Maximize Your Rest Days With This Mobility Sequence

Here at the Whole Life Challenge, yoga is one of our go-to mobility practices. To share its benefits with you, we’ve partnered with MyYogaWorks, as their approach to health and well-being aligns so well with ours. Together, we’ve created a series of follow-along videos for each week of the Challenge.

Not every day should be a go-as-hard-as-you-can exercise day. And it’s not every day that you should be striving for personal records. Although that feeling of having given it your all is rewarding, ironically, the best tool you have for powering up your ability to go hard is to sometimes go light.

Believe it or not, this is how yoga works, too. Yoga can be intense and sweaty, like a good vinyasa flow class, but other times it can be about restoration and relaxation. Whatever your sport or favorite mode of exercise, if your training schedule says “active recovery day,” then a yoga sequence like this is perfect for you.

In this video, instructor Vytas Baskauskas guides you through a sequence of stretches and also addresses the physiological benefits of deep breathing and a calm state of mind. There are only two stretches, but you’ll spend an extended time in each. While it may not seem like you’re “doing” a lot in this sequence, you are actually performing quality mobility work and getting some “active recovery” time for your brain, as well.

The stretches in this video are:

1. Supta padangusthasana – also called “reclining big toe pose”
2. Supta baddha konasana – also called “reclining bound angle pose”

To do these poses, you will need the following (regardless of your level of flexibility):

• Strap – something you can adjust and fasten, like a belt, works great
• Two blocks – you can also use books or anything small, square, and sturdy

So whether you need to recover from a hard training schedule, a hard week at work, or a hard emotional time, taking a few minutes to care for your body instead of pushing it could be the key to feeling back on top again.

YogaWorks

The founders of YogaWorks, Maty Ezraty, Chuck Miller, and Alan Finger, were all serious and highly accomplished yoga practitioners who wanted to share the gifts they learned from their own wise teachers. In 1987, when they opened their first studio on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, they gathered many styles of yoga under one roof, which attracted the best teachers in Southern California.

As yoga gained popularity in the U.S., the demand for well-trained yoga teachers began to grow. With the help and inspiration of senior teachers Chuck Miller and Lisa Walford, Maty created the world-renowned YogaWorks Teacher Training Program in 1990. Based on direct teachings from Indian yoga masters, this program has formed and guided today’s yoga leaders, including Seane Corn, Shiva Rea, Annie Carpenter, Natasha Rizopolus, Vinnie Marino, Kathryn Budig, and many more.