Yoga for Shoulder Mobility

Build strength and control in the movements of your shoulders! In this fusion-style yoga class we will explore and enhance the various movements of your shoulders using a combination of classical yoga and contemporary functional mobility practices. Join me for this fun and sometimes humbling but always accessible class!

******* Props (helpful / not mandatory) *****
1. Pair of light weights (say 1 or 2 pounds)
2. Yoga strap — or long belt or towel
3. Yoga block or similar

Transcript

Hello and welcome to your juicy shoulder mobility practice for today. This practice is all about building strength and control in the movements of the shoulder capsule and the scapula. For this practice, It's useful if you have a couple of weights, One, Two, Three pounds, A yoga block of some sort, And a strap. Let's enjoy this one. Get on to your mat and let's get at it. So come to a comfortable seat wherever you're at. Sit up nice and tall. And let's just help to ground ourselves before we get into the practice proper. Take a nice big inhale. A long exhale, Sigh, Settle. Let your eyes turn downwards. And now just keep breathing a nice slow pattern of breath. Long inhales and long exhales. And dissipating any kind of obvious tension you might be experiencing in your face your shoulders your torso your hips just allowing yourself to breathe slowly and root down into the base of your body Now as you begin to settle in, Reconnect with your intention for showing up for this practice today. So why are you taking this practice? What is it that you're looking for? And really sense and feel into that and use the practice to move towards your intention in whatever way that looks. And as that becomes clear, Let's mark the start of the practice with another shared breath, A nice big inhale. And a long delicious sigh. And welcome once again to your yoga practice. As you open your eyes, Reach your arms up overhead. Take a big old stretch one way, Another way. And then come forwards onto your hands and knees to a tabletop type position. Hands and knees. And then simply take on a bit of intuitive movement. So kicking out one leg or the other leg or turning, Rolling around your torso. Whatever feels good, Just dissipating any kind of stuckness that you're feeling in the joints in particular. And then a couple of simple undulations of the spine with cat-cow breathing. As you inhale, Lift your head, Lift your tail, Look forward. As you exhale, Squeeze your glutes around your spine, Press the mat, Tuck your chin, And go like that, Nice and slow. A long inhale to lift your head and tail. A long exhale to round and press. And one more time. Big inhale. A delicious exhale, Rounding, Pressing, And tucking. Beautiful. From here, Inhale to neutral. Tuck your toes at the back. Move your bum back a little bit more and then slowly push up and back to downward dog. So an upside down V shape. And take this really gently. So bend one knee deeply, Straighten the other leg, Crack your toes, Wear your hips around, Be a little bit goofy. Simply waking up the muscles of the back line of the body, Particularly the legs here. And then walk up the mat. Come to the head of your mat, More or less. Drape yourself over your upper thighs. Let your head relax down. Give it a bit of a shake. Then shake your fingers, Your wrists, Your elbows, Dissipate any stuckness in the upper body. Yum. Feels good. Then inhale halfway up. Exhale fold, Bend your knees. And on your next inhale swoop your hands wide stand all the way up. Reach to the ceiling. And then wash your hands down the front of your body. Hopefully you didn't pass out. Do that again. Nice big inhale. And a long sweet exhale. Let's just do a really quick generalized warm up. Bring your feet tight together. So whole body warm up real quick. Inhale, Hands overhead. Interlace your fingers. Point your index fingers. Reach up. Side bend to the right. Find a good extension through the left side of your body. Inhale, Come up. Exhale, Go left. Feel the right side stretching. Again, Inhale up. Exhale over. And to the left and now up and exhale over. Nice inhale come up exhale back bend look at the ceiling send your hips forward chest up and they'll come up and as you exhale try to touch those fingertips to the ground. Do that again. Inhale up. Exhale, Back bend. Inhale up. Exhale, Fingertips to the ground. Nice. Into a twist. Inhale, Hands up. On your exhale twist to the right palms face up arms extended long look over your right shoulder And now your hands overhead to touch. Exhale, Twist left. Really reach through those hands, Palms face up. And do that one more time each way. Inhale, Up. Exhale, Twist to the right. Belly in. Chest proud. Inhale up. Exhale twist to the. . . Left. Good. Now hands up. And exhale wash your hands down the front of your body. Alright, From here, Just a real quick overview of the movements of your shoulder and your scapula. So bring your arms into sort of a 90 degree bend, Bent at the elbows. So this is called neutral positioning of the shoulder. And then if you take your hands away from you while the elbows stay, This is external rotation of the shoulders. And similarly, If you move the arms in, This is internal rotation. External rotation and internal rotation. Similarly, You can bring your arms horizontal. And this is external rotation and internal rotation so a couple different ways to do those movements of rotating the head of the shoulders coming out nice and wide here, Palms face forwards. This is called abduction and bringing the hands forward is called adduction, Abduction, Adduction. We're