106: How To Relieve Tension in 12 Major Muscle Groups

The Yoga & Ayurveda Mentorship is open for enrollment at http://www.quietmind.yoga/yam

Learn how to relieve tension in 12 major muscle groups:

1. Feet
2. Calves/Shins
3. Quads/Hamstrings
4. Hips/Glutes
5. Core
6. Low Back
7. Upper Back
8. Chest
9. Biceps/Triceps
10. Forearm/Hands
11. Shoulders/Neck
12. Head

Keywords: yoga teacher training, ytt, marketing, business, spirituality, yoga philosophy, asana practice, meditation techniques, anatomy and physiology, pranayama (breathing techniques), teaching methodology, yoga history, adjustments and modifications, Sanskrit, chakras and energy centers, Ayurveda and yoga, ethics and professionalism, sequencing and class planning, business of yoga, and self-care and self-study, equity, yoga therapy, community

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
My name is Jeremy Devons and welcome back to the Yoga Teacher
Training Podcast and today I'll be sharing about 12 major muscle
groups and how you can relieve tension in all of these twelve
major muscle groups. So if you have tension in your
back or your neck or your feet, this will show you a technique

(00:22):
that you can use right now to eliminate, relieve tension.
And these are things that I teach inside of the yoga and
Ayurveda mentorship, which happens to be open for
enrollment right now. And if you see this later, you
can join the wait list. That's where we do the deep dive
into all the anatomy, the philosophy, the deeper aspects
of yoga and Ayurveda so that youcan improve your health and

(00:44):
optimize your spiritual and health practices and really
every area of life. But it starts with the body.
And that's what we're going to look at today, is these twelve
major muscle groups, starting with the feet and into the
calves and the shins, the quads and hamstrings, the hips and
glutes. We're just moving up the body
here, the core, the low back, the upper back, chest, biceps

(01:10):
and triceps, forearms and hands,shoulders and neck and the head
like headaches. So what do we do to relieve
tensions in these twelve major muscle groups?
Well, starting with the feet. You can work with a lacrosse
ball or something similar here. So if you have plantar
fasciitis, that's when the plants are fascia.

(01:31):
The connected tissue of the footis very tense and it's already
the plantar fascia is very, verystrong, intense like steel
cables. But if it gets extra tense then
we have plantar fasciitis and ithurts when you wake up in the
morning and go for take a couplesteps and your feet hurt and
you've got too much tension in your feet.
So stepping on a lacrosse ball or something firm and similar

(01:55):
like some people will use, like a a soda bottle that's filled
with ice, like frozen in the freezer and something hard and
round that you can press onto your foot.
Even just holding in one spot orrolling on one spot can feel
really good. But working around this area can
help a lot. And I've seen people I've worked

(02:15):
with have like immediate relief of plantar fasciitis, at least
in that moment. And then it takes repetition.
It's not something that usually heals immediately, but with
repetition and using this regularly to relieve tension in
the feet, this can have a major improvement on this.
And even if you don't have plantar fasciitis, and if you

(02:38):
just feel like your feet are fine, try this.
You'll be surprised that usuallythere's more tension there than
you realize. And if you don't have a lacrosse
ball, a golf ball, Some hard plastic object will be fine.
But ideally some sort of firm ball that you can press on like
a lacrosse ball is ideal for this.

(02:58):
Moving up the legs, looking at the calves and the shins.
One of my favorite things to relieve tension here is what I
call calf smashing. Some people call calf smashing.
It's just basically sitting in Veras and a hero pose.
But you put a blanket or prop ofblanket yoga mat, something like
this in that space between your upper leg and lower leg when

(03:22):
you're sitting down in verasana and the pressure goes into the
calves. So the calf muscles, the
gastrocnemius here can often getvery tense even from use or
disuse. Whether you're walking a lot or
not walking very much, this can get very tense from the shoes
that you wear. Same with the feet and this
technique along with the last one.

