Yoga Standing Back Warm Ups

Video Transcript

"Once, you've mastered the spinal roll downs with your feet in a more neutral position, I want you to take your feet and your hips to a wider width. The reason, why they are little wider than hip width apart, is because we are going to add in some shoulder stretches. We will do mid-back stretches, along with that. You will start as if you are going to sit in a chair. Leading with your chest, just like you did on the spinal roll, we will come down. From here, we are going to hold a neutral pose. Keeps your back nice and flat, as if, you have a string pulling your head in one direction? You will have your derriere, or buttocks, going in the opposite direction. Round your back by bringing your navel in towards spine. You should always have your hands resting above your knee joints. Try not to put pressure on your legs, but you should think of extending out. You will inhale, extend and exhale. Next, you'll round your back, push your navel towards your spine and blow out all of that air. Now, this time, instead of coming all the way up to a neutral position, we will just work this from a flat-back position. Exhale. Once again, you'll do a spinal flexion and extension while working in your active range of motion. You want to try to articulate all seventeen vertebrae of the spine, from cervical to lumbar. Now, once again, we are going to come down into that flat back position. We are going to take our right shoulder and we are going to cross it over to our left leg on the diagonal. However, we are going to lead with the inner shoulder muscle. We will not push our shoulder joint over. We want to facilitate a nice open chest. Inhale and exhale. You need to keep breathing all the way through. You will hold this pose for10 to 20 seconds, breathing the whole time. Come up and then you'll release in the opposite direction. Again, you will press that chest out and over the top of the thigh. You will leave the shoulder joint in-line with your hip. Now, you'll square it off. Bring your feet together in a more neutral stable position and we are going to roll up. As you are rolling up, slowly articulate through the spinal column and then back to that neutral position. You will depress the shoulders retract in the scapula. Now, you are ready to go all the way down to the mat once you've done your standing spinal flexion and extension."