Gentle Prenatal Yoga

Join Sarah for this 18 minute Gentle Prenatal Yoga class. We start with a short breath work, some lovely seated practices, followed by a few standing postures, ending with pelvic floor awareness. This practice is good for all trimesters, and you can see how I modify certain things for the third trimester. Enjoy and take care of you.

Transcript

Welcome to gentle prenatal yoga with Sarah. I'm 30 weeks pregnant with my third child. I invite you to sit up on a bolster, A block, Cushions, Something to elevate your hips and you'll notice I have some blocks supporting my knees and thighs. That helps support our body as we have so much hormone relaxing. We don't want to over stretch anything. So having lots and lots of support is great. If you don't have blocks you can use other pillows, Blankets, Books, Whatever you have on hand. So just so you can find a comfortable seat with your back nice and long, We'll take a moment to put our hand on our heart and our hand on our belly. I invite you to close your eyes if that feels comfortable. Take a nice deep breath in through your nose, Out through your mouth, Letting whatever came before this go. We'll take another deep breath like that in through your nose, Out through your mouth. Then I'll invite you to bring the breath in through your nose and out through your nose, Expanding your belly nice and full. I invite you to open your eyes, Come back to the room. We'll actually start right away by getting off of our props and coming to a comfortable seat. Your legs can be crossed, Maybe your feet together, And you can place your hands on your knees or your thighs. We'll do some little circles. So I'm going to inhale, Bringing my chest forward, And exhale round the spine back. Inhale, Circle forward, Exhale, Circling back. This is lovely to do at any stage of pregnancy. All right, We'll change direction. Circle, So exhale on the circle back, Inhale when your chest comes forward, And you can add your neck and shoulders into this however you see fit. We never want to find pain in prenatal yoga. Discomfort is all right, But pain is no good. So anything I offer is simply a suggestion. All right, We'll come through center here. I invite you to find a nice long spine. Inhale, Look up, Open the chest, And then exhale round, Look down to baby. Inhale, Open the chest, Expand, Look up, Exhale round, Looking down to baby. One more time. Good, Then we'll inhale the arms up, Nice long spine. I invite you to bring your right hand to the mat. Keep both sitting bones on the ground, But let your top arm stretch over, Getting a nice stretch into those side ribs, Breathing here. Inhale, Exhale, Then we'll inhale through center. Both arms up, Exhale, Place the left hand on the mat, Stretching, Keeping both sitting bones down, Really breathing into those side ribs. Inhale here, Exhale here, Then inhaling both arms up again. You're going to look towards your right, Twist towards right, Let your arms fall wherever they may. So sometimes we twist further or less far in pregnancy, That's okay. Just nice and gentle and maybe look over your back shoulder. Nice long spine here. Good, Then unwind, Bring your arms up through center again. Inhale, Exhale, Twist the other way. Again, Letting your arms fall just wherever they may. We definitely don't force the twist. So nice long spine, Maybe looking over your back shoulder. Nice deep breath down into your belly. Good, Then unwind, Bring your arms back up through center. Inhale, Bring your hands through prayer in front of your heart. Good, Then we'll come on to hands and knees. Take your time getting there comfortably, Finding your hands right underneath your shoulders, Your knees, Right underneath your hips. We'll start with some cat and cows. So inhale to arch, Looking up, Not overextending the belly, And then exhale to round, Looking down to your belly. Inhale to look up, And exhale to round. One more like that. Good, I invite you to bring your knees, Your mat, Your toes together. You can sit your hips back, And depending how your body feels, You can totally rest like this. If you need some support, You can use a bolster or pillow to put between your heels and your bum, Giving your belly a little bit more space to rest into this posture. And then letting your breath expand your back, Letting your hips relax open, Breathing in and out your nose. Good, If you have a prop, Please move it from out from your heels, And then place your hands back down firmly on the mat. Bring your knees closer underneath you. I want you to feel like you're hugging your hip bones together here, And then tuck your toes under, Lift your hips up, Reach yourself up for a nice downward-facing dog. If this for some reason does not feel good in your body, Or you have heartburn, You can go back to a child's pose, Or even just hands and knees. Do what feels good in your body. Trying to find a nice long spine here, Just feeling the inversion and weight of baby falling away from your pelvis. And then I want you to walk your feet up the outside edges of your mat, All the way up towards your hands. I like to place my knee, My elbows on my knees to let my head be heavy. Just folding forward here for a moment, And then bend your knees. Tuck your tailbone under, Keep your head heavy, Gently roll up through your spine, Letting your head come up. Nice, And then we'll have our feet right underneath