(03:43):
A lot of the ones today are working with this idea of self
myofascial release. So myofascia is the fancy word
for the the muscle and the connective tissue and the
release of course coming from just putting pressure onto that
area where there is tension and there are what I I talk about

(04:05):
release strength and stretch is 3 step technique to work with
very tense areas. So the first step of that is
releasing tension that's alreadythere with something like
lacrosse ball or using props in these creative ways to create
some pressure on the tension. And from that pressure on to the
tense muscles that often sends asignal to the brain of like, oh,

(04:29):
I notice I'm holding tension here, maybe I can soften a
little bit and relax. And this has a really cool
effect of releasing tension justfrom awareness of putting
attention on it. Now, this shouldn't be super
painful. It can.
It can be too much where the nervous system sort of recoils
and you activate your fight or flight response the the

(04:50):
sympathetic nervous system and you create more tension and your
body freezes up even more so you're not going to release the
tension. So part of the whole idea of
this is that putting some pressure on to these points and
softening, relaxed breathing, releasing tension to the rest of
your body like the shoulders andthe back when you're working

(05:10):
with the calves here, this allows you to get into more of
the parasympathetic rest and digest mode of the nervous
system. Now all of this, all of this
myofascial release kind of stuffis obviously going to work
better if you are in a more relaxed state going into it.
So if you just kind of go through your day and then then
sit down and just start doing this calf smashing, it wouldn't

(05:32):
be surprising if your nervous system doesn't respond and
soften. It would make sense if you're
more beta brain waves, more active, more alert.
You're going to be a little moretense and alert, so you're not
going to release the tension. So generally these things work
best in the context of a full yoga practice, like I teach in

(05:53):
the Quiet Mind yoga membership or the Quiet Mind Yoga podcast
or just any yoga practice you do.
And at the end you could do these yourself.
Add these in and this can help release the tension that's
there. So keep that in mind with all
these techniques of releasing tension that they work a little
better in the context of yoga practice where you're creating a

(06:13):
more relaxed environment to go into the parasympathetic nervous
system response where your body can soften in as you're
receiving this sort of pressure and tension from the props or
the tools you're using Next, moving up the legs into the
quads and hamstrings. Now there's a lot I could say
here's a lot of muscles here, but I'll just keep it simple for

(06:36):
today and just giving you one thing you can do in this major
muscle group is doing bridge pose, but variations where you
work with the heels digging intothe ground.
So in the release strength and stretch approach that I talk
about a lot, this is not so muchin the release side, but more in
the strength and inactivation. And when you do bridge pose like

(07:00):
normal, you're activating the glutes and hamstrings a decent
amount. But if you lift your toes and
press your heels down and energetically pull them back
towards you, towards your shoulders, you're activating the
hamstring muscles a lot, becausethe function of the hamstrings
is knee flexion. So for the knee to bend, the

(07:20):
hamstrings have to activate to some degree.
And when you add the resistance of a floor in bridge pose, the
hamstrings activate even more. And when you hold that
contraction long enough that you're recruiting more of your
muscle fibers, getting more of the contraction of the the
hamstrings, and then you releaseit, then you've allowed the

(07:41):
muscle to relax at a deeper level.
And then any sort of hamstring stretching is going to be more,
your body's going to be more receptive to it.
It's going to be more effective.You still want to go slow and
gentle into the stretching. That's a big transition to go
from fully contracted. It wouldn't want to go right
into fully lengthening the hamstring and going to your

(08:02):
deepest stretch. But going in from like a green,
yellow, red perspective, going agreen to yellow at most never
hints of red really. So this is for the hamstrings
more so when you do this, there's something called
reciprocal inhibition. So you're activating the back of
the legs and that helps lengthenand release Createspace in the
front of the legs. So if you have tight quads, it's

(08:25):
actually sometimes can be helpful to as well for the quads
and releasing tension there justby doing these hamstring
bridges. So again, it's bridge pose, but
you emphasize the heels pushing down and energetically back
towards your shoulders in the pose.
And if you want even more challenge with this, you walk
your feet further away being very mindful of your knees.

(08:47):
There should be no pain in your knees, but you go into what I
call like reverse locus. So it's like Locus pose, but
you're on your back and it's somewhere between locust and
bridge, right? So you're on your back, you're
digging your heels down and you're lifting your knees, your
glutes, your lower back is all lifting, your shoulders are

(09:08):
pushing down as well. So you're really activating the
back of the body. And then when you release that,
you may find a big release of tension in the hamstrings and
more receptivity to lengthening the hamstrings.
You can try it. Try.
A good way to do this is to justgo on to your back and go to
Supta Patangasasana. So supine hand to foot pose or

(09:30):
with a with a strap as well could work and notice your
hamstring flexibility. Then switch into the bridge pose
with the heels digging in or if you're more advanced, the
reverse locus pose. Hold that until you feel like a
fatigue. Set in the muscle failure where
you've contracted as much of themuscle fiber as you can.

