Yoga Forward Bend Pose

Video Transcript

"I'm Linda Black. We're going to go into a wide angle forward bend to stretch the hamstrings, strengthen the leg and get some joint mobility. So we ended up on a forward facing so bring your hands to the chest and push yourself into downward facing dog turning the toes under, coming through hands and knees and lifting the hips to the sky. Step the left leg forward to your left hand and then pivot all ten toes so they're facing the side wall to the right. Excellent. Inhale, extend the spine, soften the heart, bring the weight forward in the bowels of the feet. Beautiful. Exhale, bend the elbows and draw the chest towards the floor. Try not to round the back so much, yes, very nice Gentry and then keeping if the hips are coming behind the heels you want to shift that weight forward just enough that you feel some pressure in the ball of your foot. Go ahead and wiggle your toes a little bit and then draw the knee cap towards your thigh by increasing the energy in the quadriceps so right here you are lifting up. Soften the pose just a little bit. There you go. So you can go a little bit deeper. Sometimes we hold tension in the legs so hard that we can't get a full stretch here. We do want a co-contraction, front and back of the leg equally engaged in this forward bend. That's nice. Deep breaths, open through the heart. If your head is touching the floor you may want to bring the feet in a little bit and then challenge yourself to go a little bit deeper like Debbie is doing. Awesome. To come out of this pose place the hands on the floor in front of the forehead, just below the forehead, extend the spine, nice. Exhale, place the hands on the hips. Inhale, come all the way up, squeeze the inner thigh. Very strong through the legs. Nice and you're done."