Athletic Mobility Flow

Hello, and welcome to mobility for athletes. My name is Jason Schneider. Mobility is crucial for athletes of all types. It is going to help with enhanced performance, injury prevention, and faster recovery. By improving our joint range of motion and control, mobility training allows for more efficient, powerful, effective movement and reduces our chances of stress and injury.

Let's get started by going on our backs. We're gonna take our feet nice and wide, heels down, knees up. And again, make sure that the feet are wide so you have space between your legs. Pause for a moment. Draw your shoulder blades down your back and keep your shoulders pressing against the ground as we take a nice deep breath in, exhale it out. Another deep breath in.

And as you exhale, drop both knees down towards the right side, making sure that we keep both shoulders connected to the ground. So don't force it just allow the knees to go to where ever they're comfortable in terms of your range of motion. On the inhale, bring the knees back up to center, and exhale down to the left side. Inhale up to center, and exhale down to the right side. And each time we go through, we may notice a little bit more space in our hips, inhale up.

And exhale down to the left. This is also known as hip ninety ninety rocks, inhale up and exhale down to the right. Inhale up, exhale down to the left. We'll go one more time, inhale up, and exhale down. One more up, and we're gonna exhale down to the left.

And as we come back to center, we're gonna give ourselves a little rock back and forth along our spine, come into a sitting up position, and turn over so that we're going to go into a cat cow, placing your hands, directly beneath your shoulders, spread those fingertips nice and wide, press the palms firmly into the ground, draw the triceps into the center line, knees directly beneath the hips. Going through normal cat cow, but adding in as we take a nice deep breath in, lift the heart, draw the tailbone back, and feel the shoulder blades squeeze together and drop down your back. And as we exhale, rounding the spine, taking your gaze between your knees, spread those shoulder blades as wide apart as you can. Think of like wings spreading wide. Inhale, lifting the heart, drawing the tailbone back squeeze the shoulder blades and draw them down and exhale.

We'll spread those wings nice and wide. Inhale. Lift the heart may be raising the gaze, drawing the tailbone back. Shoulder blades squeezing down, and exhale. And come back to neutral.

Beautiful. We're going to walk our hands back. I'm gonna turn just for a moment. As we go through our shoulder cars. Bring those arms up. We'll call this goalpost for all my football players.

You know what I'm talking about? Good. Our goalpost, elbows, about even with the shoulder blades, as we take a nice deep breath in lift the heart, exhale draw the elbows in towards center line, inhale, bring it out, stretch those arms nice and wide. Now thumbs up, exhale down. Inhale up, bend the elbows, exhale. Inhale open, exhale thumbs reaching down, think of the pinkies reaching up to the sky, try to avoid bringing the shoulders up to the ears, shoulder blades still working down the back.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale one more time and exhale keeping those shoulders nice and wide and down. Inhale up and exhale. Great. Bring it back down. For this next movement, I'm gonna bring my blocks onto my mat.

I like it because it helps to raise me up a little bit. You do have the option of staying up high or if you have the flexibility and want to drop down to your heels just to get a little bit of an extra stretch. We're going to do ankle rocks, really focusing on the mobility and opening up those ankles. So bring those knees a little bit further forward. Press into the blocks, lift the knees, and exhale come up, lift the ankles off the ground.

Harder than it looks. And, hell up. And down, good, really working on stretching those muscles and creating some movement in the joints. Of the ankle. This is not a stretch that a lot of us do.

You can do this while watching TV. It's one of my favorite things to do is make that TV time a little more active versus passive. Great. Alright. We're gonna settle. I'm gonna keep my blocks on my mat, remember that is an option for you.

Extend back, right, or left leg. And let's go into our first down dog of the day. Let's make this a very active down dog. Peddle, pedal those heels down. You'll see this is going to be coming back in a moment. And just warming up for our ground flow, inhale forward to a plank, remembering to draw those triceps into the middle line.

