Strong Shoulders Yoga Class

This Yoga class is focused on building Strong Shoulders to support your practise. A quick 10-minute practice for building stability, strength, and control in the upper body through mindful movement. If you're recovering from injury, starting your arm balance journey, wanting to build strength or try something new this class is perfect for you!

Transcript

Hey yogis, Welcome back. I'm really excited that you clicked on this video so that we can go through some shoulder exercises. We're gonna get into some shoulder strengthening without chaturanga pushups. So this is gonna prepare you for your arm balances, For your chaturangas, As well as any type of your postures that place weight on the arms or the shoulders. So we're going to start on the ground. In a tabletop position. Once you've arrived here, We're gonna just engage through the core and make sure that those hands are directly underneath the shoulders. You're gonna need that mobility. And place them just outside of your collarbones here. So they're not quite directly underneath the shoulders, They're just about an inch past them wider. So from here, We're gonna drop the chest between the shoulders and pull the shoulder blades together in the back. And then we're gonna press and reach them down towards the mat. So really getting into the shoulder blades. We're not doing cat and cow. It's almost as if there's a pencil between your shoulder blades on your spine that you're trying to squeeze. And then you're gonna press away. So it's a small movement, But it's super, Super effective in creating that support for your shoulders. We'll do two more. Great. Now from here, This one's a little bit tricky, But we're going to try and do circles. With the shoulders and with the chest. As best as you can, Reverse. Just the upper body. Once you've arrived here, We're gonna shake that out and we'll press into the left hand, Bringing the hands back underneath the shoulders. Reach the right arm nice and high and we're gonna hover in their twist. So we're just gonna hover. Bending the left elbow. Reach up. Hover. And up. You choose how much weight you put in that left side. The more weight you put in, The more strengthening you're gonna get into that left shoulder as you're moving. Mobile strengthening one more I'm gonna land this one release It's important as we're strengthening to also give our muscles a moment to know what's going on and relax. So you can place your right hand further down the mat if that feels okay, Or try not to crunch the neck. So if you need to take some of those kinks out of the neck, Place the weight further towards the heels. You can also option to reach the left leg nice and long if you need a bit more. Breathe here. And place that left hand back down, Finding neutral. Right arm this time, Inhale, Left reaches up. Exhale, Sweep it down, Hover. Inhale, Lift it up, Try to keep the pelvis neutral. Exhale, Twist. And how reach. Trying to almost look at the ceiling as you come underneath that right arm. Press, If you need to go slower to work on the breath, Go slower, There's no rush. You're still going to get the same benefits even if you do less. But be more mindful and more intentional with that movement. Last time, Gonna land this one. Reach the palm up. Allow the right ear to lay on the mat. Right arm can reach forward if that's okay, And then option again to extend the right leg. But as we're taking these options, Checking in with that neck again, We don't want any pinching or sharp pain. Last inhale. Bringing that right hand back underneath the shoulder, Unwind, Finding your tabletop again. Now from here, We're gonna step back to our plank pose. Holding your high plank here, Option to hold low plank in your forearms, Sorry, Forearm plank. All the way down to the mat. The wrists are bothering you. But from here, We're gonna just puff up through the center of the back, Kind of like when we were in our tabletop, But we're gonna hold this here. We're gonna really press down towards the mat, Inhale. Exhale. From here, Lift up the hips, Press them back, Downward facing dog. Lift up the hips coming forward, Binding plank. Pressing through the hands, Making this be your motivation to press yourself back. And then clawing through the fingertips using your arms to pull you forward. Pressing through the heels of the hands, Bring yourself back. And forward clawing through the fingertips. Last one. Press back. Classroom. And press back. Down dog, Beautiful. Pedal it out. If you need to pop into a child's pose for a moment, You can. We're gonna come down to down dog walk downs. So we'll place the right forearm onto the mat, Left forearm onto the mat. And you guessed it, We're gonna lift them back up again. One at a time. Reach, Reach, Doing three on each side at your own time. Switching when You're ready. Once you've done your three, We're gonna lower the knees down, Bringing the hands further down the mat, Chest towards the floor. And we'll let the forehead rest, Coming into melting heart pose. If you'd like to grab the hands together into a prayer and draw the fingertips back towards your heels. It's always an option. We'll release this pose, Bringing hands back underneath, Sitting hips nice and tall. We'll roll the shoulders back and down the spine, Doing this three times in each direction. And other way. Great, We've got one more. So coming into our down dog. We're going to come back down onto our forearms. So we're going to forearm down dog. We're going to nose tap forward towards your thumbs and press back. Nose tap forward. And press. Nose tap forward. Cross back, Two more. You got it. Last one. And release the knees down towards the mat. Finding Child's Pose. Palms up, Arms beside your legs. Now release those shoulders. Any tension in the arm. Let it go. Bringing hands underneath, Coming up onto your heels, Bringing shoulders over top of hips. Just sitting up nice and tall with the spine. Take the fingertips behind you, Interlace them, And keep the thumbs attached to your sacrum and try and straighten your arms and press your fingertips down towards the mat. Opening up through the chest. And release. Give those arms a little bit of a shake and we'll find our cactus. So finding cactus with the arms sweeping right underneath left and interlacing so that the palms can come to touch. If this isn't available to you, We'll just grab shoulders or even elbows. And as we're coming here, We're going to round through the spine and draw the elbows up towards the ceiling and then down back towards your belly button. All the way up. And down, Nice proud chest. We'll do that again and bring them all the way up. And all the way down. And release, Give those arms a shake. Find your cactus. Left comes underneath right this time bringing hands come to touch so this is all the way in front of your chest. Inhale, Lengthen. Exhale, Soften. Round through the spine, Draw elbows down towards belly button. Lift them back up, Stay rounded. And draw them down. Two more times. Crowd through the chest. We'll do this three times. Drawing elbows down, Fingertips reaching out. And release, Give those shoulders a shake. So these are some really great exercises to strengthen your shoulders, To prepare you for those arm balances, Chaturangas, Anything that requires weight and strength in those arms. So I hope that you enjoy them. Comment anything else that you might want to see from me. I'll do my best to produce what you need. Thank you.