Yoga for Inflexible People _ 20 Min Yoga for Complete Beginners _ ChriskaYoga

Hello , I am Christina and welcome back to Kris A yoga .

So I'm back filming new videos after my back injury that I explained two videos prior to this one feels good to be back .

And I wanted to make a video today that has been uh requested slightly .

I say requested slightly .

It was like kind of indirectly requested .

Anyway , I have several videos on this channel , yoga for stiff and tight muscles , yoga to release sore muscles and people kind of confuse tight muscles for inflexibility .

When I say tight muscles , I mean , muscles that I have a lot of tension that um maybe you haven't used in a while that once you start to stretch them a little bit , they start to remember that you can fold forward that far for an example .

Anyway , long story short , this is a yoga class for inflexible people .

Flexibility is a range and especially if you're just starting out with yoga , perhaps some of the poses are really unachievable for you .

And if that is the case , then this is the perfect routine to do .

It's not too long .

It includes a lot of yoga poses which will help you to get the same stretch in the poses .

But without having to do the full expression of the pose , you'll get the same stretch , the same benefits .

If you aren't quite flexible enough yet to achieve the full expression of post , that's what the yoga props are for .

I hope you enjoy it and I hope you find it helpful before we get started .

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So if you're ready , grab your yoga mat and let's get started , we're going to begin in Shawana for Shaina .

If you have and stiff muscles , you might also suffer from low back sensitivity in Shana , Shana is lying flat on the floor , which I'm going to show you in a moment .

So come down onto the floor and if this is the case for you take a blanket and roll it in a thick , semi thick , roll at the bottom part portion of your yoga mat where your knees will be , then you can place your knees on top of the rolled blanket , gently lower yourself down and come to Shabana for a moment since we're starting off with and we want to ground ourselves a little bit .

So take your palms and place them flat on the floor , look up towards the ceiling and then close your eyes , relax your limbs completely and take a moment from here to come inward .

Focusing on the breathing and breathing deeply in and out through your nose , draw your attention to the breath .

And if at any moment while we are here , your attention goes to another thought that's totally fine and totally normal .

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And from here , bend your legs and remove the blanket or just set it off to the side , we will be using it again , bend your knees , placing the flat , uh placing your feet flat on the floor and knees pointed up towards the ceiling just from here , hug the right leg in , holding on behind the knee on the hamstring .

So don't hold on to the knee , just hold on to the the back of your thigh with both of your hands .

You can clasp them together as I'm doing here and just allow the leg to fall and flex the right foot .

Continue to hug the leg in towards the chest .

Breathe here and hold and from here , release your hands from the thigh , place the bottom of your right foot on the floor and switch legs , hold on to the hamstrings or the back of your left thigh with both of your hands , allow the top or the bottom half of your leg to gently fall onto the hands .

And wherever it is , it could be all the way out here .

Depending on your uh level of flexibility , it um is likely not going to look like my body .

Nobody's body is the same ever .

So your leg might look completely different .

As long as you're feeling the stretch here and softening the left hip socket , make sure that your left foot is flexed .

Relax here for a moment and breathe deeply .

And from here , release your hands from your leg , gently roll onto the right side of your body and press yourself up with your hands .

So use your hands to help you come up .

This protects your back and helps to prevent any strain and come up to a seated position .

Now , from here , I'm going to take my blanket once again .

We'll also need our yoga strap .

So I'm gonna grab that quickly , unwrap the strap .

So it is ouch and ready to use .

And then I'm going to take my blanket from here , fold it into a square as it's shown here .

And then I'm going to fold that square in half place it , I'm going to sit on top of it and I want to make sure that my sixth bones are right at the edge of the rounded edge of your yoga blanket .

Now , this is specifically great for people who are tight in your hamstrings , tight in your low back .

This is going to help promote a forward tilt of your pelvis and help prevent overly rounding the low back , which could cause uh some problems in the discs of your spine and the lower spine , the lumbar spine specifically .

So sitting on a rolled blanket , you can even put more blankets on top of each other , just make sure that the six bones are right on the edge of that rolled edge .

And that just helps to promote that forward tilt of your pelvis .

So take hold of your strap , sit on top of the blanket or blankets that helps to lift up your pelvis as well off of the floor , create more height .

This blanket is great for that and then stretch your legs out .

So keep them hips distance apart , flex your feet and then this is what our strap is for .

Take our strap in both hands , place the strap on the balls of your feet .

So if you need to bend your legs to get them there , and that's fine , take the strap , place it on the balls of both of your feet straighten your legs out once again and hold on evenly on both sides of the strap .

And this just helps us to get a forward fold .

This is a complaint of a lot of people who are tight in this area , the hamstrings , the backs of your legs , the low back .

And this helps you to get this stretch the forward fold without actually having to reach your toes or be able to fold all the way forward as you might often see on in yoga photos or in yoga classes .

So hold on to your strap , your pelvis isn't , is uh tilted forward as much as possible here with the help of our blanket looking down towards the legs , holding on and pulling the strap gently feeling the stretch in the entire backs of your legs .

And also perhaps the low back looking down , keep as much length in your spine as possible and hold here , release the strap from your feet , set your strap gently off to the side and then you will come to standing and set the blanket off to the side once again and then we'll take our block , our yoga blocks , place them at the highest height towards the top of your yoga mat .

We're going to come into a forward fold here .

