Bridge Variation For Hamstrings - Trying To Conceive

This gentle Bridge Pose variation strengthens the hamstrings to support pelvic stability while encouraging balanced activation across the glutes and deep hip rotators. It naturally awakens your transverse abdominis and pelvic floor through soft, reflexive co-activation. My video guidance for this grounding posture has a TTC (trying to conceive) focus, and we'll nourish and warm the pelvic bowl together, blending strength with deep softness to help you feel steady, centred, and connected. It can be continued into pregnancy, right up until you start to feel uncomfortable or unstable with the extra weight of your baby bump, and you can use it in postpartum recovery (>6-8 weeks after birthing), so it's a great all-rounder to learn now!
Note: If you are pregnant or recovering postpartum, please consult your healthcare provider before practicing.

Transcript

Namaste, I'm Emma from Becoming Mama Yoga, And this is a trying to conceive based pose. So that's what the instructions will be like. But if you're postnatal, Especially if you're postnatal and trying to conceive, Then you're very welcome to play along. Prenatals are probably okay with most of it, As long as there's no stress or strain on bump. And once you get towards the end of pregnancy, You might just find it a bit much to go up into this bridge variation. For hamstring strength. But as long as you're feeling fine with it and not having blood pressure issues, Then you're welcome to give it a go. Let's all calm down on Traverse. You shouldn't need any props for this but you could have a block handy if you want it to be able to squeeze between the thighs for a little bit of extra adductor engagement. Once you're down onto your back. Take a moment to align. So that your spine is nice and long and well supported on the mat. The feet are flat on the mat and the knees are pointing up high to the sky. Normally we will say roughly one hand length between the buttock and the heel. For this, We're actually going to walk the feet a little further out to get that extra hamstring activation when we come up into our bridge pose. So you can take an extra one or two steps and you can always adjust it once you're up if it's not feeling good. When you're ready, Just take a few breaths to really center and ground the body into the mat. And then practice a few brief pelvic tilts just to get your breathing and your rocking motion all nicely lined up. So what we'd like is to have an anterior pelvic tilt, So we're pointing these points of the hip towards the sky and rocking forwards on the inhale, And then rocking it all back so that the back flattens against the mat on the exhale. And when you're good and ready, You can just follow that movement on and exhale to rock back into the mat and come into our bridge lift. Now if you did have a block you can either use it for between the thighs for adductor strengthening or if you need some extra support you can always pop it on any of its height settings underneath the pelvis but you absolutely do not have to have any props for this. So what we're doing in our bridge pose with our feet that little bit further away is extra hamstring activation. And these hamstrings can get easily forgotten in most of our workouts. We strengthen the thighs a lot. We do inner thigh work. We do quadriceps work. We do glute work. And the bridge is still helping with the glute work. But that hamstring can get forgotten, And it is part of the pelvic stabilization. So it will help you a lot. Moving from the trying to conceive stage into your pregnancy. If you've already strengthened all of this area up in advance of the pregnancy, Then hopefully it helps you carry the pregnancy with fewer symptoms of pelvic instability. Now, If you're wanting even more than this, You can always take the weight onto the right foot. Make sure that the two sides of the pelvis stay in the same plane. So I like to rest my hands on the front of the pelvis or on the back of the pelvis. As I lift the left leg and what you can do is start by straightening it out so that you could draw a fairly straight line up the leg so the toe is pointing out and if you start to lose control of the pelvis there and you're dropping down into it then maybe it's a little too strong for you so that is one of our signs to just go back to the stage before. If you can hold it there, You can always point the toes up towards the sky so that the leg is now in a nice straight line pointing up. Whatever you do to one side, Ideally we want to do to the other. You can always add that support in under the sacrum to help you to get the lift if you need it. And if it is too much at any time, If you're starting to lose control of the breathing pattern or if you're starting to find that one or both sides of the pelvis is sinking then you just go back to an earlier stage. Union fast, Build up faster. When you're ready, You're just going to roll back down through the spine. You can take a rest at any time. You can go back up into the pose. Instead of the leg lift, You could always look at rolling up and doing some pulses. You can move the feet back in a little closer if you want to activate more of the glute. Noting that with the feet in or out, The leg lifts do help even more with glute strengthening. So you are working so many of the muscles around the pelvis that will help to stabilize it and carry that beautiful baby through the pregnancy. Every time you roll down, It's kind of nice to do it with frets. And it could be an inhale or it could be an exhale depending on how you're feeling about that. I would tend to have exhaled up and inhaled down, But it's your choice. And try to roll vertebra by vertebra. I'll just try to show you a little bit. If you slow that movement down, You can roll ever so gently down so that you've done it with a lot of awareness, A lot of intention to get some articulation going through the spine. And that's always a really good thing for your spinal health and for nerve system health as well. Once you're done if you are not currently pregnant you can hug those legs in tight and roll around a little just to kind of counter that bit of a back bend that you get with the bridge pose. If you were doing it in a pregnancy you would just bring the knees nice and wide so that you're not compressing that pelvic area or your bump if you're that far along in a pregnancy that you have a bump. Whenever you're ready, You can roll to one side. And come back to sit. I hope you enjoyed the post. Namaste.