Heart-Opener Exercises

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Hi everybody and welcome to a yoga-based blog post. This week, I thought it would be fun to go over a few yoga poses that you can use throughout the day to help open up your chest, shoulders, neck, and back. These can also help to improve your posture, ease lower back pain, and strengthen your core.

This Thursday, I will be uploading a Youtube video of this yoga flow so that you can all follow along :)

Heart-opener flow:

          • Start with deep, intentional breathing. Try to clear your head of outside distractions and bring your focus to the time you will spend on your mat. 

          • Cat/ cow. Exhale on cat, inhale for cow. Do as many reps as you’d like and feel free to add in some movement of your spice.

          • Puppy pose. Your arms are long and your hips bones are pushing up into the air while your belly button draws toward your spine. Try to connect your chest with the floor.

          • Sphynx. Make sure that your elbows are just under your shoulders and your bum is relaxed. Imagine that you are pulling your chest forward and up with your hands.

          • Locust. Lift your upper and lower body simultaneously while your chest pulls up and forward. Hold for as long as you’d like and repeat 2-3 times.

          • Tiger pose with opposite arm/leg crunch. Knees are under our hips and wrists are in line with the shoulders. Bring your knee to your opposite side’s elbow and crunch. Repeat each side 3-5 times making sure to exhale on the crunch. Try to bring your knee as close as you can to your chest.

          • Downward facing dog. Drive your hips up, your heels down, suck your belly button in towards the spine, and try to make your arms as long as possible.

          • Wavey vinyasas. This is a variation of vinyasa and entails rolling your weight forward like a wave into high plank and then dipping your hips down and curling your chest up. Make sure that your chest is pulled forward and your knees are off the ground with your quadriceps engaged. 

          • Low lunge. Make sure that your front knee stays behind the toe and that your hips stay squared to the front. Push your weight forward into the front foot. Option here to interlace your fingers behind your back and open your chest up to the sky. Repeat on the other side.

          • Camel pose prep. This is a nice exercise to do before you go into full camel. Cross your arms over your chest and lean back using the strength of your quadriceps to brake or lean more. Remember to keep your chest up and open as if you were reaching it towards the ceiling to prevent any crunching in your lower back. 

          • Camel pose. This one can be done either with your feet flexed or relaxed on the ground (feet flexed is more accessible). Remember to use the strength of your legs (practiced in the previous pose) to descend as your chest reaches up. Reach back for your ankles and grab hold of your heels with your thumbs on the outside. Roll your shoulders back and down away from your ears. Remember to breathe and don’t push yourself too far. Roll out of this one slowly and with control, the head should come back last.

          • Seated twist. Sitting on your heels, twist your left arm to your right knee and place your right hand behind you. Keep your spine tall and straight and look over your right shoulder as you exhale. Repeat on the other side. 

          • Lying knee twist. In a lying position, bend both knees. Let both knees fall to one side while the head turns to look over the opposite shoulder. If you’d like a slightly more intense version of this you can cross one knee over the other before letting them fall to one side. Make sure that both shoulders are in contact with the floor the entire time.

          • Happy baby. In a lying position, bring your knees up toward your chest. Grab the outside of your feet with your hands and pull your knees down towards your armpits. 

          • Neutral spine. Feet are as wide as the mat and knees are together. Option to place your hands on your chest and stomach to tune into your breathing. 

          • Savasana. Relax your entire body, letting your feet fall to the corners of the mat and hands by your side, palms facing up. Bring your attention back to your breath and allow yourself to be heavy. 

Thank you all for stopping by this week. If you all like this kind of post or want to see more yoga videos, just let me know in the comments below or send me a message on Instagram. 

See you all next week!

xoxo,

Alexandra