Back Relief - Part 1

Hi. My name is Olivia. Welcome to a class to help you make your back feel better. So this class is for you if you're having some discomfort in your Barry. And you feel sensitive in your back, you'll need 2 blankets, one block, and one strap.

And we'll start lying down over the blankets. Each one folded in a long rectangle. You can have the smooth edges facing one another with space in between for your shoulders. Your rib cage on one of the blankets and your head on the other. Arms can be to the side with the palms facing up, or you can bend your elbows if your shoulders allow the movement so that the backs of the hands rest on the floor.

Options in the legs. You could have your legs straight. But sometimes when the lower back is sensitive, it's better to bend the knees, take the feet a little wider than the hips, and let the knees rest in on one another. And then lowering the gaze or closing the eyes. Let your body become heavy through your feet, hips, shoulders, and head.

Bring awareness to your breath. And as you inhale, allow the airiness of the breath to fill the lungs, the ribs expanding there, and exhale soften across the front of the torso. And then again, a deep inhalation through your nose. And letting the exhale now bring some softening to the back of the torso, letting your back muscles soften. One more time, deep breath in.

And out. Oh, from here, gently open your eyes. And take the block. If your legs are straight, go ahead and bend them. Place your feet on the mat, hip distance apart. Your knees also, hip distance apart.

Place the block either on its narrow or medium width in between your legs so that your knees are held hip distance apart. And then we'll take the arms to the sides again, inhale, and exhale squeeze the block. Activating your inner thigh muscles. Notice if one side activates more than the other. On the inhale, you can ease up a little bit.

And then when you exhale, squeeze in again. And if one leg feels like it's not squeezing as much give that one a little more attention. So we start to balance the strength in the two sides of the body. And what happens when we activate our inner thighs is that can kick off a domino effect where the pelvic floor engages a little bit. You may feel that happening naturally.

And even the abdominal muscles start to engage, or we can encourage that And so let's use the breath, inhale, easing up on the block squeeze, exhale, squeeze the block firmly, and firm the belly down towards the lower back. Inhale. Releasing the pressure on the block, expanding through the ribs, exhale squeeze the block, and firm the belly to the lower back one more time. Inhale. And now exhale not only firming the belly to the lower back, but start to lengthen the buttocks towards your feet. And then as you inhale, let the space between the floor and the lower back get taller.

So an anterior pelvic tilt, exhale, pelvic tilting the other way scoop the tailbone gently up towards the pubis. Inhale, belly rises. Exale you firm the belly. So the lower back doesn't touch the floor most likely because you're on the blanket, but you're moving it in that direction. Inhale. Barry rises big gap between the floor and the lower back.

Exhale squeeze the block, firm the belly down, inhale, release the abdomen arch up. One more time, exhale firm. And then inhale release midway neutral, and you'll interlace your fingers, put them underneath your head, elbows wide, elbows on the blanket, soften the tops of your shoulders, take a deep breath in, And this time, exhale squeeze the block firm the belly and lift your head and shoulders up. Inhale, lower down. You don't have to lift a lot, but when you do, exhale draw the front ribs towards the thighs.

And inhale lower down. So we're working more now the upper abdomen, exhale, front ribs towards thighs, belly descends. You can even look at it. Inhale, release. Soft face, soft tongue, exhale coming up, squeeze the block, inhale, release, and last time firming legs to block exhale lift head chest shoulders front ribs to front hips and inhale release down, release the head, hands come out, take your block, and release that to the side as well. And then with the arms wide, palms face the ceiling. He'll toe your feet a little bit wider, a few inches wider than your hips. And we're gonna flex the feet and let the knees go to the right.

And so this is sometimes done in a passive position. So that's the one we're taking first. When you exhale, lift your knees up and then go over to the left. And just notice how that feels through your hips and thighs and back. Take a breath in, exhale, and come up. Okay.

And we're gonna take it a little bit differently this time. Do let the knees go to the right. Keep a good flex in the feet. So you're reaching out through your heels. And now in the abdomen, what we did just a bit ago, take your front ribs towards the frontal hip points, the frontal hit points towards the front ribs and actually firm your belly towards your lower back. And this does create space in the lower back and a bit of a posterior pelvic tilt.