So just as we did with the seeded forward fold , we're using an aid with our blocks to help raise the floor up so that we can get the same benefits of a forward fold without actually having to place our hands on the ground .

You can stack blocks as well .

Or if you're using a substitute stack , the substitutes , whatever you're using to make it even higher .

So even if you're here , you could even use a chair and blocks on top of the chair as long as you feel that it's stable and it's even so your body isn't tilted or crooked , you want to remain even .

So , make sure that your prop is even as well .

So I have my yoga blocks here .

I'm going to place both of my hands on top of the yoga blocks .

You , you can also bend your knees here .

So if you're feeling tight , particularly in the attachments of your hamstrings , so the attachments are at the back of the knee and the sits bones are right at the bottom of the glutes .

So if you're feeling tight or some uh pinching there , you want to bend your knees just a little bit and this helps to protect the attachments of that muscle or the muscle group .

So once you're here , place your hand on the block , relax your head over , find as much length in your spine as you can and just breathe and relax here .

And from here , we're going to step the left leg back , so you can use your hands to help you balance , step the left leg back and we're coming into a very wide stance here .

So a little bit wider than the length of one of your own legs .

So we're coming into an , a high lunch .

Look down , make sure your toes are pointed forward , your knee is tracking directly above the right ankle and then press into the ground with both of your feet and lift up your torso at the same time , reach your arms up palms , facing each other , continue to lunge forward into that right leg .

And we're going to hold our high lunge here for a few deep breaths .

And from here , bring your hands to your hips , shift your weight onto the right leg and step that left leg forward .

Once again , if you need to take multiple steps forward , that's totally fine as well .

Make sure your hips , your feet are hips distance apart , place your hands back onto the blocks , relax your head over , bend your knees if needed and remain here .

We'll do that same thing on the other side .

So press into the blocks if needed for balance .

Step the left or the right leg back into high lunge on the left , your left knee should be directly above the left ankle .

Press into the floor with both of your feet .

Lift up your hands , lift up your torso lunch forward into the right leg of the left leg .

Excuse me , the right leg is behind you straight and energized .

Your right heel is raised , looking forward , palms facing each other and hold here and from here , bring your hands to your hips , shift your weight onto the left leg .

Take as many steps as you need to come back into your forward fold .

Place your hands on the blocks , relax your head over for a moment and breathe from here , gently , make your way up to standing with a straight spine .

Will take a wide leg forward , fold , take both of your blocks and place them in between the legs here at shoulders distance apart because we'll be placing our hands on the blocks once again and step your feet out wide as wide as you can .

Generally , as I said before , the length of one of your own legs wide , your feet are parallel to one another from here , place your hands on your hips .

Once again , bend your knees , send your hips back behind you and fold the torso over , bring your hands to the blocks at any height as needed .

Once again , if you need to lift it up even further , just build the floor up using a stable and even prop to place your hands on top of once you're settled with your props , your hands are shoulders , distance apart , relax your head over , look down and breathe and slowly come up to standing with a straight spine , bring your feet back in towards each other slowly and come to a seated position .

I'm going to be using my blocks once again , bring your feet to meet each other at the centerline of your body and your knees out to the side .

Now , if you are very tight or have stiff and tight muscles inflexible , perhaps we might tend to this pose might tend to look more like this with your knees hiked up really high .

Uh , you're not able to release the knees down towards the floor quite yet .

This is what the blocks are for .

So you can take the blocks at any height .

So you can take them at the lowest height , the medium height or the highest height and place them underneath the knees to support the leg .

It can also stack blocks as well depending on your current needs .

So I'm gonna take my blocks and place them underneath my legs .

My legs are feeling supported by the blocks .

So they're not being pressed down by gravity and straining , uh too quickly in those muscle groups that are stretching .

So just make sure that you're at a comfortable height with the blocks and your legs feel supported and you're still feeling a stretch and the inner thighs , the hip sockets , and we're going to take a forward fold .

So fold forward any amount that you can and hold on to your feet or your ankles .

Looking down , finding as much length in your spine as you can and hold here slowly come up out of your forward fold , take your blocks , set them off to the side and will come to lying on the back .

Once again from here before we lie down , you can take your blanket once again as we did at the beginning of the class and bring it to that role place it right where your knees are going to rest in our final pose .

Shabana gently lower yourself down onto the floor and from here hug both legs in towards the chest , hold on two behind the thighs .

So the hamstrings of both of your legs , relax the shin and calf part of your legs and flex your feet , hug the legs in towards the chest , any amount that you can feeling a gentle stretch in the glutes , the hamstrings and the low back and just relax here for a moment .

And from here , release your hands from your legs , straighten them out onto the ground , relax your knees on top of the blanket , roll , relax your legs and feet .

This time place your palms facing up towards the ceiling .

Close your eyes come inward and deepen the breath breathing deeply through the nose in and out as we did at the beginning of the class , draw your attention to your breathing .

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And when you're ready , bend your legs and roll onto the right side , rest there for a moment with your legs bent and your arm under your head , press yourself up , using your hands , come to a seated position , cross your legs .

If you need to sit on top of the blanket .

If this is uncomfortable for you , you can do so as well .

Cross your shins , bring your hands to your legs , sit up tall , close your eyes , take a deep breath through the nose and to bring your hands to me at the center of your chest , bow your head to your fingertips .

Now , Mustang , thank you so much for watching .

I really hope you enjoyed this class .

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I think that's all I wanna say for now .

Thank you so much again for watching and I will see you next time .