Always have the option to drop the knees down to the ground. If that feels better for you, as we exhale down from Chaturanga, turn the tops of the feet over, inhale, up dog. And exhale back, down dog. It's important to go at a pace that feels comfortable for you, maybe matching movement to breath, inhale forward to plank. Exhale halfway down Chaturanga, inhale updog, and exhale down dog. Don't forget those shoulder blades.

As we shift forward, spread them nice and wide, draw them away from the ears, exhale halfway down, inhale, up dog, drawing the shoulders away from the ears and down the back, and exhale back. To down dog. From here, inhaling that left foot just a few inches off the ground, knee comes up towards the elbow and step nice and wide outside that left hand. Pressing the hands into the blocks to give you order to the mat, to give you a little extra support, bring that right foot up to match. Again, wider than the mat.

Drop the tailbone down, If it feels better to have a little extra support, you can put that block underneath your tailbone just so that you have a little bit of security there. Or drop that tailbone nice and low. Use those elbows, or the triceps pressing out. And let's add some thoracic twisting in here. Place the left hand down.

Take a nice deep breath in and exhale right hand. Hi. Inhale, right hand comes down, and exhale off to the left. Inhale, left hand down, right I really like to use those blocks because it helps me as an athlete, sometimes a little tight, and it helps helps give me a little extra support. Maybe brings the ground a few inches up, never hurts, and come back to the center line. Whichever foot feels comfortable for you, but we're gonna start stay here.

Take the right foot back into a nice long lunge. Keeping that left foot wide wider than the mat. You do have the option to stay up high. I like to bring my knee down to the ground. And going into our lizard pose, we're gonna take that left hand to the inside of left knee and just gently press out bringing the arch of the left foot up, allowing the hips to sink a little deeper down to the ground.

Take a nice big breath in. And as we exhale, and again, you can take the blocks with you for a little extra support into our half pyramid. Roll the toes up towards the right knee. Or the left knee, and draw the left hip back. And let's take it back forward.

Rolling onto the outer edge of the foot, pressing Good. Draw in the shoulder blades down. Roll the left ribs up. Big breath in, and take it back. Think less about trying to get your heart to the ground, and more about keeping a nice long spine as we draw that hip back, creating as much length on that left side. One more time. Forward, as we go into our lizard, exhale pressing out gently on that left leg, roll the left ribs back, see if you can take a little gaze over that left shoulder.

Big breath in. This time, maybe we've started to work that flexibility and mobility in our hips. And maybe we can do it without the blocks. Great. Walk the hands back up, tuck that back toe, and let's come back into our down dog. Pause here for a moment.

And again, as we shift forward, just bring the other foot up, this is going to be my right, and step my right foot nice and wide. Option to bring that knee down. Also, you can always double up your mat, or if you have a little pad or a rag, put it underneath your knee, if you have sensitive knees. Put that hand gently on the inside of that thigh pressing out. And I always like to start neutral and then start to add in those extra options, the twists.

Breathe in, bring the blocks back with you. If you have them, and give you that nice half pyramid stretch. Again, concentrating on as much length as you can get through that extended leg. Inhale up. Place your blocks, if you have them, and exhale roll to the outer edge of the foot and start to have that twisted, drawing the right ribs back. Again, thinking about those shoulder blades coming down your back.

And inhale up. Taking my blocks with me. We're gonna go one more round. Inhale up. And now just as we did last time, exhale draw the right ribs up.

Draw the shoulder blades down. Maybe taking a little glance over your shoulder. We have one more time going back. Your choice, I'm gonna go without my blocks for my half pyramid. This also can help to show if you have any imbalances One side might feel a little bit tighter than the other.

We are just not always completely, balanced. And that's where yoga really comes in handy to help kind of create some strength and balance in your body. Great. Come on back. We're gonna go back into our down dog. So tuck those back toes, bring that leg back and back into your down dog.