(09:52):
Rest a moment, then go back to Sukta Pata grisasanas to find
hand to foot pose and notice theflexibility in your hamstrings.
You'll probably notice a pretty significant difference in the
flexibility. I will add as well.
Just a little stepping back withthe first thing with the feet.
Another little cool test that you can do that I see works

(10:13):
every time I've tried this with myself for students.
So basically standing and standing forward, full pose and
just doing that cold, no warm up, nothing else.
Just noticing your flexibility. Then stand up again and then do
the foot on the lacrosse ball, rolling the tension on the feet

(10:34):
about a minute on each foot, andthen go back to the standing
forward fold and notice the flexibility in your hamstrings.
You'll probably notice a significant difference because
you're working with the fascia and the superficial back line of
the fascia from the feet all theway up the back of the body,
including the back of the legs. So that's a little bonus tip

(10:57):
there as well. But it's cool when you do these
techniques to see how your body changes and to do these things
before and after to notice what changes.
So that's a useful thing as well.
And then for the calves and shins, before you do the calf
smashing, try downward facing dog and then do the calf
smashing for about a minute, maybe more kind of listening to

(11:19):
your body. And then do downward facing dog
again and you might notice your heels go closer to the mat.
So it's pretty cool to see the actual instant effects of these
things. And then long term they do take
repetition. So you might have that instant
effect now, but if you have a sedentary lifestyle, or if you

(11:39):
even have a very active lifestyle, then you can have
repetitive stress issues. So these things are maintenance
and with flexibility we lose it pretty quickly.
So flexibility requires a good amount of maintenance and
repetition and practicing. Ideally 3 * a week to maintain
and see some moderate improvement of flexibility over
time. Five times to see significant

(12:00):
improvement over time. But if you just practice once a
week that will pretty much maintain like a decent amount of
flexibility. You probably start to lose some
of it over time. Moving on up the legs, we go
into the hips and the glutes andwe are working with the
piriformis muscle. Today is what I'm suggesting is

(12:20):
just one thing because again, there's a lot going on in the
hips and glutes we could work with, but I'm focusing on what I
think are some of the most insignificant areas and
significant muscles so that I'veseen that most clients need help
with. So the piriformis is underneath
the glute maximus. It's deep in the glute muscles
as opposed to superficial. And if you have sciatica, this

(12:46):
is when there's so much tension in the piriformis muscle that is
pressing on the sciatic nerve and causing pain to shoot down
the leg. So if you have sciatica, the
main muscle you want to work with is the piriformis here to
relieve tension there. There could be other factors,
but this is a good starting point and the great way to work
with that is with a lacrosse ball on the piriformis.

(13:09):
So like sitting in sort of crab shapes, you lean back, so you're
sitting down and you lean back on your hands.
You have your feet flat on the ground and you go into a Figure
4 shape. So like a like a seated pigeon.
And even that might be plenty ifyou're really tense here, this

(13:30):
is plenty without a cross ball. And if you want visuals, there's
visuals on the Spotify and on the Quiet Mind Yoga YouTube.
But so you're sitting like a you're in a crab shape, cross
left ankle over right thigh, Figure 4 shape like a pigeon.
And then you you just lean onto your left side and you'll find
some stuff there. And if you feel more open, use a

(13:53):
lacrosse ball under your left outer hip into this piriformis
muscle. And because it's a deep, usually
holding there for a moment allows the tissue around it to
soften so that you can get into that deeper tissue.
Usually the first thing you're going to feel is the glutes, and
if the glutes are tensing, you'll need to soften there.

(14:15):
Usually the glutes are lengthening just from the
position, so you're probably fine with that, but it does take
a moment to to find the exact spot, and sometimes you're very
tense and you don't need to moveat all.
You got plenty of work with, butholding this for at least a
minute can start to relieve tension here.
And with all of these movements,I'm talking about all these

(14:36):
holes, especially at least a minute working up maybe to three
sets of one minute. So you do one minute little
rest, another minute little restfor the asymmetrical things.
One minute on one side, one minute on the other side.
So about 3 minutes is enough time to really see some
significant release of tension here.
And really what we're working with is the brain and the

(14:59):
nervous system. So it's not really as much about
the muscle. And we need to get in there and
make it release and force the body to have this effect.
It's more so that we get into there and and feel the tension
and go soften, soften, soften and you might need to take some
big exhales, you might need to soften other tension in your

(15:20):
body and it's just this internalawareness and internal softening
that allows that muscle to release tension.
It's not a effort of force get in there and and use effort
right. It's more sukkah than stira,
more effort, more ease than effort.

