Lower Back Exercises: Double Swan Lifts

Video Transcript

"We're going to work with swan laying prone on our stomach, and we're going to be lifting and lowering both legs at the same time, so you can start out by practicing doing the single leg lifts of swan that you'll see, and then you can graduate on to lifting both and controlling momentum at the same time. Again, if you've got a yoga block, you can put that underneath for comfort of your forehead. I like to stack my fists and then rest my forehead, but keep nice cervical posture, straight neck, no crinkles in the back of the neck. We're going to take an inhale and extend through our toes in through the top of our head, but we're just lifting and lowering the bottom half of the body. So just the legs, attaching into the low back. The goal here is to strengthen and elongate at the same time, and not to hold your breath, and to really pull in those abs so you can feel kind of like a little mouse house in your neutral pelvic posture, or maybe like you're holding onto an ice cube in the middle on your front side while you strengthen and elongate through your back side. Keep breathing as you do the movement and be very careful not to arch in the low back but think of the energy going through the toes and out through the top of your head. "