Build Leg Strength

Oh, namaste. Nice to have you here. This is our strength sequence in our lower body practice. I'm really looking forward to taking this one together with you. We're going to start together in Tarasana. We'll be working all of the things we've been learning so far in the previous routines. We'll start with the actions we know. Let's start by lifting up the toes. Feeling the thighs move back and press down through the heels. As we work in this strength routine today, we're going to feel the leg muscles really get to do their job. Feeling that steadiness in Tarasana, go inside the body with your awareness. Feel how pressing down through the legs gives an inner lift to the body. Focus on that for a few breaths and redo the legs again. Toes up, thighs back, heels down. Feel by pressing the heels down, you get that inner lift and then can you lower the toes back down to the floor. A couple more breaths in your mountain pose and even just doing this starts to build that inner heat in the body that we'll take into our strength practice today. And then relax out of your pose. The next pose will be balancing pose. If you find you need a wall or a chair to help balance, by all means you can take that. Let's start with the left leg first, pressing down through the right leg. Do the work that we know. Thigh back, press down through the heel. We'll bring up the left leg and hold with the hands. Draw that leg deeply up into the body, best that you can do. So we've got two actions. Standing leg, reaching down through the floor, press through the heel. Lifting leg, we're using the arms and the leg strength to draw up. And then ease down and take a break. We'll do the second side. Pressing down through the left leg, we'll draw the right leg up, take a breath in, press down through that left leg, raise the right leg up. You can see the balance challenge there. Pressing down through that left heel and then lower the leg down. Let's go back to the first leg. I'm going to add to it. Find your tadasana actions, thighs back, heels down. We'll bring the left leg up. Capture that leg and take a few breaths to get yourself nice and situated here. And then we're going to open the leg out to the side. So I'm going to use my left hand to hold the shin from the inside and draw the leg out. Right arm can be used for balance and let's do our actions. Right leg down, working that left leg open, tall spine, open chest. Take a breath and bring it back to center and let the leg go. Let's do the second side from the tadasana actions. Raise the toes up, thighs back, press down through the heels. We can set the toes down. Let's go to the second side. Right leg coming up, draw that leg up. Let's get ourselves collected here in the first part of the pose. Then the right arm comes inside, thumb down and we're going to open that leg out to the side. The balance. You may find one side is much, much more stable than the other side. Very, very common to feel and part of what we're working on to help improve. You can see this is my challenge side. And then bring it back to center and we'll let it down. Shake out the legs, relax them and we'll just stand once again in mountain pose. Take a moment to breathe and feel inside your body. That's the most important thing that I can teach in addition to the strengthening components we're doing here, your ability to feel inside your body. And then let's take a little easy break. We're going to go to the next pose, warrior pose, warrior two. So we'll take a wide legged stance, bring the left toes in and the right leg out, stretch out your arms and we've got external spiral on that right leg, active left leg opening the back of the knee. We're going to go in and out of this pose a few times in and out. We're working those leg muscles, working the joints, helping them track properly and building the strength around the legs. Take the last two bends as you look over the right hand and on this last one, let's go down and hold it together. Five count, four, three, two and one. You can feel the heat build up in those muscles. That's what we're doing. Rest your arms, turn your right toes in left leg out, external spiral, nice open back of the right knee. Stretch your arms. Let's go five times. A breath in, exhale, bend and return and bend. Inhale, return. Three more, bending in. Let's take a look over that left hand as we do the work. Two.

On this last one, let's stay down together, working the actions, turning out the left leg, strongly open back of the right leg. Four, three, two and come up. Turn the feet in, heel-toe, heel-toe the legs together. Stand in mountain pose. Take that pause, that moment to feel, feel the heat in the legs, the work that the body is doing. Next pose will be a variation of warrior pose. Wide legged stance. I'm going to turn the body all the way to face over to the right side. Arms are out, making a capital letter A shape with the body and we'll start by bending the front knee. Here comes our action. A breath in, exhale, trunk folds forward, trunk comes back up. Exhale to fold. Inhale coming back, that steadiness of the right leg, the firmness of the left leg. We'll go one more up and down and this last one we go down and hold, challenging the strength, both legs. Long neck, long arms. Two and one. Come up, straighten in the leg, turn to center. Let's pause with wide legs. We'll let the blood come back in that right leg then we'll do the second side. We'll turn the body all the way over to face the left side. So that means right toes well in, body facing over to the left. Stretch the arms out to the sides. We'll take a breath in and exhale, bend that knee. Here we go for our work. Breath in, exhale, folding. Inhale up, exhale, fold. Inhale up, exhale, strong, straight back leg. Inhale up, last two and up. Last one we hold. Come on down. Long neck, long arms, strong, straight right knee. Holding and then come up. Turn the feet in and we'll heel toe our way out of it. Take a minute to shake the legs. Let the blood run up and down through the body. Recover. And then when you feel ready, we'll find Tarasana again just to do that inner experience. Take the consciousness inside. Feel what's going on in the legs. It may be a little bit of shakiness. You might feel steady as a rock, but you find your experience.