Focusing on that lower half of our body, we started before by pedaling down. So, pedal those heels down. Settle, lift those heels and let's do a little calf work here. Lift and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and up and pedal down. And bring it up, and we're gonna squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.

Good. Come forward into a plank. Let's take a vinyasa just to flush it out, exhale halfway down, Chaturanga, bring it up for our down dog. And come back to your down dog. Take that left foot, step that left foot forward.

As we're coming into a neutral lunge, blocks are optional. I'm gonna take my blocks off, and I'm gonna walk to face towards the long side of my mat. From here, I'm gonna bend deep into my right knee, keeping both feet pressing down into the ground. Nice little assist, lateral lunge, bringing my elbow on top of my knee. Some people like to hold blocks if that works for you.

Inhale up and take it to the opposite side. Fitness world, you might know this is a caustic squat. Options to take those hands off the knee and bring the hands forward over onto the right, and up and over onto the left. Can we do that one more time? You can hear me. I'm it's worry.

We haven't even gotten into the work, and I'm already working. On the right, trying to keep both heels down on the ground, toes facing direction that you are looking, and exhale over to the left. And we're going to bring our hands to the mat and walk forward. Are we ready to get into it? I think we're ready to get into it. So we're going to start to work. Again, I'd like to have one block and you're going to want one block or a book or something that you can place your hand on for our flow today. Placing my right hand directly beneath my shoulder, length through my right side.

Left knee, right above the left heel, big breath in and exhale dragonfly twist. And as we go into this twist, we want to try to avoid allowing that right hip to drop and think of that twist happening from our belly button up through our spine. Good. Hold for another big breath. Xhale it out. On the next inhale rise, bringing that right heel or that back heel down to the ground, and rise up to warrior two.

We've practiced on bringing our shoulder blades into the center line and drawing them down our back Our shoulders and our ears don't get along so we create as much space between our shoulders and our ears. Inhale bring it up and exhale. Warrior two. Inhale, reverse, bringing that right hand all the way down the right leg, lift, creating that space opening up between each rib. Exhale warrior two.

We're gonna go through that one more time. Reps are good. Really feel strong where that left foot presses the heel presses into the ground. Strength in your warrior to inhale reverse. And as we exhale, draw your attention about six to eight inches in front of that left foot, and come on up into your half moon pose.

Now, something underneath your hand is really important to help you with balance and truly find those little nuances in each of the poses. Because we're going to be here for a moment as we exhale and allow our right hip to come parallel to the ground for warrior three. Notice I'm being as light as I can. On that block, inhale, and exhale, settle in. Half moon, Royer three one more time.

Sometimes slowing down is the way to win the game. Inhale, open, and with control, slowly bringing the right foot or the back foot down to the ground, come back into your warrior two. No rush. Inhale star, turning your toes to face the wide edge of your mat. And as we exhale towards the back of our mat, bending deep into that right knee, allowing the left toes to come up.

For skandasana. In this skandasana, my right heel may be off the ground, always working to try to get it a little bit lower. Inhale up, turning my left toes to face forward, skandasana to the other side. And we're going to walk the hands back to the front of the mat. We will be using that because we're going to go through this again, and bring that foot back for Chaturanga, up dog, and exhale back to down dog.

Take a moment. I know when I start to feel the breath pick up, I don't want to rush through it. Great. Let's go on the other side. Take a breath in, lifting that right leg nice and high. Exhale, step that right leg through. If you need to help it up, help it up a little bit.

Good. Remember, our dragonfly, I like to use a block underneath my grounded hand, so my left hand directly beneath my left shoulder, exhale. Right ribs to the sky. Two breaths usually is a good amount of breath finding that length through that grounded side. So through my left side, Exhale. On my next inhale, I'm going to spin that back heel down and come up into my warrior two.

Keep that block close by, because remember we're going to need it for our balance work. Inhale, bring it up, and exhale warrior two. Can you feel your shoulder blades pulled to the centerline and drop down your back? Inhale reverse, reaching down that back leg, and exhale warrior two. Let's do that again.