And you can accentuate that by firming the left buttock towards the front of the pelvis, almost like a bridge pose feeling, firm the left buttock to the front of the pelvis. So long as your knees are okay with it, you can take your right foot and place it on the left thigh. Keep the abdominal engagement, the firming left buttock to the front of the pelvis. And if you like, you can turn your head to the left. Now from the pelvic floor tailbone area, inhale up the spine towards the crown of your head, big inhale, get length, exhale down the spine, letting go of tension, and inhale up. And exhale down, keeping the firmness in the abdomen, the left buttock, one more time, inhale, up the spine, and exhale down.

Then gently release the right foot. If it's on top of the left leg and on an exhale, firm the belly for the transition, firming the abdomen knees come up and then knees to your left. Flexing the feet, reach out through the heels, take a deep breath in, exhale firm the abdomen, drawing the front ribs towards the navel, and the front of the pelvis towards the ribs, then firm the right buttock. And move from the buttock towards the front of the pelvis, that alone can accentuate the stretch in the front of the right thigh, and you can take your left outer edge of the foot onto the right thigh, but then reengaging in the abdomen, in the right buttock, and turn your head to the right. Begin with a deep breathing inhale from the base of the spine up to the top the spine crown of the head.

Exhale. Relax the facial muscles, the jaw, the shoulders. And then again, inhale up the spine. The spine is in a gentle twist, get some length to it, and exhale softening through the spine, but keeping the firmness of the abdomen, the right buttock, one more time, inhale up the Barry. Exhale down. Come on to the back of your head.

Release the left foot off the right thigh if it's there. And then on an exhale firming the belly again, the legs come up. Okay. Very nice. From here, roll all the way over to your right side. Press up.

And we're gonna take those two blankets and stack them, but there is an option if this is too high to just use one or even none. It depends a little bit on your back. And then you'll sit on the blankets or blanket and to lie down, take a little posterior pelvic tilt and lie down so that your buttocks are on the blankets, that the head and shoulders are down on the floor. Inhale and exhale bring your right knee to your chest. Inhale, exhale flex your left foot and slide the heel out, skid the heel away from the body. Work towards the straight left leg.

So you might put your left hand on your left thigh and encourage the thigh to press down, firming the quadriceps, moving the front of your thigh to the back of your thigh, and roll your inner left thigh down. Now for this one, we're just trying to open the front of the body. So the abdomen can be soft here. And relax with the breath, moving up and down on the wave of breath. And at the end of your next exhale, slide the left foot in.

Catch that leg. You can hold the shin or the hamstring and reach out through the right heel. Skid the right heel away from the blankets as you do roll the inseam of your right leg down. The foot is flexed, so the toes are reaching towards the ceiling, but the back of the heel on the mat and sliding out and out and out to encourage the top of the right thigh down, to encourage the right knee straight the right leg straight. So you will feel the right quadriceps firming even as we open the front of the leg, but the hip flexor portion not firming. That part is just opening.

You may feel a stretch there too. And well, for this one, we'll let the abdomen be open and soft. Inhale, belly rises. Exhale belly releases, and then go ahead and bring the right knee in. Place your left foot back on the floor with the knee bent, foot flat, and take your strap and we'll lasso the strap around the ball of the right foot and take the right leg up. Now if your leg can straighten vertically, great. If not, it could be at more of an angle.

And straps are different lengths. So depending where your hands are, you might be able to slide your hands all the way down, and then you can press your upper arms down into the floor, lift the chest. But even if your strap isn't that long, you could just roll the outer shoulders down into the mat and lift your chest a little bit. With the chest lifted, belly open flex the left foot. And as we did earlier, slide the left heel away from the hips, reach out with the left heel to straighten now the left leg as well.

And roll the inner left thigh down. Like we worked on earlier, straightening the left leg, the quadricep will firm, but we're seeing if we can get some opening across the front of the hip and the abdomen. So inhale, opening, expanding, and exhale softening. In addition, because the right leg is up, sometimes the right hip can hike up towards the right shoulder. So feel into the right buttock on the blankets and lengthen the right buttock, the right sit bone towards the left foot.

And it's a small movement, but it can be very significant for making some space in the right side of your lower Barry. Right, sit bone to left heel. I'm breathing in. Breathing out, bend your left knee, take that foot to the floor, and then bend your right knee. Now we'll bring the left foot into the strap place your right foot on the floor and knee bent, lift up through your left leg, working towards the straight leg, towards a vertical leg, press the outer shoulders down, lift the chest.

And then flexing your right foot. You can pull the toes and the ball of the foot off the floor and keep the toes reaching upwards as you straighten your right leg. That going to help you with rolling the inseam of the right leg down, which helps a little bit more to get some opening through your sew as muscle complex. And as the right leg goes down, it's a strong leg. Firm firm the front of the right thigh.

