leg, bring it high. Knee to elbow for one on the exhale. Bring it high on the inhale.

Number two, good, inhale. Exhale, strong, good, two more. Breathe in and breathe out. Last one, inhale. Exhale.

Good, inhale, send it high. Bring the left foot down, bring the knees down. Take a pause, breathe in, exhale. Right foot forward and exhale, left foot forward. Forward bend, inhale, lift halfway.

Exhale, fold. (deep breathing) Chair pose on the inhalation. Exhale, pause and chair pose. Inhale, rise up. And exhale, palms to the chest.

Again, inhale. Exhale, forward bend. Inhale, lift halfway, exhale, downward dog. Right leg lifts, breathe in. Exhale, knee to elbow.

Strong core here, friends. Exhale, knee to elbow. Shoulders over the wrists, knee as high as you can. Strong back leg stabilizing you. Good.

Let's go two more. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Right leg lifts and sets down. Nice, good job.

Set the knees down. Grab a breath. Exhale everything. Shift your weight forward, not dropping the hips. Keep your belly nice and braced.

Five times, breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in lower, breathe out, push back up. Breathe in, breathe out, let's go two more. Breathe out, inhale, lower down halfway, quarter way. Exhale, push up, downward dog as you breathe out.

Left leg rises on the inhalation. And exhale, knee to the elbow, or higher. Inhale, down dog with the leg lifted. Shoulders hover over the wrists. Knee to the upper left arm, elbow region.

Strong on the exhale there. Three more, breathe in, extend up. Breathe out. Breathe in, extend up and breathe out. Last one, inhale and exhale.

Good job. Left leg sends up high, bring the foot down, bring the knees down, pause. Breathe in. And breathe out. Step the left foot forward, then the right.

Forward bending on your exhale. Inhale, lift halfway. Exhale, fold. (deep breathing) We'll enter chair pose again on the inhalation. Hips back, arms forward, long spine, chest open.

This time bring the arms up. Strong foundation in the feet. Pull that newspaper apart. Pull the belly in. Now, press in to the feet, rise up, deep breath in.

And palms to the chest, breath out. Nice, squat down for a moment. Move the blocks completely out of the way. Bring yourself back up to a standing position at the front of the mat. Now, take your feet, you know I'm big on squats.

They work, that's why we do them. More strength, more mobility, all that good stuff we signed on for, right? So, heels on the mat, feet off. Ten times, now these are powerful, right? We're gonna lower down, once, get our positioning, right?

We're gonna breathe in when we lower. Strong feet, strong legs, strong core, strong breath as we powerfully press up. Make sense? Cool, let's do it. So, inhale lower down, breathing in through the nose.

Drive yourself up from the feet, the legs, core, everything. Exhale. (deep breathing) Alright, so when you come up, legs are strong. Glutes are strong, core, elbows pulled back. And you're in this powerful position.

Okay? Breathe in. (deep breathing) Two. (deep breathing) Three. Four.

(deep breathing) Six. Seven. Exhale, eight. Exhale, nine. Exhale, ten.

One more bonus. (deep breathing) Arms come down, bring your feet back to hip width. Clear away with one big breath in. Palms to the chest to exhale. (deep breathing) Step your left foot all the way back.

Get a nice wide stance, wide leg forward bend. Targeting inner thighs, hamstrings, good, fun area, right? Little bend in the knees, hips back, breath intact. Okay? And when you're ready, hinging from the hips.

Go ahead and fold, maybe just to the fingertips for now. Maybe that's enough, right there, and you're able to get that, that taste, right? That long stretch in the backs of the legs and that's enough. (deep breathing) You might fold a little deeper, if that's of any interest to you. Keep your feet very much like embedded, in grounded in the mat to create this sense of stabilization and effort through the legs.

(deep breathing) We're gonna come in to some deep side bending or side lunging, okay? We've done this before, so I'd like you to lift up a little bit. Come up on to your fingertips. Turn your right toes out to the right. And track the right knee toward the right pinky toe.

And like I said before when we did this, you can keep your left foot fully grounded or lift up on to that heel and that'll open the pose just a little bit more. So, once you've kinda checked that out on this side, go ahead and travel mindfully, using your breath, to the left. (deep breathing) So, I like this little movement here because usually it's like a bad enough time to kinda check it out and see where I can get in to, where it makes sense. Again, where it's useful, where I'm gaining mobility and flexibility. You can lift that, the right toes up and sit on that heel.

(deep breathing) Travel to the other side, just kinda back and forth. Exploring, being curious. (deep breathing) Back up to center. Get the wide legs again, pointing both sets of toes forward. Coming up on to the fingertips, breath in, soft bend in the knees, breath out.

(deep breathing) Taking such care, right? Big part of the practice is that sense of self care and maintenance. (deep breathing) Awesome, good. Now walk over, stay long in the upper body. Long and lifted.