Inhale reverse. XL warrior two. Remember, we're going to use that block. So spot about six to eight inches in front of your front foot, mine is my right foot. I'm gonna place my hand on that block and slowly, because slow wins the game here.

Half moon pose. Hold for about two deep inhales and exhales and find your way. Paralleling your hips, so bringing that left hip parallel towards the ground. Warrior three. Slowly, lift.

It is more challenging then it looks. And that's what I love about this practice. Athlet like that challenge, exhale slowly lowering to parallel. By now, you know I love to do things in threes. One more time. How much can we use the strength of our body and try not to rely too much on that block and exhale back to our warrior three.

And as we open up one final time, with control, bringing that back foot to the ground, and find yourself back in your warrior too. As much energy as you focus into that front leg of your warrior two, into the outer edge of that back foot to find that stability. Come up into your star, turning the toes to face the long side of the mat. And as we exhale into our back leg, left leg, spin those right toes up for skandasana. Come up, turn the front leg, so those right toes to face the long side of the mat, Skandasana towards the front of the mat. And walk the hands back to the front of the mat, bringing that leg back, make sure you don't hit your head on your block.

Chaturanga, up dog. And down dog. I think we're gonna do that again. Now that we know it, you can choose if you want to pick up your pace, If you want to slow it down, if there's anything you want to add or subtract, and I will give you options, and that's exactly what they are as options. Go ahead and raise that left leg.

Exhale, step the left foot through. Ground, through that right hand, length through the right side, exhale dragonfly twist. Option if you would like to do it. Roll to the outer edge of that right foot, stack or stagger for a nice, brief Vashi stasana building little strength. Lift that top leg, in this case, the left, draw it back towards the front.

Don't hesitate to use your hand to help it up. And come on up, dropping that back foot down into warrior two. Settle here for a moment. No rush. Feel the strength where you're grounded into the ground, feel your feet pressing into the ground.

Can you drop a little deeper in? Inhale, straighten those legs, lift those arms, exhale. Feel the strength in that warrior, too. I always say in warrior two. Check your belly.

Is your belly button reaching to the ground? Can you engage those muscles wrap in towards the center line? Inhale reverse? Xhale warrior two. One more, inhale reverse, exhale warrior two, find your block, towards the front of your mat, if you plan to use it, take a breath in, exhale reach, half moon pose. Try to use more strength.

To lift that back leg versus momentum. Keep that block directly underneath your bottom shoulder. Slowly, Warrier three always had the option to lift those hands, and back into half moon pose. Inhale, start to adjust. Warrior three.

Find your stability. And exhale. Open up. One more time. Inhale.

Warrior three. From the crown of your head to your heel, nice long line. Half moon, anybody else feel this in the bottom of their foot? I feel it. Those are those muscles working hard. Slowly bring that back foot down.

Open up into warrior two. Get ready for your skandasanov, turning the toes to face the long side of the mat, star with a big breath in, and bend into that back knee. In this case, it's right. See the flexibility and the mobility is starting to warm up, and I can keep that back heel down. Are you noticing that your heel might be getting a little closer to the floor?

Front toes coming up, inhale come up, and opposite side. Hand come to the ground, walk towards the front, bring that back foot back, make sure you don't hit your head on a block, exhale, chaturanga, inhale, up dog, Still manding form a technique exhale back to down dog. If you've practiced with me before, you know I love to slow down to find the nuances in each of those poses. Fast yoga doesn't work in my body, maybe for you, but for me, maybe for us, we'd like to slow it down a little bit. Big breath in, exhale it out.

Right leg goes high with that breath in. Step it through with an exhale. Don't hesitate to help it up. Prepare for your dragonfly. Pressing that left hand into the ground.