trying to hit all of these different motions, Trying to strengthen each and every one of them. Another motion, I can bring both arms up. This is called flexion, Believe it or not. You draw your hands behind you and then you bring your hands down extend behind this is called extension so flexion and extension So that's probably enough. There's a couple of other movements, But we'll get into that. Then for your shoulder blades, Lift both shoulders up. This is elevation of the scapula. This is retraction as you take the shoulders back. Depression as you draw them down. And then protraction as you bring them forward. So it's a big circle you can make with the scapula one way. And the other way And as I said, We want to hit all of these motions. Another motion of the scapula is called rotation. And that's simply as you bring your arms up overhead and cross the head, This is medial rotation. And when you bring it back down, This is lateral rotation. Enough said. Let's do one round of what's called shoulder CARS, Controlled articular rotations. Grab one of your weights. And bring it into your right hand. Left hand can stay on your hip. Externally rotate your right shoulder as far as it'll go and be nice and strong we're trying to move from the head of the shoulder the whole time keep that arm externally rotated bring it across the body there's your adduction and then lift it up overhead still intern or externally rotated and then take it way out to the back corner that's abduction then internally rotate that weight as much as you can and bring it to the side of the body. Internally rotated so do that internally rotated reach back over rotating into full external rotation one more time across up reach back rotate and then if you're noticing any clunking pay attention to that spot we need to work on that all the way up and across. So two times and then over to the other hand. Again, Hopefully this is making sense, Externally rotate your left shoulder. Bring the arm across the body, Stay in to externally rotated, Reach up. Reach to the back corner and begin to internally rotate that shoulder as far as you can and bring the hand to touch. Back of hand touches your hips. Back. Roll open across and externally rotate it one more time up and around clunk clunk clunk and back And around we go. Nicely done. Now just shake it off. We'll bring that weight back down to the floor. And now take a seat. I'm going to be sitting on a bolster. You could be sitting on a chair as long as there's not too much stuff around you. And most of the practice is going to be done from this seated position. We'll begin with your strap. So grab your strap and make it maybe just slightly wider than shoulder width apart. Bring it up overhead. And slowly, We're bending your top arm. In this case, It's my left arm. It's gonna bump my glasses. Uh overhead and your right arm behind you so this is working the scapula so you're pulling down with the right hand and up with the left hand. Keep that tension, Bring it up. Then cross the right arm across your head as you pull down with the left and offer some resistance there up and over, Keeping the tension in the strap the whole time up. And over this kind of resistance training isometric resistance is useful for building a little bit more muscular control in our movement pattern We did about three of those. That's good. Then come back up and take a little bit more strap this time and pretend it was like a broomstick. We want this thing to be nice and tight, Arms nice and straight. Bring that strap way up overhead and then take as much strap as you need to bring it all the way to your low back. Keep the tension in the strap the whole time. Go up. Over And down. And again. Maybe notice now where you find some kind of resistance or difficulty. Go really, Really slow and find the most difficult spot for you. And then we're going to go and hang out there. So find your spot. Mine's kind of the right shoulder is not 100% happy. Fire up the muscles that aren't happy. And then pull that strap with all your might in opposing directions, Keeping the muscles strong for five. Four until you're shaking three two and one. Beautiful. Drop the strap over your right shoulder and grab it from behind with your left hand. So that's called Gomukhasana or cow face arms of all things. And then start to floss, Essentially flossing the muscles of your back by moving the strap up and down with tension. Anywhere either side of the back close to the back far away from the back it's an inquiry we're trying to find spots here that are not really 100 happy So find one of those spots, Fire up that muscle, And then use some isometric resistance here. Pull down and pull up simultaneously for five, As strongly as you can, Four. Three, Two, And one. Wonderful. And then switch sides. Take that strap over to the left shoulder. Hold it with the left hand. Right hand grabs behind. And again. Do a little bit of flossing up and down. Up and down just to try and notice any areas of stuckness or resistance in the shoulders and the scapula uh for me it's kind of over here fire up the muscle it's not happy and then pull in opposing directions as strongly as you can. For five. For Hey. To. . . And one. Lovely. Get rid of that strap. Probably not going to need it anymore. Roll out the shoulders a little bit. We've just been trying to warm things up and now we'll get into some strengthening protocols for the shoulders. Grab your block or whatever you've got that's about this shape. I was using a lasagna box the other day. So take your block in your