Pre-Yoga Stretches

Hi guys, this is Suria here and thanks for joining me on my journey. Well, like I said, I am almost like a beginner to yoga, and yesterday we spoke about how to prepare yourself to start doing yoga. So I hope you started to eat well, eat healthy and on time, sleep on time, and of course try to follow a healthier and a cleaner lifestyle. So today in this video, I am going to explain the stretches that we saw yesterday a little more in detail, and the challenges that you might face and the things that you could do to improve it.

Stretch your arms upwards, keep your spine straight, try to bend down and touch the ground. Now breathing is very important, because the more deeper you breathe, the more flexible you get. So as you go up, you stretch, you inhale, fill your lungs with enough oxygen, and as you bend down, you let all the air out as you exhale and touch the ground. Again, as you go up, inhale slowly and exhale as you go down and touch the ground. Now repeat this at least 20 times.

All yoga asanas and stretches require a counter pose. Now for the backward bend, as you do the backward bend, you inhale, take a deep breath and you go backwards, you bend and exhale, you can feel the stretch from your neck to your abdomen. Now this is a little hard, spread your legs a little apart and try to hold your thighs and do this again. Do this at least 10 times. You inhale, you bend backwards, you exhale and hold your breath. Again, in a relaxed way, inhale and exhale.

If the forward and backward bend is a little difficult for you, you could always keep your legs a little apart and try to do this. You could also use the yoga block to help you. You take the block, keep your legs apart, stretch up to the ceiling and bend forward. Try to keep your spine as straight as possible and stay in this position for a good 4 to 5 minutes. You can feel that your leg muscles have relaxed out a little bit.

The lateral stretch is important to keep your lateral muscles flexible, we'll be using this in a lot of asanas in the upcoming videos. Now keep your legs apart, stand straight and hold your knee and put one arm up, keep your spine straight, try to look up to the ceiling and stay in this position for 5 seconds. Inhale, and as you bend, you exhale and stay for 5 seconds. And again, you repeat this on either side at least 10 times.

Keep your legs a little apart and do your hip rotation clockwise and anti-clockwise at least 10 times. This is very important for a daily routine, especially for proper balance, stability and spine alignment. Make sure that you always stand straight and upright in between for at least 5 to 10 seconds between the stretches.

Keep your legs a little apart for the sideward twist with your feet pointing forward and keep your hands next to your chest, inhale, and as you stretch your arms out and stretch backwards you exhale. Again, as you come back you inhale, and you continue doing this on the other side, do this at least 20 times. This twist actually really helps you with your digestion, it improves your digestion, it helps you maintain your spine rotation, it helps you detox because as it cuts off blood supply to your digestive system it sends in fresh blood, so it really enhances your metabolism. This also helps reducing your back pain and it is a great way to shape your upper waist.

Keep your legs stretched apart a little bit, try to hold your palms from behind, this helps you open up your chest and helps you with your posture. Now we focus again on our shoulders, try to do your shoulder rotation as much as possible, as you can see it's a little difficult for me cause I haven't done this in over 3 months, and you can do this again with your arms spread apart, if it is hard you can do it one at a time. And make sure that your breathing is steady, slow and deep. Continue doing this because it really helps you strengthen your arm muscles, which will help you do your asanas in the next upcoming videos.

Now for the ladle stretch, keep your legs a little apart, your palms together, stretch bent forward, go down, touch the ground, and again come up, try to reach the ceiling. You sort of do a circle with your palms joined together. Now this is an ultimate stretch or a warm up which will really help you stretch all of your muscles out, and it's an easy way and a quick warm up exercise. Do this clockwise and anti-clockwise at least 10 times and you could feel the difference in your flexibility.

Now for the breathing, make sure that you're breathing heavily and deeply. Give yourself enough oxygen and make sure that you don't sweat. Make sure that you do your joint warm ups like we saw in the previous video before you do these stretches, on loop for half an hour, every day, morning and evening. So the next few videos, we're going to see the development that has happened in our muscle and our flexibility by continuing to do these stretches on loop.

I will see you tomorrow, until then stay focused and stay healthy.