(15:41):
So that's where the hips and glutes.
That is a very powerful exerciseand if you want other angles of
this, other things that work with the piriformis revolved
triangle has a great pose as well to get into that area and
down the IT band outside the leg.
That is often tight as well whenyou work with this for the core.

(16:04):
Now again, lots we could say about the core, but just for
today, I'm going to say laying prone on your stomach on a
rolled up blanket or a mat in a way that is enough pressure.
That is, you feel some pressure,but it's soft.
It's not like a lacrosse ball. We're not working with the so as

(16:26):
muscle here today. I'm not talking about that for
today, not here for the core, but for the core in general.
There could be deep tension justin this, in the stomach from
trauma like it's so common. People who grew up in traumatic
experiences have a lot of tension in the stomach.
For me it took many years to relieve tension in the stomach,

(16:49):
Tried a lot of things and one thing that I found really
helpful was this just laying with a little pressure, A soft
pressure on the stomach with a rolled up mat or rolled up
blanket. And you can do it like in the
pictures I'm showing, either in sphinx pose with your forearms
down or just resting like stacking your hands.

(17:09):
Resting your head on your hands,sometimes called the alligator
pose, so just laying on your stomach, softening your belly,
that can have a really, really relaxing effect on the nervous
system. And again, like with all this,
it is the nervous system we're really working with, not so much
the muscles when we're releasingtension.

(17:32):
Yes, it is the muscles, but no, it's not the muscles.
What's controlling the muscles is the nervous system.
And what we're working with today is releasing tension,
relaxing more. So this is a great way to do
that with the stomach. And any other stuff around the
stomach can be supported with this as well.
But there could be some deeper stuff here, like working with
the the SOAS muscle with like a more precise tension can be

(17:56):
helpful too. So it's moving on to the
opposite of the SOAS muscle on the low back is the quadratus
lumborum, which is sort of the backside of the SOAS.
The SOAS are the major hip flexors and the they're deep
muscles and they help bring the knee in towards the chest.

(18:17):
And when they're doing that, theQL muscle on the back is
lengthening a bit. And the opposite when the psoas
is lengthening, the QL is contracting a bit.
But the QL has some unique functions that no other muscle
has in the body, so it's a little tricky to get it and
release tension there directly. So one thing you can do is deer

(18:38):
pose, and often people have amazing responses to deer pose.
It's like so relieving, especially if you're sitting a
lot. You have low back pain.
Deer pose with a bolster as pictured here, or just with your
forearms down. But it's it's a little much to

(19:00):
explain right now. But if you if you know the pose,
you know you're within this example, like you're leaning
towards your left side, your left knees bent, your right
knees bent, and you turn your chest towards the ground,
lowering down. South deer pose is 1.
I teach a lot in my classes. I practice a lot because I've
had low back pain over the yearsand this is a great pose to
relieve that. But with this and with all of

(19:23):
these things, they are not cure alls.
So because dear pose may help one day doesn't mean that's the
only thing to ever do for your low back pain.
Ever. Because there could be a wide
range of causes of low back pain.
And whenever I teach with it andwork with it, I'm often teaching
a lot of stuff like Appanasana is great.

(19:44):
Often for low back pain versionsof pigeon can be helpful.
Deer pose is great, so there's alot you can do here, but deer
pose is one I come back to a lotand I've seen a lot of clients
get a lot of relief in the low back from doing this.
But it's important to say that you can't just start doing deer
pose everyday because now that'sgoing to create imbalances in

(20:05):
other ways in the body. And the body is this constant
work in progress and constantly evolving thing that whatever you
do today is going to affect tomorrow and the next day.
So it's about finding what your body needs today, and you may
find this be really helpful today if you have low back pain
moving up to the upper back. A great thing to work with here

(20:29):
is a supported supine heart opener.
So this is where usually you'll have like a block under your
middle, upper back and a block under your head.
And you're going to adjust wherethat is for you, where that
feels best. And in the back, if you're
watching the video, there's a lot of stuff in the back to work
with a lot of muscles there, a lot of layers of stuff.

(20:50):
So to keep it simple for today, I'm just going to suggest this.
And then what I really like to do is not just the heart opener,
because that's a lot for the chest too, but to go into the
heart opener and supported fish pose is sometimes called and
cross your arms across your chest.
So you're holding opposite shoulders and this brings your

(21:13):
shoulder blades into protraction.
So this opens up the space between your shoulder blades and
then put the block there maybe lengthwise, so along the same
length as your spine, the long way of the block.
And then you can move a little bit side to side and do the self
myofascial release into these muscles along the spine.