Next pose, warrior pose. We're going to turn the left toes in, the right leg out. Once again we'll be facing over to the right side. This time the more traditional pose. Arms up and our work is bending the right knee. Take a breath in, exhale, bend. Inhale, come up. Like we've been practicing, strong, straight left leg, that back leg, open the back of the knee, bend, come up, bend, come up. Let's do one more time. We're going to go down and hold for a five count. The meditation as you stay is that strong, straight left leg, lifting the trunk, soft eyes, soft face. And there's our five. Come up, relax your arms, turn the feet in. Take a minute, pause, let the blood move around on your body. Turn, second side. Body facing over to the left, arms up. Our action is the bending of the left knee. Here we go. Exhale, come back. Exhale, challenging the quadriceps of the front leg, the strength of the back leg, and really the strength of your awareness to be able to feel all those things. Last two, and one. Let's stay down together and holding. Feel the firmness of the back leg lifting, the strength of the front leg holding. Two, one. Release the arms, turn the feet to center, and then heel toe your way back in. Once again, shake out those legs from the work you've been doing. Let your breathing settle, and let's find that tadasana pose one more time. Standing legs together. Don't worry about lifting the toes, but just bring the thighs back a little bit and press down through your heels. We do the press down on the heels to feel an inner, it's almost like a helium type of feel, a lift of the inner body. See if you can rest your attention on that lifting feeling for a moment. Take some breaths. And next pose, chair pose, or its true name, fierce pose. Feet together, stretch the arms up. Five times we go down together, a breath in. Exhale, we're going to bend the knees. Send your bottom back. Come back up. Exhale, bend. Inhale, return. And back up. Last two, bend. And return. Last one, bend, and we stay together, holding. Here's the strength in the legs, all of the leg muscles working. Four, three, two, and one. Come all the way up, release your arms, relax your legs for a moment. From here we're going to make our way into a downward facing dog. We'll come down, place the hands. Remember we'll start from a plank. That gives you your proper distance in the pose. And then press back. And then in your downward dog, lift the heels for just a moment. Let's firm the leg muscles against the bones. Quadriceps pressing the femurs, the thigh bone. Lift the kneecaps. Slowly stretch those heels down. We're going to work in the pose. Take a breath in, bring yourself to plank. Exhale, back to that dog pose again. Reach back. Inhale into your plank. Strong legs lifting. Exhale, back again. We've got three to go. Inhale, come forward. Legs lifting. Exhale, press back. Two. And pressing back. And final one, we're going to hold in down dog. Strong legs lifting. If you ever need to adjust your length, you take care of that any time and we'll hold together. Release the back of your neck. Let your head hang down. Strong legs, powerful arms. Take one more breath. And now we get to take a rest. You're going to bring the knees down. Knees wide, big toes come together and soften down. If you ever feel like child's pose is too much on your knees and you just can't get your bottom to set down on the heels, you can take blankets between your heels and your bottom and bridge that space that you can actually relax. You can let your body into it without feeling like you need to protect. And that's where we get the real rest is just being able to let go. And we'll come up from child's pose and we're going to be lying down on our back. So we'll take a blanket to support the head and neck and then lengthen your spine down onto your mat. Adjust the blanket if you need to. So it's just behind the head and the neck, but not underneath the back of the shoulders. We're going to be doing a little leg strength and ab strength here. We'll start by bringing the left leg in and the right leg up. Challenge yourself to straighten that right leg completely. For some, it won't be able to straighten and that's totally fine. But as we reach the leg away from us, you're going to restreaten as much as you can. Bringing the leg down and then back up. The important part with this move is the firm holding of your leg into your chest and the strong reaching of your leg away from you and down to the floor. By holding that leg into your chest, you're stabilizing, you're holding still the pelvis so you protect your lower back and you get a nice challenge to the abdominal muscles. We're going to do two more. Exhale, reach, inhale, return. Last one. Exhale, reach and return. Bring the right leg in, snuggle that leg in and take just a couple seconds to feel that you do have that leg snuggled well in. If it bothers your knee, you can actually take your hands behind the knee joint and hold from here. That's just fine. Raise the left leg up, snuggle in that right leg. Here we go. Strong reach, charge up energy out of that leg and then bring it back up.