Exail. No rush. Still working those shoulder blades down your back. Nice long neck. If you would like the option to roll to the outer edge of that left foot, draw the right foot back, you can stagger, you can stack. Feel grounded through that left hand.

And when you're ready, draw the top knee, bring it back towards the front of the mat, and spin up into your warrior too. Check, body check, from the ground, up, feet feel very strong and sturdy against the ground. Drop a little deeper, into your warrior too. Can you wiggle your toes? Tail bone, reaching down towards the ground, wrap those muscles around your ribcage in towards the centerline, shoulders down.

Inhale up, and exhale. Strong, reverse, and exhale warrior two. One more. Inhale reverse, exhale warrior two, block towards the front of the mat. And when you're ready, reach pressing into that front leg, lifting that back leg into your half moon pose.

A little wobble is normal. That's how your body says we're doing some work. Inhale, and slowly find your way into your warrior three. It's funny. I'm typically a righty But my right is not nearly as stable as my left.

If you find that in your body too, open up into your half moon. And exhale. Find your warrior three. Remember you have the options to start to choose where you want your hands to go. Oh, slow.

And controlled. We have one more. Half moon. Oh, I can feel it in my feet. I can feel it in my legs.

You probably see the wobble. You know what somebody once said to me? Embrace the wobble. That means we're working. One last time, we're gonna take it into half moon, slow.

Embrace. And how slow can we drop that back foot down into warrior two? I feel bad in my front leg. Alright. Preparing for Arskandasanas, inhale up to star turning the toes to face towards the wall.

And with that deep exhale bending into that back knee in my case left, rolling the right up, working to trying to find that heel engagement to the floor. Pull those front toes up, inhale up to star, turning both toes to face forward, and exhale bending into that front leg. And when you're ready, hands come to the mat, walk back to the front, and let's take a vinyasa. Exhale halfway down Chaturanga. Inhale.

Up dog, and exhale back to down dog. I hope you're feeling that. I am. Take a breath. And exhale bring the knees wide on your mat, bring the arches in, and let's sink the tailbone down for child's pose.

A few deep breaths. Notice if you have any tension in your upper body. Can you relax those elbows? Let everything just sink down towards the ground. Head can come down to the ground. Head can also be placed on a block for a moment.

Let's just really just take a rest for a moment. Put in a couple rounds of hard work. This is that sort of treat you get to give yourself. We still have a little more work to do. We're gonna focus on a core block here.

So as we come on back, come back into your tabletop. And I'm going to give you options to do this in full extension or maybe down on your elbow if that feels good. Go ahead and extend the left leg back. Extend the right leg back. We're going to start with our feet slightly spread apart, roll to the outer edge of that left foot, placing that nice, focus on that left hand all the way up through the left shoulder, open up Devashi Stasana, your side plank.

We're gonna be here for a moment. Remember, you can always bring a knee down. Another option is you can be on your elbow. So you have lots of options to choose from here. If you're full extension of your Vashistasa, take a nice deep breath. And as we exhale, top hand reaches back.

Roll onto the balls of your feet, so you're coming into a one handed plank and exhale. Up into Vashi Stasana. Big breath in, exhale, reach as far as you can to the wall behind you, inhale up. How about one more? And exhale.

Really engage to the core. Whoo, inhale up and bring both hands to the ground and drop to your knees, give yourself a stretch. Your shoulders gonna need that stretch. Come back into your tabletop. We're gonna start by extending the right leg back then the left.

Remember keep some space between the feet as we roll to the outer edge of the right foot and either on your elbow, knee down. If you're in this full extension, Work to try to keep the hips up nice and high. Feel that engagement through your obliques. Take a big breath in. And as we exhale, roll onto the balls of your feet and reach through underneath the armpit, inhale up.

And remember, you can add in as many reps as you want. Inhale up. And exhale. Inhale up and back into your plank, drop the knees and take it back one more time. Deceptively challenging.

