30 min Yin Yoga for Upper Back Knots - Beginner Yin for Upper Body Pain

Hi , everyone .

Welcome to my channel .

My name is Cassandra and today we'll be doing a Yin yoga practice that's to help you relieve any kind of knots that you might have in your upper back .

So I'm currently suffering from that right now and my Yin yoga practice has been helping me quite a bit with that .

So grab two blocks .

We're not doing anything specifically with it , but for a few of the poses that we have , you might want to have them just in case there's some limited range of motion in your spine or in the hamstrings or anything like that .

So we are going to begin in a very easy child's pose .

And what I mean by easy is that instead of having our knees opened up wide , we're going to try to keep them about hip with distance apart .

And instead of reaching the arms forward , which can put a little bit more strain on the upper back and into the shoulders , we're going to reach the arms back and let the forehead either rest on a block or you can let the forehead come all the way down to the core , softening the arms , the shoulders and really just connecting to the breath .

So wherever your knot is in your back , imagine that you can breathe directly into it , inviting it to loosen up and relax .

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We're gonna lift up , making your way on to hands and knees will be setting up for thread the needle .

So this is one of the two poses that I found to be the most beneficial for my knot in my upper back .

Starting with the right side , you're going to reach your right arm underneath you until the shoulder and the ear either lower to the floor or lower to a block .

So if the ear doesn't quite make it all the way down , just rest on a block , you really don't want to have to work your neck .

Left hand can either stay pressing down into the floor or I find it a lot easier to hold the pose .

If I slide my left arm forward and the further you reach your right fingertips , the more you'll feel this in between the shoulder blades and through the upper back , keep drawing the left shoulder down and away from the ear .

This is a bit more subtle , but sometimes when we're in this pose , you might notice your hips are swinging to the left a little bit , try to bring them back .

So you're still keeping your hips right on top of your knees , let the head be heavy and breathe into the rib cage .

Feel it , feel it expand front to back and side to side .

Take your last five breaths here .

If you had your left arm extended forward , you can bend the elbow again and just slide that hand back , press to come back up into your table top , pose really slow .

And before we go to the other side , it might feel good to just do a few rounds of cat and cow not really exaggerating this movement , making it really gentle .

So inhale , dropping the belly lifting the gates , exhale around in the spine , chin to chest , take a few more .

Last one here , deep breath in deep breath out as you've been trapped , coming back to your table top pose , we'll go to thread the needle on the other side .

So this time left arm underneath you lowering the shoulder and the ear , either right to the floor or onto a block , relax your neck and either keep your right hand as it is or you can just slide your right hand forward , keeping the elbow relatively straight , drawing the right shoulder down and away from the ear .

You might find this a little bit more sensational on one side , more than the other , depending on which side your knot is .

So feel free to back out of the po at any time that you need to .

This time your hips will want to swing to the right , try to keep them right on top of the knees .

If your right arm was extended , start to bend into that elbow really slowly , really gently come back up on to your hands and knees .

And same thing here , cat and cow inhale , drop the belly lift , the gaze exhale around the spine , chin , chest , moving in and out of those two take about two more cycles here And we're gonna set our hips to the floor with our legs stretching out forward , setting up for a straight legged forward fold .

So this is the second pose or second best pose I find to hopper leaf knots with your blocks close by , you need to set up really straight .

So if you feel like you're rolling back , one of the blocks can go underneath your hips .

So you have a little bit more height and a little bit of a bend in the knee is perfectly fine here .

I like to have my block somewhere close in front of me .

So that when you start to walk the pumps forward , you can let the spine curve .

So this is really important , let your spine naturally curve .

That's how you're going to stretch out into the muscles along your back .

And that's how you're gonna be able to target the knots .

So depending on flexibility levels , you might need a couple of blocks and you can either put one underneath the forehead to be supported or you can let gravity pull you deeper into it and let the chin drop in towards the chest .

Just play with either of those options .

I like to start off having the head really heavy and off the block .

And as we warm up or as we go deeper into the pose , I like to put the block underneath .

But you will definitely intensify the stretch along the spine .

If you bring your chin down , keep the shoulder blades , drawing down the back , just breathe deeply .

So we're not trying to push or pull here .

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So we're really deeply stretching through the entire posterior chain , which is the crown of the head down the spine and all the way down the legs and the hamstrings and calves .

So imagine your breath can travel down this channel every time you inhale and every time you exhale , holding for about another minute or so .

So we want to be extremely careful when we come out of our forward folds .

Try to use mostly arm strength and go inch by inch .

There's no need to rush this , keep breathing even as you unwind going nice and slow and a really great way to release after a deep forward fold .

Like this one is to take a twist and this is great for the upper back as well .

So we're gonna to lie down on our backs , our final pose before we come into Shiva now will take a Lang's final twist .

So let yourself roll all the way back down with your knees , bent feet flat to the floor .

Go ahead and reach the arms out to the sides and you're gonna press your feet to the ground in order to lift your hips and ship them over to the right , both knees dropping down to the left , either just keeping one leg over the top of the other or you can always intensify this by crossing one thigh , your right thigh over the left .

So really , what's mostly important is that you're keeping both shoulder blades grounded on the floor .

Gays can be straight up or even looking towards your right shoulder .

But even in a twist like this , can you still focus your breath right on your knot from the area of your or back that's causing pain or discomfort ?

Yeah .

Engaging the belly , put the knees back up one at a time .

We'll make our way to the other side .

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Imagine the breath can go all the way down to your upper and lower back into the outer edge of your left hip on the left shoulder and we're gonna lift the knees back up one at a time and right away just coming into in our final resting po take up some space .

Of course , if lying on your back doesn't really work for the pain that you're experiencing in your upper back .

You're welcome to roll onto one side or you can even do Shabana laying on your belly as well .

Just whatever helps you get comfortable and settled and take a moment to notice if there is any change in how your upper back feels .

Now , as opposed to when you first started this class , hopefully you'll feel a little bit of relief .

Although it might take a day or two to kick in .

I encourage you to stay in Shabana for as long as you would like at least a couple of minutes .

And when you are ready to get up , do so slowly and mindfully , this is where I will leave you .

So thank you for watching .

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