Make the knee actively straight. That's an active leg. Still pressing the outer shoulders down, chest lifting, soft through the neck, soft through the abdomen, inhale, and exhale. Last thing, take your left outer hip, left sit bone, left buttock towards the right heel, lengthen away from the left waist through the outer hip, and notice how the left waist goes from being short, to spacious. Notice if that gives you any relief in your back. Inhale.

Exhale, bend your right knee. Now we're gonna take the right leg up as well. 2 legs up in the strap, 2 feet up in the strap. At this time, the heels. So swivel that strapped to your heal bones.

And then again, press the outer shoulders down or take the upper arms to the ground, pressing the outer shoulders down collarbone spread. And so we've been working since we've had the blankets under the hips. We've actually been working with a more relaxed abdomen, but now we'll combine this lifting of the chest shoulders down with firming the abdomen. And so take the right leg out and bend your knee, right, foot comes out of the strap. Inhale knee is towards the chest, and then exhale push out at about a forty five degree angle, straightening the right leg, and take the belly down as well.

Bring your leg back up. Inhale. Bend the knee, and then exhale. Push like you're trying to move a mountain with your right heel. Push slowly out and firm the belly down. Inhale. Leg scoops up.

Exhale, bend the knee. Now you can go lower. You could take the leg even parallel to the floor, but the key is to keep the lower belly for me down. Inhale, leg floats up. Exhale, bend the knee. And push. Push out slowly through the heel and push down through the belly.

Inhale. Lead comes up. Last time, exhale. Draw the front ribs and the frontal hit points towards each other, contain in the abdomen. Leg goes long and then up. Change sides. Slip the right foot into the strap, bend the left knee, take a breath in, and then slowly starting a little higher maybe than where you'll end.

Maybe just a forty five degree angle with the hip, extend out, and then bring the leg up. And then you bend it again. It's like a reverse bicycle movement pushing out, but keeping the belly low. And then lifting the leg up. So what happens if you don't focus on the belly is the back can go into an arch in order to get the leg out.

And this is what we want to change our patterning from that towards belly down, lower back unwavering even as we move the leg out and possibly going lower with the left leg for more of a challenge. Inhale, bending the knee, and then exhale is your push. Take it slow. Come back up one more time. And then you can slip that foot right back into the strap.

Two legs up for a moment. Press the outer shoulders down one more time. We have to remind ourselves a lot. Lift the chest up. And then bend your knees.

Bend both of your knees, and you can remove the strap, and you'll bring your knees towards the shoulders. So Apanasana It's like child's pose, but on your Barry. And letting the pelvis and just passively without any muscular effort, it will start to roll into a post your pelvic tilt. And so you can let that happen here. And then same thing for thread the needle.

Cross your right ankle over your left thigh and reach either for your left shin or the hamstring. Olivia good flex for your right foot, reach out through the heel, right toes moving towards your right kneecap, let the exhale soften the temples, the jaw, Changing sides. Right foot comes off. Take your left ankle just outside your right thigh bone. And reach for either the shin or the hamstring.

Draw the right knee towards the right shoulder. Flex the left foot here. So left toes towards left kneecap. Reach out through your heel. Looking for a stretch deep in the hip, deep in the buttock area.

Notice if the belly is gripping at all as you inhale, let the belly inflate up towards the thighs and exhale it softens down. And last one here will either go back to the upanasana knees to chest or you could take thread the needle, catch, or sorry, happy baby, or you catch the outer edges of the feet. And sometimes with the hips up on the blankets, this one, you actually can do it. You can reach the outer edges of the feet. If typically that's challenging, releasing through the inner thighs.

And then go ahead and bend the knees and place one foot and then the other on the mat. Press down through your feet, lift your hips, and slide the blankets out from under your hips towards your feet, towards your feet, and keep pressing them towards your feet until your feet are on top of the blankets. And if you just had one blanket, you might take the other one now so you can have a little more height in your in your feet and legs. And for this one, we'll use the strap. Make a loop in your strap, and we want this loop to hold the thighs hip distance apart.

So once you have your loop, you'll step through Like you're putting on pants, then take the strap around mid thigh, and then you can tighten it as needed, but we're also gonna use the block. You're gonna put the block right in between your thighs. So you have a strap and a block, which is going to help hold the pelvis stable. And what we'll do with the arms is reach them straight up palm space towards the block or towards the feet. Take a breath in Barry to what we did earlier, the pelvic tilt.

