Day 1: Quad and Calves

Chapter 1

Tutorial

Welcome to day one of this yoga challenge and for this day we will be working a lot with the front chain of the legs and a little bit with the quadriceps and the ankles and you will want a blanket for sure for this practice and also your dowel prop. The blanket will come in handy to pad your knee in the lunges that we'll be doing. A big portion of this practice will be lunging and even if you think that you don't need it I found it to be so useful to have that little bit of padding between my knee and the floor and it really helps me let go a little bit more because my kneecap and the ligament right on the top of the kneecap isn't compromised. So no need to be uncomfortable because if you're comfortable you might love it more and practice more. So that's just a hot tip and with your dowel we'll be using this for rolling out the quadriceps and this front part of the leg. I might look really relaxed when I go into putting this dowel underneath my quadriceps and getting into those pressure zones. I do it all the time so this is my favorite travel prop. For you it might be a little bit alarming to get your tissue onto that prop and it might even feel like it's too hard for you at first and so you'll use your blanket then to pad it but for the sake of time in the practice I don't go into that but that might be your sweet spot is to have a little bit of softness around that wood or whatever you're using for this prop. When you're pressurizing your tissues it's important that you're not gripping them with the pressure so it might be counterproductive if you're just tightening around the prop. So something that I often think about is really releasing three key areas in the body the jaw, the jaw moving down into the neck, into the pectoral area and then the hips. So if those areas can say soft like when you clench in those areas it's probable that you're clenching through your entire fascial system in your body so just be aware of that. When you first start doing this practice you might be clenching a little bit more and then you'll get used to releasing around the pressure and really letting go and using that pressure tool as a squeeze and then flush for your tissues. So I hope you enjoy that as much as I do and I can't wait to do this practice with you and we'll see you in day one.