Exhale to reach. Inhale, coming up. Exhale, reach. Inhale, coming up. If you happen to feel a pinching in the front of your right hip, it can be helpful to take the leg outside of your torso. We've got three more. Reach and return, keeping that leg charged up with energy as you reach away and return. Here comes the last one. Exhale to reach and inhale to return. Bend the knee and set the feet down. Our next pose is going to be bridge pose and to do this one for safety of the shoulders and the neck, we're going to use two blankets. You'll see I'll take my blanket and unfold it so it's in that shape there. We can put it a little bit off of the head of the mat and we'll take the second blanket and do the exact same thing. I unfold it. There's the shape of that and we'll set them so that the folded edges are together and then it will help us protect the neck. We're also going to use the strap for this to help us come up. I'll set my body down on the blankets and get my strap ready and you'll notice I have the blankets underneath my shoulders, a little bit of my neck, but my head is on the floor and this helps to open up the neck a little bit for the work we're going to do in bridge. So we'll take the strap behind the body, holding with the palms facing the ceiling. We'll start here by pressing the feet on the floor, lift the hips up and then pull firmly out on the strap. That means if I were to let go of the strap, my arm would swing out to the side. We hold onto the strap, pull outward on the strap and you see that that influences the shoulders to go underneath. We tuck the shoulders underneath and now we're in a well-supported bridge pose. Take a moment and pause in the pose and feel. The Sanskrit name for this pose is Chhatushparasana, which actually means four-foot pose. So we've got our two actual feet and then the shoulders and arms make the second two feet. So we press all four equally into the ground. Then relax the shoulders out from underneath you and let your body down. We'll do that twice more. Press the feet in the floor, lift up, pull out on the strap to begin to move the shoulders underneath you. Wiggle a little side to side, get your shoulders underneath and we'll do the four-foot pose. Press the feet and shoulders into the floor and we lift up here. Soft throat, soft abdomen and you can feel the work of the legs and arms supporting you. Release the shoulders out from underneath, hips down and then we'll do the third and add a little bonus to this one coming up. Let's do the arm action, pulling the arms out to roll the shoulders underneath. I wiggle side to side, bring the shoulders under and we do the four-foot pose. We press the two feet, two arms into the floor. You can see that lift. For this pose, heel toe your feet a little closer together, press down on the right foot, raise the left heel and we're going to bring that knee into the chest. Oh, keeping those hips up high. So the challenge is press down with the right foot and strongly pull the left thigh into the chest. Place the foot down, release the shoulders and come down. We'll do that on the other side. Press the feet into the floor, roll the shoulders under. Four-foot pose, press both feet and the shoulders and arms into the floor and we heel toe the feet a little closer together. It's the right leg this time. Press the left foot into the floor, keep your hips up high and here's that strong pull of the right leg into your chest. Press down with that left foot strongly, equally strong, pull the right knee in and then release shoulders out and touch down. Take a minute, set the strap off to the side and just relax here. Arms open, chest open. Let the breath return to normal. And then we'll turn to the side, press up to sitting. We're going to refold one blanket in half. We'll slide the other one out of the way. This will be for our head and neck as we go into Shavasana.

Once again, lie down on the floor. Adjust yourself so that the blanket is only under the head and neck. Extend out your arms and one by one reach the legs. Close your eyes and relax the legs. Take that feeling consciousness inside your body. Scan the legs for any unnecessary tension that might be there. As you let go of the tension more and more, you feel the legs relax open. Relax the abdomen. Relax your back into the floor. Soft, heavy shoulders. No tension in the fingers. Relaxing the face. And once again, learning to take that backwards step, you notice the sound of my voice, which you're able to take that backwards step into the witness of that voice. You might notice the thinking in your own mind. And again, take a backwards step into the witnessing of those thoughts. Until you recognize that still quietness and you rest there. And again, relax your back. Relax your back. Relax your back. Relax your back. Relax your back. And then slowly and softly, you can rest your hands on your tummy. One leg at a time. Bend the knees and set your feet on the ground. Take a slow, soft turn over to your right side and rest there. You can either support your head with a blanket or with an arm. And then using your hands, press yourself slowly up to a sitting position and find any comfortable sitting position. And once again, closing your eyes and go within. And notice that still quietness is still present. Oh, Namaste. Thank you so much for joining me on this strengthening routine. I look forward to seeing you again.