Join Sarah for this 15 minute yoga practice where we focus on our core. This is good for all trimesters. We start with the breath and move through a few hands and knees exercises. Sarah offers modifications for those who need them. We end with a gentle massage.
Meet your Teacher
Golden, BC, Canada
Transcript
Welcome. I'm Sarah. And this is your. . . Core strengthening prenatal yoga practice. Let's get right into it. I'm 28 weeks pregnant expecting my third child. So we're gonna find a nice comfortable seat. I'm up on a bolster. You could be sitting on a block or a pillow. I also have some blocks underneath my knees that's to support my hips with so much hormone relaxin. It just helps ease the body so we're not strength straining anything. And we'll start with some nice breath because breath is one of the best ways to strengthen the core. And help us. So I invite you to find a nice long spine once you're seated comfortably. And close your eyes. We'll find our breath down into our belly so expanding the belly like a big buddha belly And then just letting the air go. So nice deep inhale through your nose, Expanding the belly. Exhale letting it go You're welcome to exhale out your mouth or out your nose. And letting every inhale massage all the organs, Massage your baby. And the exhale just lets it all go. Now on this next inhale, We'll expand like a big. . . Uta Belly. But on the exhale you can feel like you're squeezing up your pelvic floor and squeezing your belly. Activating your core muscles a little bit. And then inhale, Let it all go, Massage everything. And exhale, Squeeze and lift. One more like that inhale let everything go massaging and then exhale squeeze pelvic floor squeeze the belly activate the core a little bit Relax your jaw. Inhale normally. And exhale normally. You're welcome to open your eyes. And we'll move on to hands and knees. So I'm gonna invite you to bring blocks up. Towards where your hands will be. If you don't have blocks you can use books or big stacks of books. And then we'll find. Hands right underneath our shoulders our knees right underneath our hips we'll start by doing a few cat and cows so inhaling look up lift the tailbone we don't want to over stretch the belly so we don't go too far And then exhale to round the spine. Tucking the head and the tailbone inhale to arch And exhale to round. One more like that. Beautiful. Now find a nice flat back. Now if you have any sort of wrist pain or discomfort here, Which can be quite common in pregnancy, I invite you to stack up some blocks and you can actually rest your forearms. That's why I would have a second set here. On the block so you're actually there's no pressure on your wrist. That's my favorite modification for those with wrist discomfort. There's also, You can pop up to your. . . Fists but depending on you know your joints that may or may not actually feel comfortable if you're all right. Then we just have flat palms. So again, Finding the wrist right underneath the shoulders. Knees right underneath the hips we're going to hug the hip bones together It's like you're drawing up a zipper if you were wearing jeans. Squeeze the pelvic floor in. Hug the baby to spine gently. And I want you to hug your shoulder blades down your back so your ears fall away from your shoulders. You have a nice strong core here so it's kind of like we're doing a plank pose. From here, I want you to stretch your right. Foot back so your toes are on the ground. Giving a bit of a calf stretch. Now keep those hip bones hugging together. We're activating the transverse abdominus. And then inhale, I want you to bring your foot out. Wider than your mat. We're going to do little rainbows we're going to arc the foot all the way over to the outside of your the left side of your mat we're going to inhale arc up and over and her arc up and over Keeping the pelvis as stable as possible, The hips as stable as possible from just moving the leg. This is working the core and the pelvic floor vessels. One more Good, Bring the knee in. Let's do a little cat and cow here just to balance out. And then coming back to a flat spine finding that strong core and hugging the hip bones together lifting the pelvic floor hugging baby into spine shoulder blades down the back shoulders away from ears extend. The left toes on the mat and again we're going to lift that foot bring it over to the left edge of the mat and how arc up and over to the outside of the right edge of the mat So nice big rainbows. Inhale, Arcing. Good, Trying to keep the pelvis as stable as possible, The hips stable. Really pushing into the arms, Hugging those hip bones together. You have any pelvic floor pain or discomfort you might want to do this or maybe this just doesn't work for you and that's okay too. We don't want to find pain. In prenatal yoga. Okay bring the knee back in a little cat and cow again And to take a little break from that, I'll invite you to drop down onto your elbows. And you can let your. . . Chest come towards the floor if your forehead can reach the mat you can rest in this nice melting heart Relaxing your parasympathetic nervous system. By having that forehead on the ground. Feeling the weight of baby falling away from your pelvis, Opening up your pelvic floor. Hips are right above the knees. Breathe. And