Chapter 2

Practice

Welcome you have made it to the first day of this seven day yoga challenge and hopefully habit formation for bringing yoga into your life. Today we're gonna hop right in and do a little bit of work with the ankles and the calves and then work a lot on the front of the leg chain so hip flexors and quads and for this practice you will need a dowel a wooden dowel which you can see behind me or maybe a broomstick or a vacuum cleaner attachment that will work. So come to seated and I'm sitting up on a blanket you might want to too to give yourself a little bit of height and you can take your left leg on top and just dangle the ankle off so that you have some space to grab onto your left foot and circle the ankle a little bit. So just getting some space and mobility in your ankle joint and if you want to I like doing this it's a little tricky but you can fit your fingers in between your toes and kind of nuzzle them up to the base of the toe and circle your ankle like that and for me I really love this one. You can circle it around one way and then the other and you can point your foot and flex your foot and then we'll switch sides. We'll take the other side start by just opening up through the ankle and maybe coming into your deeper breathing so perhaps you've had a big day on your legs today breathing deep and exhaling your day here and then you might try to wiggle your fingers in to the toes and a little bit of lotion really helps to get them there if you'd like that. Right to the base of the toes and circling around one way and then the other and then pointing and flexing. Beautiful and then we're going to turn I'm just going to turn this way so that you can see onto our hands and our knees to do a little bit of work on the calves. Okay so we're going to bring our feet a little closer together and then take the bone at the top of your foot into the arch of your we'll start with our right foot onto our left foot and then sit back down on that so the feet are turning away from each other a little bit here and you can monitor how much weight you want to put down you can have your hands forwards or you can even come right up and sometimes it takes a little bit of work to just wiggle around and find that sweet spot in the arch of the foot so we're opening up the plantar fascia so for anyone who's been on their feet all day this is a wonderful efficient way of self-massaging. I sometimes wiggle back and forth here too and just maybe move a little bit up and a little bit down deep breath in exhale it all out and we'll switch sides so crawling forwards out of that I might rotate or you might rotate your ankles there and switching sides so the left bone of the top of the foot or those bones really resting into the arch and sitting back and just wiggling around to find that sweet maybe trigger point spot where a bunch of those fascial lines are converging and you can wiggle side to side move your foot up and down and take a nice deep breath there inhale and exhale it all out just switching gears here if you've been busy all day giving some attention to your body and then we'll walk forwards and go back to the right shin bone now the right side and put that lower shin bone somewhere on your Achilles between the base of the calf and the heel and you can lean back on that and find a sweet spot there you might come up a bit and if you're coming up just try not to overarch your back nice neutral spine this one's quite flavorful exhale it all out and then we'll walk forwards and switch that out shin bone right on that Achilles that connective tissue and sometimes you can play with the direction of your toes as well turning them out away from each other sometimes gives a little bit more sensation a few deep breaths and then we'll walk it forwards and here i'm going to take my right shin bone and find the belly of my left calf and just i just like to wiggle it out a little here and relax it and then we're going to sit back on that right in the belly of the calf now of course you can come up but it's that's a little bit too much tension for me so i'm going to stay down low and you might try that too and then we'll release that and switch find the belly of the calf soften it with your shin bone and then find that special spot you might be using other words to describe that okay we're gonna walk forwards excellent and i'm going to turn around here just for your viewing to tuck our toes and reach back into your first downward dog and just elongate the calf flesh and you might pedal out your feet here saying hello to this four-legged form and then here we'll take our feet together at the back of the mat and inhale and reach your right leg up you can come high up onto your left toes and then drop your heel and we'll exhale and bring that foot through bringing your shoulders over the wrist bringing your foot on the inside of your left hand and i'll walk that left foot back and you can take your knee down here option for you to take a support under your knee so i'll just put that there to show you that top of the left foot down and we'll oscillate forwards and backwards exhale back inhale forwards maybe arching the spine a little bit exhale back toes come up and inhale and forwards just introducing yourself to this lunge shape when we come forwards keep your right hand to the outside of your right foot and we'll circle our left arm back and up and just take a few breaths in there being aware to keep your left pinky toe grounded deep inhales and exhales you can focus on exhaling a little longer than you inhale and then circle that arm all the way back down and we'll crawl up out of the lunge so this is where i really like that support under my back knee your hands can come up onto your front knee and you're looking at having a 90 degree angle or a box shape here with your knee over your ankle and your hip over your knee relatively and then we'll take our left arm up palm facing in and bring your front ribs down towards your sitting bones to start to connect to containing the front and opening the back take a few deep breaths here using the powerful muscles of your glutes to slightly shift your hips forwards and hopefully you're feeling a nice stretch through the front of your thigh and then we'll bring that down walk your right toes a little bit more forwards and start to drop your hips a little bit more towards the front of the mat and something that i've been thinking about a lot in my practice is keeping my sit bones nice and wide so moving away from the center of the pelvic floor to create a lot of space in the back of the pelvis and then you can either stay here nice and low or you can crawl up out of this bring the front ribs in so you're a little less of a box as you shift your hips forwards but the knee is over top of the ankle and then if you like you can take both arms up here again front ribs in sit bones wide two deep breaths one and two exhale hit the mat plant your hands and step back into your downward dog and pedal out your feet there and then for a moment be still you might have your knees quite bent still close your eyes if it feels safe and just notice the difference in your left and your right side okay feet together at the back of the mat your left leg can come up reach it out of the hip joint you might come high up onto your right toes and you might drop your heel and then again come high up onto your toes shift your shoulders over your wrists and bring that left foot on the inside of the left hand and drop your right knee down prop or not exhale round back toes up inhale shift forwards and drop your hips and maybe arc your spine a little bit there exhale move your way back and inhale forwards and as you sink forwards here we'll keep our left hand on the outside of the left foot and then circle your right arm back and up and if you're really hunching your shoulder blades around your ears you can think about drawing the lower tips of the shoulder blades down the back pressing the pinky toe down of your back leg getting a nice long line there and then circle your right arm over your right arm over your ear and back down i'm gonna walk that left foot back a bit so that when you come up crawl up out of the lunge you have that box shape of space knee over top of the ankle hip over the knee of the back leg and the right arm comes up palm facing in exhale your front ribs down into your belly down towards your sitting bones and then a little engagement from the glutes to move the hips a little forwards in space grounding through whatever's on the ground and breathing into the front of the hip and the front of the thigh sometimes if you look down you can even get more containment through your ribs and then we'll bring that all the way down shift the left foot more forwards and start to sink the hips a little bit more making sure you keep your left heel well grounded so you can stay here letting the hips sink and widen sit bones moving apart or you can start to come up a little bit pressing on the knee to bring your belly button a little bit away from your front thigh you might notice a difference on both sides and when it gets challenging for you deepen your breath focus on the exhale being a little bit longer and deeper and your arms can come up here