Morning Yoga for the Back (Rohini)

Namaste yogis and welcome back. In today's episode of Morning Yoga, we're gonna be working into our backs. I sometimes sleep really funny, and when I wake up after hours of typing on the computer, I have a lot of tension in my back. Maybe you're the same. So today we're gonna work into some nice, easy stretches to release all of that tension, so you can go about your day feeling a lot better, okay?

So I want you to come and meet me in the back of your mat, right? Feet are hip width apart. So meeting me in the back of the mat with your feet being hip width apart, they're directly underneath your hips, making your stance quite easy and comfortable.

From here I want you to slowly take your hands and interlace them gently behind your back. Now it's really important that the elbows are not bent. Just pull and straighten the fingers to the floor and you'll feel your shoulder blades squeeze. So we're gonna do that on breath. So on the inhale, just roll the shoulders back, fingers to the floor, drop your head back and enjoy that stretch. Feel it even in the throat, in the thyroid gland.

From there, on your next exhale, keeping the interlace, just lean the weight forward, slowly trying to bring your nose down as close to the navel. Now maybe for you right now, that might be here, but if it's accessible, just allow your head to come down as deeply as you can. Remind yourself to just lean the weight into the toes and allow the hands to just fall. And the weight of these fingers will help you get a little bit deeper into the posture. It'll also open up your shoulders, your legs, and even your lower back.

Now when you hold this posture for a long time and get a little bit of tension, I'm gonna go in and out, just signaling to our muscles to relax and go deeper. So what that means is on the inhale, lengthen, gaze forward, lean your weight into the toes, feeling the stretch in your spine. And on the exhale, just allowing your head to come back a little bit deeper, seeing if you can move one inch closer.

We're doing this again, so when you're ready, inhale, remind yourself to lean the weight forward. So the heels are almost coming off, but they're not. And then from there, slowly relax. Feeling the stretch get deeper. The hands get closer. Maybe the nose coming a bit closer to the knees as well.

One last time, when we're ready, inhale, lengthen and stretch, leaning forward. And on the exhale, scooping in that belly, so you can go a little bit deeper, or bring the fingertips down to the floor. Your nose getting a little bit closer to the knees as you feel the stretch in the back.

From here, slowly unlock your hands and gently bring them down to the floor. You should feel quite a nice opening in the back. Take a halfway lift. Lengthen, gaze forward, hands either on the knees or the thighs.

And if you can, just gently shift the weight into the right leg. Bring your hands to the heart center, put the tummy in, and just lift the left leg up. Take a second longer, slowly straighten your back up, just learning to balance, activate the muscles in the legs and the foot. So we're staying quite active. And extend the foot about halfway to the mat.

Slowly, drop the foot down. Make sure both hips are evenly squared. You're not pulling one hip open. Just square the hips so that they're looking and gazing forward. Once you find this nice comfortable stance, we're gonna go back with the hands. So interlace the hands behind your lower back.

Ready? And inhale, gaze up. Look up, feel the stretch in your thyroid, in your heart, in your head. Keeping that interlace, just like I said before, lead with your chin. And go as deep as you can, feeling the stretch now, behind, in particular, the left leg. Drop your head down to the floor. Feel the main stretch behind your shoulders. Make sure you push the floor down with your toes to feel stable.

Now we're gonna come into a halfway lift, just coming in and out. Inhale, lengthen the spine. Just gaze forward, feeling the stretch. You'll feel the pull behind the left glutes, or the bum. And from there, on the exhale, bringing your nose or your chin down as close to the floor as you let the hands fall, forward a little bit more. Keep your quads engaged, or your thighs.

Again, inhale, gazing forward, lengthening your spine, gaze forward. And on the exhale, bringing your chin down, just moving the head down, the hands cascading, like a big waterfall above you, just allowing you to go deeper.

Ready, last time, this time, on the inhale, lengthen. Remember, we're also trying to activate the muscles in the feet. So lean forward and slowly see if you can lift the right leg up, meeting me in Virabhadrasana III, or Warrior III. Take a second longer, just like you did before, activating the muscles. Release the hands and slowly come to standing.

Activate, don't let the right foot touch the floor yet. You're hovering at just one inch, and then slowly extending the right leg to the front of the mat. Bend the left knee so you drop it down gently. Same extension and stretch on the right leg.

So take the hands again, interlace them behind your lower back. Remember, peeling the chest open. So inhale, just gazing, looking up, shoulder blades touching. And on the exhale, lead with your chin. What this does is it lengthens your spine, helps you get deep into the shoulders, the back, and even the thigh muscle.

Just like we did on the other side, we're gonna come in and out three times, all right? Inhale, lengthening the spine, leading the energy forward, creating a stretch on the side of the right hip. And exhale, moving the chin down, opening the shoulders, going a little bit deeper.

Two more like that. Inhale, lengthen, lead the chin forward, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch. Exhale, finding your balance and moving the nose down a little bit closer, beautiful.

One last time, when you're ready, inhale, lengthen, and remember, on this round we're gonna pause. We're activating the muscles in our toes, in our feet. Just leaning the weight forward and lifting the left leg up high, meeting in Virabhadrasana III, or Warrior III. Take a second here. Slowly release and gently, gently, gently, coming all the way to standing. Just releasing the foot down.

Lower body is super active now. Just shake the feet out to send the blood back. And once you feel hip width apart, on the next inhale, I'm gonna just reach the hands up. Look all the way to your fingertips, stretching upward. Exhale, taking the hands and interlacing them behind your lower back.

One last time, we're gonna peel the chest open, okay? Inhale, just looking up, gazing up, fingers to the floor, allowing your head to drop back. Now the exhale, for the last time, opening up the posterior chain, or the back body, we're bringing our nose down as close to the floor, fingers up.

By now the back body should be really open. It'll be quite a bit easier, a lot more comfortable to go as deep as possible. Hold here for three. Two. Everybody, try and look the deepest possible for one. Slowly unlock the hands, gently bring them down. Grab a hold of either elbow and just sway. And if the sway isn't comfortable, you're welcome to just stand still and move up and down.

The reason we move in and out of postures in this style of yoga is there's something called a stress receptor in your muscle. And as soon as you hold any new posture, the stress receptor releases a signal, saying that, oh, there's something going wrong in the muscle. But give it 40 seconds, and the muscle learns to relax, saying nothing is, everything is fine, nothing is dangerous. So it's why we go in and out, in and out, allowing the stress receptor to just release that signal and say, everything is fine.

Last breath here. Now slowly rolling your way up to standing, as slowly as you can, just stacking one bone on top of the other. You gently come up, your back body should feel really open. Mine definitely does. And reach your hands up all the way again, looking up, stretching up. Bring your hands right back to the heart center.

That was a really simple sequence. It's not complicated, just repetitive movement to open up the back body. And if you think about it, we spend our whole lives sitting down on the chair, on the toilet, in the car. So this part of our body gets very tight, especially around the shoulders and the lower back. So this is the perfect sequence to go to if you ever wake up feeling a lot of pain in your back.

I hope you practice it, leave me some comments so we know how you liked it. Thank you, you must be.