our pelvis. Micro-bend the knees, Relax the pelvis, Relax the hips. Place your hands at prayer in front of your heart. Again, Take a nice deep breath, And put all the weight into your right leg. You can hover the left toes, So you can let the toes touch down on the mat, And let your heel touch against your leg. This is a totally great place to be for tree pose. Hugging your hip bones together, Standing up nice and tall, Keeping your ribs in, Your chest open. Breathe, And then gently we can switch legs. So, Bringing your other foot on the ground, Tagging your other toes on the floor, Hugging your hip bones together. So, Squeezing baby in, Keeping the ribs in, Chest down, Heart open, And breathe. All right, Now we come out of that. I invite you to stand towards the top of your mat, Bring your hands to heart center, Bend your knees, And step your left foot back. So, I'm still high up on my toes and my left foot. I'm hugging my hip bones together, I'm hugging my thighs together, Really feeling the strength in my legs, Opening in my chest. Nice deep breath here. We're going to open the back leg up to warrior two. So, My hips are open to the side now. I have a nice deep bend in this front knee. My arms are open, My chest is open. I'm going to look over my front hand. Again, I'm still squeezing my hip bones together. So, I'm activating my core a little bit here. I'm squeezing my pelvic floor up, Feeling the strength. Then I'm going to inhale, Stretch the legs. So, I'm stretching both legs. I'll bring my arms in, My toes facing forward, And then I'm actually going to turn my heels in. Good. You can keep your hands here. Let's inhale nice and tall, And then exhale, Bend the knees. I'm going to inhale, Stretch up everything, And exhale to bend. My knees are going nice and wide and open. Inhale, Stretch, Exhale, Bend. This time we'll stay down nice and low. I'm going to lift one heel, Lower it, Lift the other heel, Lower it. Just once more each side. Maybe you're already feeling the burn. Nice. Squeeze the pelvic floor to stand up, And then I'm going to toe heel my feet in towards the center. I'm going to stand at the top of my mat again. So, Bring your hands to prayer in front of your heart. Nice long spine. Inhale, Bend the knees. Step the right toes back this time. So, I'm nice and high, Hugging my hip bones together, Hugging my thighs together. Nice bend in the front leg. The back leg is as straight as is comfortable. You can keep a bend if it's pulling your hip flexor too much. That's not super important. Just have a nice strong core, Strong legs. Then we're going to open that back heel up to a warrior two, Opening the arms up, Opening the chest. Nice deep bend in that front leg, Looking over the front arm. Nice deep inhale to the belly, And exhale. Good. One more breath here, And then stretch that front leg again. Turn the toes forward, And this time, If you have blocks handy or your books near you, You might like to grab that and put that in front of your chest. We'll inhale, The arms open. Exhale, Tilting from the hips, We're going to fold forward, Coming into a nice gentle inversion. If you have any heartburn, Definitely want to keep your heart lifted. It can be more like a flat back, Or if it feels okay to you, Maybe you can touch the floor. Maybe you can fold forward, Letting the back of the neck be heavy, Feeling the weight of baby falling away from your pelvis. Nice deep belly breath, And then bend your knees. Gently put your hands on your thighs to help walk yourself back up to standing. We're going to heel toe our feet in a little bit, And then I'll invite you to actually bring a block underneath your pelvis, Maybe two blocks, Maybe a few pillows, Whatever you have, And we'll sit down into a supportive yogi squat. So my pelvis is sitting on the block. My knees are nice and open and wide. Toes are pointing out a little bit. My heart is open. I've got my hands in prayer in front of my heart. I'm just going to inhale here, And exhale here, And exhale here, And exhale here, And exhale here, And exhale here, And exhale here, And I'll invite you to bring some awareness to your pelvic floor. So it's that nice diamond shape between your pubic bone, Your tailbone, And your two sitting bones. You're welcome to close your eyes so you can feel into those muscles, And gently inhale to relax everything, And exhale to relax everything. Inhale to relax the muscles, And then exhale, Squeeze and lift the muscles like you have a little tissue and you're pulling it up. Inhale to relax. Let it go. Exhale, Squeeze and lift. Inhale to relax. Exhale, Squeeze and lift. Inhale to relax. Exhale to relax. And then gently I'll invite you to come off of the block, And we'll come back up. We'll come back to a comfortable seat to close. If you have time, You could lie down on your side in a Shavasana. Again, I like to sit up on my props. We'll bring our hand back to our heart and our belly. Inhaling here, Exhale. Inhale some love into the hand and your heart. Exhale that love down into your baby and your belly. Inhale that love back up into your heart. Exhale that love back down to the baby and your belly. And then take a moment to honor yourself for taking care of you, Your body, And your baby by joining this practice. And take a moment to thank your baby for joining you in this journey. I appreciate you here. Namaste. May I see you in another practice.