hands and bring it down nice and low. I don't know if you can see that. It's black on black here, So I'm going to grab a different color so it's more obvious what I'm doing here. So there's the block. Squeeze the block as firmly as you can. Draw your belly and your chest proud. And now we're trying to move from the head of the shoulders. It's really subtle, As if you were squishing the block. So here we go. Looks like my elbows are maybe moving. One, Squeeze in. Two. And on the fifth one, Keep squeezing that block with all your might, Engaging both shoulders for five. And then one, And then bring the block up parallel to the ground. Sort of protract your shoulders to bring the scapula slightly forward. And again, Pulsing with the head of the shoulders. Looks like the elbows move. One. And five, And then squeeze for five. One lovely elevate that block up overhead and again a little bit of retraction of the scapula so taking the block as far behind as you can and then squeezing one Five, And then keep pressing the block together like you're trying to break it for five. Four three to one and then slowly drop that block behind your neck keep your elbows more or less shoulder width and then lift it up again. Do that three times. Bring the block down, Squeezing the elbow slightly in. Then one more time. Bring it back down. And squeeze the block five times. Here we go. One. Three, Use those shoulders, Four, And then hang out there with strength. Fire up the shoulder girdle for five. Two and one and then get rid of that thing Moving into some work with the weights now. Got my little cheat sheet here. I was thinking about my standard routine. I thought, I'm going to change a few things up today. Trying to remember what the heck I was going to do. Bring your elbows to the side of the body. Your arms are bent 90 degrees. Sit up nice and tall. And then slowly open those weights out to the side as far as you can go. Feel the scapula on your back squeezing together. And then bring them forwards again. So slowly opening as wide as you can. Try to move just from the shoulders. And back in again. And now on this last one, Opening them out as wide as you can shoulders are down and you're squeezing the scapula your shoulder blades together for five four Three. Two. And one nicely done Again, Keep your elbows bent but bring your elbows behind you. And then extend those weights as far back as you can five times one looks like this to Three. Or And on the fifth one, Try to get locked out and nice and high, Retract the scapula a little bit for five. For use of muscles three, Two, And one, And then bring it back in. Getting into internal and external rotation of the shoulders a bit more. Bring the arms up to cactus arms. Elbows and shoulders about the same height. Internally rotate as far as you can go. And then externally rotate. Just moving from the shoulders. Internally rotate. Externally rotate. Let's go to internal rotation. As far as we can go. And hold it there. Draw your belly in. Try not to elevate the shoulders too much. Three. To and one and then let's bring them up and back and see if you can go a little bit further back, Recruiting the muscles of the shoulder, The scapula. Gonna drive it more open. For three. And one, Your arms might be complaining by now. Extend your arms out nice and long. Internally rotate this works your elbows a little bit. And then externally rotate the shoulders as far as they'll go. Internally rotate. Externally rotate oh yeah and one more time internally rotate and externally rotate keep the arms nice and long bring them forwards cross over the arms and then bring them as far back as you can And then forwards crossing the other arm in front. Bring them way back. Controlling the motion. Not just ripping through it. One more time. That's it well done bring the weights down roll out the shoulders they're probably complaining a little bit but we're building strength and that's a good thing swimmer's arms now. Bring the blocks or weights up and behind your head. Pressing the backs of your hands together behind your head. Pressing your head back into your hands so elbows strongly lifted From here, Open the elbows a little bit. Send the hands up. Bring them out. Internally rotate those weights and then bring them as far up your back as you can backs the backs of hands touch up the back again out Bye. And then squeeze the elbows forwards. Is the Airbus Open. Out Internally rotate. Back to hands touch your back. Elbows come forwards. One more time. Elbows back. Out. Up. Behind your head. You feeling this yet? Elbows forwards. Hang out here. Squeeze your head with your forearms. Nice and strong for four. Two one and then take them up Out. And all the way to your low back. Backs of hands touch, Making a fist. The two fists are touching. Sit up even taller and then pulse your elbows forwards. One. Two. Four and five. Keep hanging out there. Drive the elbows forwards as strong as you can for five, Four. Three. Two and one nice roll those shoulders out Three or four times one way. And then three or four times the other way oh yeah that feels good Alright, Let's take those out for a minute. We're going to be using them again. Let's just do a little bit of spinal release here. Take your right hand down. Lift your left hand up. Take a bit of a side bend. Just like we did when we were standing. Come up. Left hand down. Right hand up and over. Just releasing any tension in the shoulders and the spine up. And over And over. Take a couple of twists, Take your left hand to right knee, Right hand behind you, Twist. And then go all