Great. If you can do one today, work until you can do two. And once you get two, then you can go to three, and keep adding on. We're going to go onto our back, planting those feet just beneath the knees about hip width apart. We're going to go into a bridge. So keeping those shoulders against the ground, hands can be here on your ribs, hands can be down on the ground.

We're not going to try to overextend, but instead create as much of a straight line from where our shoulders meet the ground to our knees. Hold here, or if you would like to add in that little extra challenge without letting the hip drop alternate marching, slow drawing that knee up towards chest, inhale down, exhale, inhale up, and exhale, really working to keep those hips high. Always able to use a block for a little extra support. I'm gonna add one extra one in for good measure. I know I like threes.

I just gave you a four, and down, and slowly drop the hips to the ground. Good. One more core movement. These come up directly over the hips, hands reaching up to the sky. If you've ever been to a chiropractor physical therapist, maybe you've seen this before, as we extend the left leg out, right hand reaches towards the wall behind you.

Inhale center, exhale opposites. Dead bug. Inhale up. More than just physical work, this is mental work. If ever heard anybody say, you know, like pat in your head and rubbing your tummy, that's what this exercises like.

There are ways to add extra challenge in. Also ways to reduce the challenge. Lead can come down to the ground. The higher up your leg is a little easier. It'll be on your back.

In one more time. Inhale up. Beautiful. Pete come to the ground. Not just beautiful, but amazing. We made it.

Let's go back to where we started. Remember those ninety, ninety hip rocks, shoulders stay connected? Let's see how much maybe mobility we've brought into our body, take a nice deep breath. XL drop both knees down to the right side. Oh, hopefully that feels good now.

Not nearly as tight as when we started. Inhale up. And exhale. Notice if one side feels a little bit looser, a little more generous than the next. Bringing the knees back up to our neutral position, walk the feet into the center line.

Allow the soles of the feet to touch. We just allow the knees to naturally drop open. A little extra bonus stretch, bring the elbows up even with the shoulders and allow the hands to drop to the ground. If you're like me, you might have tight shoulders and you might find that you can't get your hands your from your elbow all the way up to your wrists flat to the ground. Goal we have goals is to allow ourselves to have that flexibility in our shoulders where our arms can just lay flat against the ground.

If this isn't comfortable for you, you can keep your hands on your ribcage. You can also extend hands up over your head, keeping the shoulder blades connected with the ground. This is where we want to start to downregulate, nice deep breaths, bringing us back. One final stretch before we go into our final pose. Extend both legs out.

Starting with that left leg, reach the left leg up to the sky, drain the hands, back behind the thigh. Try not to reach behind the knee, so it's either going to be on the thigh or if you have the flexibility to reach up to your calf. Also have to focus on whichever the grounded leg is trying to keep that hip down and not let this stretch pull you up and away from the ground. Gentle. If you happen to be super tight through your hamstrings or through your ankles, it's a nice time to take a little roll of the ankles and inhale to soften and then exhale.

I'm often asked how long do you wanna hold a stretch for? They say minimum of fifteen seconds to get the benefit, but longer is better. And hopefully, you will join us for our R and R class where we're gonna challenge ourselves with some really nice long stretches. Go ahead and bring that right leg in again grabbing behind the thigh or on the calf. As a runner, one of my favorite things is when I roll my ankles and I hear the cracks, crack crack crack crack in my ankles, I feel like I'm doing something good for my body. We're gonna bring that leg down to the ground and settle for a moment.

Start to find some movement in your hands, maybe in your toes just to reawaken that energy back in your body. We're gonna find our way back into a sitting up position. Choose if you'd like to bring your feet back to the mat and roll onto your side, or maybe You like to grab onto your knees, have rocked yourself into a sitting up position. Everybody's different. Choose which is your way that you like to return.

Back to your day. Movement is the song of our bodies. Movement is so important in our bodies. So every day, set aside some time to do something really good for you and move. Whatever that means.

Thank you for joining us for mobility for athletes. Please come back and join us again for another class.