Walk over to the front of the mat. From here, step your right foot back into a downward dog position. So, lift the foot to step back. Downward dog, as I've mentioned yoga as the great equalizer, downward dog is kind of that posture within the practice. It really does kinda reset everything.

When in doubt, go to downward dog, check in with yourself. I'm gonna do plank pose. Set the right knee down. Bring the back heel down and scoot your right toes over a little bit. Joint stacking right knee below the right hip, right hand below the right shoulder.

So, we'll explore first this modification for side plank. This is the perfectly happy place to be. All kinds of ways to make it more interesting. Putting an angle on that left arm, lifting your left leg, closing your eyes. If you wanna do any of those, do that or begin to reach your right foot back towards your left, staggering or even stacking left foot on top of right.

This is where a lot of weight now, is on your right arm. So, you wanna make sure that it's stable. You don't want your right hand too far out anywhere beyond your shoulder. Get it right below, within an inch or so, okay? Any annoying, sharp pain in your shoulder, probably not great.

Lift from your low, right waist here. Low right waist to lift and open. Good, bring it on down. Set the knees down, as we did on the blocks. Let's do one pushup.

Why? Cause we can. Shift your weight forward, lower down, breathe in and breathe out, push right back up. Scoot the left toes over, extend that right leg back, open up for the modified version. Don't look at modified as like a handicap or like you're not good enough.

It's just another option, it's just another way to do it. Explore. Stagger or stack the feet. See right now, if my right arm literally was kinda waving around, I wouldn't necessarily have much connection between my upper back. Meaning like my scapula, right?

Scapula or scapular stabilization. So what I wanna do is I wanna take the right arm, pull it in, draw the right shoulder blade in toward the left and then lift from the low waist. Breathe. Awesome, bring the right arm down. Set the knees down.

One pushup, lower down, breathe in, breathe out, push all the way to child's pose. (deep breathing) Good. Push up, this is where we transition to our bellies, okay? So, once you've pushed up, come back in to table top position and lower all the way down using that push up strength you have. Lower down, point your toes back.

(deep breathing) Place the hands underneath your shoulders, a little farther back even. Lift your palms, pull the elbows towards your heels. Press the tops of your feet down in to the mat and lift your chest. Cobra pose without the hands. Take the arms out, lift the tops of your hands, your knuckles to the ceiling.

Lift. Reach your arms back. Palms facing down. Stretch your toes, lift your legs just a tiny bit. Strong back, just think strong, healthy back.

If your low, low back is bummin' out, lower down a little bit or a lot. And you can practice kinda reaching forward and pulling the elbows back. Reaching forward, breathing in and lifting your chest just a little bit, pulling the elbows back, focusing more on the upper back. You choose ... Lift, lift, lift.

And lower. (deep breathing) Using your hands about 50%, lift up for cobra. And push back in to child's pose on the exhale. (deep breathing) It's important here that your knees are very tight and close together. And your belly and chest are falling over your thighs.

This will put the low back in to this nice flexed feeling. Like your sacrum and everything kinda stretches out. It's a good counter pose for where we just were. It's a little more difficult, to find your breath. But you can do it.

And when you're ready, go ahead and push up. Take a moment here, sitting on the shins and knees. Pull the knee caps away. (deep breathing) We'll revisit this shape later on down the road. But for now, go ahead and come on to your seat, as we've done before, crossing your legs.

Okay. Sit bones up tall. We're gonna finish right, because most of the time it just feels good to end with a twist. So, right hand, left thigh. Left hand back behind us.

Lift, lengthen, pull the shoulders down and go ahead and twist the trunk of your body. It's a very necessary, functional movement, for the spine. We do this daily, in different ways. Good, come back to center. (deep breathing) Good, left hand on the right thigh.

Right hand back behind. Lift and rotate. (deep breathing) Back over to center. Get nice and tall again. Take the arms up.

Interlace your fingers, press your palms up. (deep breathing) Pull the arms back, stacking the shoulder blades on the back body and then do the opposite. Draw the knuckles forward, draw the chin to the chest and pull your back, pull your belly in, chin to the chest and then separate shoulder blades. Fold forward a little bit, until you come all the way down. All the way down meaning like for you, wherever all the way down is.

Finish off here with a nice long exhale. Like, "I did it again," exhale. "That's it, number seven, done." Big breath in. Exhale. (deep breathing) Come back up.

Here we are, again, number seven, did it. That wasn't so bad. So, as you can see we're building some strength along the way. We're building progressively in to deeper, more difficult postures and difficult movements. Um, so, stay with me.

I'll see ya for number eight. But, end this on a positive, "I showed up again, again, once again. "Not anything in the past, nothing in the future, "right here, boom, I did it." So I acknowledge it, I see you, okay? Thank you. Thank you for joining me and Yoga Anytime, it's big deal.

Namaste. (deep breathing)