Enjoy Your Monthly Practice Series! April: All About the Hamstrings with Claudine Beeson, Julie Gudmestad and Marlysa Sullivan
Beginner’s Hamstring Stretch with Julie Gudmestad
Tight hamstrings limit our ability to move into a number of yoga poses, and can make the experience of yoga frustrating. While our hamstring muscle tissue is thick and stiff, loosening it up through regular stretching can provide benefits that extend off the mat: relief of lower back pain, increased mobility, and decreased injuries. To develop flexibility in your hamstrings, join Julie in this practice a couple times a week.
Sequencing for Forward Folds with Marlysa Sullivan
This class is focused on helping you to work on safely moving into more complex forward folds. You will be led into the most accessible versions of forward folds to warm your hamstrings up followed by more difficult and advanced versions of forward folds. We also explore the concept of mindfulness as we work with understanding the nature of relaxation in tight parts of our body. From that space, we can change our relationshop to body-and-mind sensation.
Helping Hopeless Hamstrings with Claudine Beeson
Ever feel like your hamstrings are hopelessly tight and that you’ll never be able to do the splits, much less touch your toes without bending the knees? This class will focus on lengthening those tight hamstrings, and at the same time, we learn how to angle our folds to put less pressure around the lower back and SI joint. We also practice acceptance and where we are at on the mat, without judgment or the need to fix what we perceive as not being right.
Activating and Strengthening the Hip Extensors with Julie Gudmestad
While we focus a lot about the hip flexors in yoga, we rarely hear about the hip extensors. But the action and strength of the hip extensors (particularly gluteus maximus) are vitally important in certain poses, particularly backbends. In this 40-minute class, Julie guides us through a practice showing how to strengthen the hip extensors and engage them properly in backbends.
Explore More Online Yoga Practices Here!