the way to the left. Twist. Stay nice and tall. One more each way. Twist to the right. And then twist over to the left and then for a couple spinal undulations hands on your knees inhale lift your chest look up exhale round back that feels good inhale lift your heart And exhale to round. Back nice come back to neutral now here I'd like us all to lie face down on your mat. I'll show you what it looks like here. Basically you're lying down your arms are going to be overhead palms face down so lying down on your belly with the weights in your hands And this will be quick, Not too painful. So take those weights nice and strongly forwards. Keep your chin down or your forehead down. And then. . . Send the arms as long as you can and then lift those hands off the ground three times. One. Two. Three. And then stay lifted. Three. Too. One drop them down send your arms out wide like it's shape of a t Palms face down, Chin on the mat. Again three times, Lift those weights up. Three, And then stay lifted. Three. One and then swoop those weights beside your bum This time turn your palms face up to the ceiling and then lift up. And keep it there. Keep reaching those weights away from you for three. Two and one nicely done Slowly sit up. Get rid of the dreaded weights. Nice and then from here we're going to sit on our shins and decompress your spine and give it a little bit of release for the shoulders so keeping the bum on the heels walk your hands forwards As far as you can. Up on your fingertips. Wrists and elbows stay lifted. So take the fingers as far away as you can. Drop your head between your arms. Forehead might touch the ground. It might not. Maybe use that block if you like. And then create this sense of traction and elevation in the scapula. The sides of the upper back. Tugging, Bum one way, Fingers the other way. I'm trying to find a sense of release. Both of the spinal column and the shoulder girdle. Yum, That felt good. And then come up onto your hands and knees. Separate your knees quite a bit and V the feet in. A little bit twisting child just to Compress the shoulders at the end here. Take the right hand up. And swoop the right hand underneath your left shoulder, Palm face up, Shoulder down, Cheek down. And take your left hand forwards even more. And hang out there, Creating a load. We're using your body onto the right shoulder here. Breathing nice and calmly there. Dissipating any kind of muscular agitation that might have developed through the practice. Low breath. And then to exit, Left hand by your face. Press, Lift the right hand to the ceiling. And then bring the right hand down and do the other side. Left hand goes up. Left hand swoops through underneath the right. Uh, Arm. Cheek down shoulder down right hand goes strongly forwards and then Create that load. In the right or left shoulder i should say Good sense of extension as you walk the right fingers away from you, Perhaps. And slowing the breath down as best you can. Oh yeah. And then from here. . . Walk your right hand back, Press with the right hand, Left hand to the ceiling. Left hand comes down. And from here, We'll turn around and lie down on our backs. Yay. That's nice, Isn't it? And with your lying down on your back. Take both arms up to the ceiling, Both legs up to the ceiling, And very slowly roll your wrists, Roll your ankles. Few quick cracks here and there and then spread your fingers and toes as wide as they go and then squeeze your toes and fingers spreading squeezing a few times and then a little bit of shaking, Shaking fingers, Wrists, Elbows, Ankles, Knees, Shake it all out. You know, You can make as much noise as you want. Nobody's watching, I don't think. Shake it out. And then simply lie down. Legs long. Arms flopping open beside the side of the body eyes can close and then feel that gentle rise and fall of your breath let your breath rate slow down and stay just as you are i'm going to sit up and guide you through a relaxation of all the various parts of the body helping you to integrate the effects of the this short practice that we've done Relax the back of your head into the mat. Let your eyes feel heavy. The wrinkles on your forehead soften. The sides of your cheeks sort of roll off the side of the face teeth separated in your mouth, Even the tongue dropping away from the roof of your mouth. A gentle tuck of your chin letting the back of the neck be nice and long. And as you're exhaling, Feel a sense of broadness across the upper back, Shoulder to shoulder, Sense of heaviness there. Then from your shoulders down to your fingertips the hands just sort of flopping open nice and heavy Maybe noticing the buzzing, The tingling in the palms, In the fingers. Then bring your awareness back up the arms to the spine and nestle your whole spine down towards the pelvis. Hips flopping open. Feet flopping open Breath nice and calm and slow. Enjoy this place this place of presence of poise and notice how you feel now coming to presence with the sensations of your body. Your mind your heart Simply being right here in this moment. Expressing a sense of gratitude towards yourself today for showing up, For trying out something different, Something new. Well done, Well done. And lastly, Thanking everybody else that participated today, Holding space as a community as we are. Such a wonderful thing that we're doing for one another. Let's mark the end of the practice with a shared breath. Nice big inhale. And a long sweet sigh. And thank you so much for sharing this space, For sharing your practice today. Hope to see you again sometime soon. Take good care.