then we'll bring ourselves back up to hands and knees. So again, Engage that nice strong core. Hug the hip bones together. Squeeze the pelvic floor. Hug baby the spine. Shoulder blades down your back. We're going to stretch the right toes back on the floor. And I'm going to stretch the left. Fingertips along the mat on the floor. So this is option A. Inhale out and then bring everything together. Option B would be to bring everything out and off the floor like a classic bird dog. And exhale the elbow and knee in. Again, Choose the option that works for you that's most supportive. There's no right or wrong, It's just what feels good in your body. So inhale everything out. And exhale everything in. One more. And plant everything down little cat and cow here inhaling And exhaling. Finding that nice strong core again, So hugging the hip bones together. Shoulder blades down the back. Squeeze the baby to spine. And then again, We'll start with option A. So the left toes and the right fingertips can all stray out on the inhale. And exhale, It can all come back in. You're welcome to stay there. I feel like you can lift everything off the floor. Inhaling. Out and exhaling Again, Choose your option. Inhale out. Exhale in. Inhale out. Excellent. One more, Inhale out. And place everything down. Inhale to the cat and cow. And exhale to round. Good. Now we're going to come back to neutral. Again, We're going to place our right leg straight behind us. Hug the headphones together. You don't need to bring a lock. Underneath your shoulder here. And we're gonna. . . Turn the left toe. Out so i'm turning from the knee um rotating up on the side of my right toes now i'm in a bit of a side plank here My hand is on the block and it's underneath my shoulder. I'm hugging my hip bones together, Knitting the ribs in so I'm nice and straight and flat towards the side wall. Inhale here And then I'm going to squeeze everything. Lift up the center. Inhale here and then exhale I'm a little side stretch. I'm not putting much weight into this right hand. Inhale back through center and coming into our little side plank. Exhale. So inhale, Center. Exhale. Little side stretch Inhale center. X, A little side plank. Kind of squeezing the hip bones, Activating that transverse abdominis. And so And exhale. Inhale Exhale. Good, Now I'm gonna place that hand on the floor and I'm gonna crisscross my arms to come out. To a bit of a modified. Melting heart pose. I have the one leg out stretch still Just a different option for your hips. Different option for baby to have different space. Then micro bend. In the knee we're not overstretching into the joint. Good, Then you can bring your hands back under yourself and find your way back to hands and knees. I'm just going to flip around to the other side. And we'll start. With the hands right underneath the shoulders, Knees right underneath. The hips I'm going to bring one of those blocks right underneath my I'm gonna stretch the left toes back I'm gonna rotate. The right knee. Drop. The left foot to plant on the floor Bring this so it's right underneath my shoulder. And lift the other arm up Now we're in our nice side plank on this side. I'm hugging my hip bones together. My ribs are knitted in. And then flat towards the side wall. Inhale here exhale squeeze everything lift up to center. And then drop a little side stretch again there's not much weight from this hand to this leg Then inhale back to center. And exhale, Squeezing everything, A little side plank. Inhale back to your center. Air exhale, Little side stretch. Inhale, Center. Exhale, Side plank. One more. And him. And exhale. I didn't offer this on the first side, But you could always try to lift the outside leg. Activates that exterior hip, Glute med, A little extra challenge. Still hugging those hip bones together. And let that go Now you can drop the top arm to the floor, Crisscross your arms, Keeping that leg outstretched. Again, I prefer to come to my forearms here for a melting heart. Letting the baby drop away from the pelvis. Nice deep breath here all the way to the belly. I'm gently bringing your hands underneath you again. We're going to find our comfortable feet. Bringing the bolster or block underneath your hip. Again, I like to. . . Place something underneath my thighs. So my hips are supported. And then that's something that's nice is you can use your hands right on your skin or through your clothes and gently. Compress so it's like I'm moving my skin to the inside. So I'm going to start from up high on my ribs. Going to work my way down my belly. This just helps move the fascia and the muscles a little bit towards the midline. If you're familiar with what's called diastis recti, The abdominals do shift, And in postpartum that can be. More or less for people. But one practice I learned from a physio This is just to do this gentle compressing of the skin. So I'm not squishing into baby, I'm trying to move the skin towards midline. It's just a nice little gentle massage for yourself. Good. I invite you to bring one hand to your heart, One hand to your belly. Close your eyes. Take a nice deep breath and exhale. Moment to offer yourself gratitude for showing up. Short practice. And offer your baby gratitude. For joining you in this journey. Namaste.