as well lifting that dead weight off of your hip joints one and exhale all that junk out two and then hitting the mat here tucking your back toe under and stepping back to downward dog pedal out your feet and then be still and maybe you can start to ease the calf flesh down through the heels and towards the mat press into your hands and lift your hips away from your fingertips elongating your spinal column close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out enjoying that release from the shape or the form feet together at the back of the mat again inhale your right leg up and exhale this time bring it shoulders over the wrist and bring that foot to the outside of your right hand and we can wiggle your left leg back there and bring the knee to the prop or to the floor top of the foot on the mat and again introducing yourself to the posture exhale come back toes kick up and inhale shift forwards and your upper spine can extend a little bit there exhale and kick it back toes up and inhale come on forwards if it supports you you can turn your right toes out and the right knee out a little bit so it's facing out on a diagonal if it feels a little bit easier in your hips i like to keep that foot parallel and the knee hugging into your arm and then we'll see if we can come a little bit more forwards in this shape so maybe you can take your left elbow down and hang out there and some of us will be able to take both elbows down into this low lizard lunge if you're feeling your knee is a little bit cranky from the pressure then you can press into all of your toes the toenail side of your foot to elevate a little bit of pressure off your knee let's let our head hang and think about your sitting bones widening apart from each other maybe you can even think about your jaw widening deep long slow breaths one more deep breath beautiful walk back up and take your left hand almost off the mat turning your fingers out on a diagonal and your right hand on your right knee and start to turn turn your left sacrum down back of the pelvis left rib cage and right rib cage up either stay there or bend your back leg your back knee and make a big movement back to grab the outside of the foot and instead of sagging so much into this lift up a little bit by pressing into whatever's touching the ground and kick back into your foot take a huge breath collarbones are nice and wide here circle it all the way back and get out of there so exhale your way back into downward dog or maybe a child's pose if you like child's pose is resting back on flexed knees and then we'll roll it back up and find your downward dog feet together at the back of the mat inhale your left leg up you can come high up onto the toe you can drop the heel again high up onto the toes shoulders over the wrists left foot to the outside of your left hand drop the knee down onto the prop or the mat adjust exhale and round your spine toes up inhale and sink it forwards exhale and round inhale and sink think about that spinal wave lubricating your spine here and as you come forwards you can turn it out if it gives you more space or keep that foot parallel and i'll start by bringing your right elbow down first and see if that's enough and maybe your left and then imagine dragging your belly button forwards it's almost like you can grip your mat and drag your spine forwards you can also let your head go widening your sit bones almost to three and nine o'clock so you're thinking about that width across the pelvis SI joints one more nice deep full expansive breath into the lower lungs walk it back up take your right hand on that angle almost off the mat fingers turn out and your left hand onto your left knee let the pelvis drop on the right side turn your left lung over your right lung and you can stay there if it feels appropriate to bend your back leg make a big movement back and take the outside of the foot and then kick back and instead of sagging actually lift up a little bit open up the collarbones relax your jaw there's a lot of intensity in this one and then sweetly come on out of that get out of the shape and find your downward dog or child's pose check in let's come down onto our knees here take this blanket if it's there out of the way and bring your dowel right underneath you and come on to your belly with the dowel in the center of the belly of the quad you can stack your hands in front and place your forehead on your hands and just do a little wobbling side to side through your hips you could even roll a little bit forwards and back and this might be enough to hang here you could come up and generally that puts more pressure down onto the dowel and if you like a little bit more here you can lift one of your legs and straighten and bend it and for me the slower that I go I can almost feel those four muscles in the quadriceps kind of shifting over that prop and also you can circle with your foot this is my favorite or you can windshield wiper side to side and you can also switch position orientation and move the emphasis point around okay we could probably be here for a whole half an hour and if you want to you could always pause this video and spend a little bit more time in this and you could roll out right from the top of the quadricep all the way down to just above the kneecap so I'm really letting my jaw relax as I do this and the effort is to not grip around the prop so if it's too much you could always put a blanket over top of it or elevate put a blanket underneath your ribs to elevate you a little bit okay I'm going to do one more spot here with you and if this is if you're feeling this in your lower back from too much extension you can always come down a little bit lower and release that okay we're going to release that and come up and back and we'll take that prop out to the side and we'll turn onto our back here so bring your knees in and take your left foot and hook it under your right and grab a hold of that left foot with your right hand and then start to let the left knee come straight out from your hip and drop down towards the mat without overarching your back come you could plant the foot and enjoy that right there if you want it to be a little bit more sensation you could take your right knee in grab a hold of it with your left hand and draw that in towards your armpit you're probably going to feel this exactly where you need to feel it but I'm definitely feeling it in the center of the belly of the quadricep some people who are of the more flexible variety could even straighten out this leg but just be mindful that your hips don't come too much out of alignment so you're keeping that width across the pelvis and we'll just gently release that and switch sides so your right foot hooks under grab a hold of the top of the foot with your left hand so you're crisscrossing your limbs your knee will come down your foot can plant knee comes straight out from your hip joint you can come across and pull in towards the armpit so sweet here allow those breaths to wash through the body noticing if you're holding tension in the jaw the pectoral muscles or the front of the hips you can straighten out if you like there's definitely more intensity there you can always give it a little bit more or back off that's the beauty okay let's let that go walk the feet nice and wide and turn the feet out and just start to do this windshield wiper movement which is letting the knees fall to one side and then the other beautiful and then let your knees fall to the left and you can stay there and shoot your knees away from you so you're starting to get some space in the front of the hip i'm even using my glute engaging that a little bit to get in there or you can curl up grab a hold of the top of the foot even roll onto your side to place the top of the foot on your mat and then roll back and depress your hips and your lower back even planting your left foot on the ground a little bit we're gonna let that go slide right out of it windshield wiper a few times toes turned out shift the knees and the outer feet to the right either stay there shooting out especially through that top left knee or rolling up and taking the top of the foot and placing the top of the foot and all the toenails on the floor and then depressing the whole thing elongating through your lower spine maybe plant your right foot here and then we're gonna slide out of that and you made it step your feet wide you can let your knees fall in towards each other and rest your palms open close your eyes if it feels good and take a nice deep breath in and then exhale half of your breath out and pause and then exhale all your breath out inhale and exhale at your own time one more like that big deep breath in fill all the way to the collar bones back of the lungs back of the heart and exhale half your breath out and pause exhale to empty breathe in and out and relaxing your whole body and knowing that you can stay here for five to ten minutes just tracking sensation tracking relaxation reminding yourself to let go when you're happy with that you can stretch your arms over your head roll over onto one side press your hands and come on up thank you so much for being here with me today i look forward to tomorrow day two where we will practice together again namaste