This time, you'll touch your lower back to the floor as you firm the belly down. Inhale release. Let's find that again. Exhale lengthen. Make spacious your lower back.

Touch it to the mat and then inhale and release. One more time, exhale. The tailbone just curls up and then keep curling up sacrum. Lower spine come up through the mid spine. And as the hips come higher, higher, higher, arms go lower. Take the arms down alongside your ears.

Inhale up here at the top. Now exhale firm the belly, front ribs, frontal hit points towards one another so that you can articulate one vertebra at a time coming slowly down through the middle back and then the lower back and then the sacrum. And when the tailbone comes down, the lower back arches, you can lift your arms. Exhale. Here we go again. Flaten the lower Barry.

Curl up tailbone sacrum. L54321, those lumbar vertebra. Then we have the thoracic or 12 of them. You might not get them all off the floor. But as they start to lift, bring your arms down.

Palms face the ceiling. Fingers are spreading. Fingers on the floor. If you can't quite get your arms down, you can just bring your arms to the sides. With the elbows bent or straight.

Inhale hips at the top, and then exhale. Find the abdominal contraction again because that is how you roll down. How you articulate one vertebra at a time so that hopefully the places or place where you're having some asymmetries becomes more mobile and strengthened by giving attention to each one. Once your hips are down, lift your arms up, inhale. Last time like this, exhale firm the belly down, lift the tailbone, lift the sacrum, rolling up through the spine as the arms go down behind.

Find to gently hug in on that block. Inhale at the top. Exhale. Reconnect to the abdomen, stabilize there. Engage there. So the lower back is long. And then bringing the arms up, elbows down by your sides.

Elbows bent ninety degree angle. Now we're going to do a different one. We're still going to engage the abdomen but we're not going to flatten the lower back. So if that one was challenging for you in terms of your symptoms, this one might feel better, and they're both useful. At the very beginning, we were lying over a blanket, and we were firming the abdomen, but the lower back was not touching the floor.

And so that is what you're going to do right now, and that's how you're going to get up into bridge. So instead of articulating, we'll just pick the whole body up as a unit, but on the breath and with the abdomen. Place your arms at your sides. I'll talk you through it. Inhale. Ribs expand.

Lower back is not on the mat. Exhale. Firm somewhat in the belly. Press your heels down. Lift your hips. It says one unit go up and then inhale at the top. Now you can come down slowly even if you don't articulate vertebra by by vertebra.

So you're coming down keeping the spine essentially in the same shape. So the hips will lower before the lower back does. And then take a breath in. Exhale, we're still firming the belly, adding the work of the buttocks, lift the hips up as high as your back can enjoy. Inhale at the top, exhale pelvis comes back down lower back does not. One more time. Inhale.

Exhale. Press the heels. Squeeze the block. Hips rise. Inhale at the top. And exhale lower back down.

Okay. Releasing the block. Set it off to the side. Take off your strap. And then we will lie here with the feet together and the knees apart, hands on the abdomen. The feet are together on top of the blanket Bada Kwinasana in the legs, your shins might be on that support.

And now resting, resting the legs, resting the abdomen, letting the breath be a massage from the inside out, massaging the back muscles as you inhale into the back of your torso. Exhale softening, softening. We need both for the health of our back. We need the firming of the muscles around the spine. And when those good muscles that we need are firmed up, the ones that are chronically tight can let go. And so that's what's happening now.

You've used a lot of really important muscles. And maybe some of the ones that grab and hold too much can relax a little bit. You can stay here with your legs, but some other positions, Sukhasana, cross one shin in front of the other. And if you're taking Sukhasana, you'll wanna change sides too. So you do the other side.

And if none of those positions are working, you can extend the legs out over the blankets, maybe scoot a little closer to them so your knees and thighs are on the blankets. And we'll all end up here when you feel ready to come into Shavasana, use your hands, adjust the buttocks towards the blankets, then tuck the shoulder blades underneath towards the spine. Close your eyes and rest. Continue on here with the letting go. Noticing the sensations where there's warmth, perhaps where there's been a lot of muscle contraction and blood flow, sensing your health, your vitality, your ability to heal within you.

You have more time. Feel free to spend more time here. Otherwise, bending the knees, feet to the bolster. Roll over to your side and slowly come up. Thank you for your practice.