Yoga Feet Warm Up

Series Summary

Yoga poses have become increasingly popular as a form of exercise and meditation. The focus of yoga is a holistic one, employing a broad range of practices which focus on a new way of living, thinking and being in the world. Aimed to unite the mind, the body, and the spirit, the health benefits of yoga are also great and varied. From relieving stress to strengthening and toning muscle, integrating yoga positions and exercises into your daily routine can be beneficial on many levels.

In this free video series, our expert will show you a variety of advanced yoga poses and stretches for all the yoga fanatics out there. You will get step by step instructions for the camel pose, the ustrasana pose and the hero pose. You will also learn how to do yoga thigh and shoulder stretches on your own and with wall or chair supports. Finally get tips on yoga warm ups and cool downs to start and finish your yoga exercises. If you love yoga and want to move on to more advanced moves, let our expert show you everything you need to know.

Video Transcript

"So, what I'm going to bring to you here today is available for all people, and so I'm going to be showing you how to start out warming up for camel pose. So, to begin with I just like to introduce to you some of the things that we'll be using, some of the props, so here we have just a regular metal folding chair, a sticky mat, which of course you will need so you are not sliding and, here we have a few blankets, a couple of blocks, foam blocks, a strap and, a boster. These are items that make the yoga postures a little easier and help as aides. Now if you don't have some of these props at home you can use folded quilts, you can use books, a strap can easily be replaced by a belt, or maybe even a belt that even belongs to your bathrobe. And, a boster can be replaced by using a very folded thick quilt. So, let's go ahead and begin by warming up our feet, so sitting on any type of chair, what we are going to do is take the right foot to your left thigh okay. And we are going to begin warming up the feet so, in ustrasana the pose will be leading up to. It's very important to lengthen the front of the feet alright. So, when you take your leg to your right leg or ankle to the thigh you are going to pull back with your left hand. So, pulling back and lengthening the front of the foot as much as possible, you may, you will feel a big stretch okay, and just to counteract and feel what's it like to do the opposite, flex the foot, and then go back and lengthen the foot. Another way to warm up and lengthen the front of the foot is by taking a finger into each toe and literally holding your foot and, so just go ahead and bring the fingertips all the way to the webbing okay, there you have your foot and that will help to broaden the ball mounts and broaden the front of the foot. Then, pull the hand back, sit up tall, pose we will be doing is the chest opener so, you want to be sitting up tall and opening the chest. So this is something that you will do on each side. And, just hold it for about a minute or so, till you feel really good lengthening coming in the front of the foot."