(21:36):
So that could be in the rhomboids.
These muscles are very importantto the middle back, middle,
upper back. It could be in the trapezius
muscles which is very large kiteshaped muscle in the back it
could be along the erector spinae.
You don't want to get into the spine where it feels like super
hard and a little painful. It should not feel painful when

(21:59):
you do this but maybe a good pain.
The good pain of like finding those tight spots and just hold
and breathe on them. Hold and breathe.
Relax your nervous system, soften around the tension, allow
your muscles to relax. So much of this is just like
turning the the signal on from the brains of the muscle to

(22:20):
realize you were holding that tension.
A lot of these tensions get heldunconsciously.
We go into a stressful situationat work.
We tense up. We're in traffic.
We tense up, but it becomes so subtle and unconscious because
maybe we're listening to the radio at the same time or doing
other things. We don't feel everything

(22:40):
happening in the body all the time.
The tension just gets built up and just held unconsciously.
So this kind of work we're doingin these poses helps release
that tension. So this is a great one for the
upper back, using the block as atool to massage.
Now you could do this with a lacrosse ball or something else,

(23:03):
but I find that to be a little unwieldy.
Move around and find the right spot and try to rock back and
forth. It's a little tricky, but with
the block, I think it works really well and ideally this has
got to be a pretty firm foam block.
If you use a cork block that's really firm, maybe, you know,

(23:26):
sometimes those can be really hard, but that could work.
And if it's a wood block, probably not those those solid
wood blocks, those are very hard, very hard and not even
sharp on the edges. So we want like a a hard foam
block ideally for this. It's got just enough give that

(23:46):
it's not painful, but it's hard enough that it puts some
pressure into the tension of theback and you can release it.
Now with the chest, same thing but different emphasis.
So rather than crossing your arms in supported fish pose, you
open your arms out like in the woman in the picture where you
can have your arms out like a goal post or AT just straight

(24:09):
out. That can be a nice bicep stretch
as well. Or like in the picture, she's
got her arms overhead, she's holding opposite elbows.
This just gets into different areas of the pectoralis muscles.
So. So the pecs have sort of
different angles where we can stretch them and one of them is
if we're at a sort of Y shape and we bring the arms overhead

(24:31):
and hold opposite elbows, we bring the arms into that Y shape
and add gravity. So we don't have to really do
much here, but gravity brings usinto a pretty big stretch.
So this technique is more of just a stretching technique, not
the self myofascial release of the chest.
But you could do a bit of that if you say put your right arm

(24:54):
straight out to the right, maybea little up like AY to find
different angles of where the tension is in the the chest.
And then you can use your free hand to press on to that PEC
muscle. Somewhere in there you might
find a tight spot and just pressand hold and breathe with as
little tension in your body as you can.

(25:15):
So when you're doing this this way of like using your hand to
press on something, it's even more important to enter this
rest and digest the parasympathetic nervous system
response with relaxed breathing.Maybe you need some big sighing
exhales, but because you're alsoadding effort and you're trying

(25:35):
to get into a state of ease, it's a little more advanced in a
way. But you can do it and that's a
great way to do it. And then alternatively I just
add one more. If you want just a purely
myofascial release technique, you would just go on to your
stomach and use a lacrosse ball on your PEC muscles somewhere in

(25:55):
that range and just having your arm maybe sliding overhead or
finding the spot, holding on a spot there and that kind of Y
shape with your arm one arm at atime.
Because that can be very intenseon the the chest and it's very
common, people have a lot of tension there.
Especially if you're sitting a lot.

(26:16):
Your shoulders tend to get rounded, tend to get more
tension in the PEC muscles, so that can be great.
Either the supportive fish pose arms overhead or extra bonus
technique laying on your stomachwith a lacrosse ball under your
pecs one at a time. Now I just mentioned one.
For the biceps of this supportive fish pose with your

(26:40):
arms out to the side. You might feel a decent stretch
there, but for the triceps, Puppy Dog pose is great.
So from hands and knees you justextend your arms forward into
puppy dog pose and then bend your elbows hands in prayer
above your head. So the bent elbows is what gets
into the lengthening of the triceps and if you want more you

(27:02):
can put blocks under your elbowsgetting into the lengthening of
the triceps and even into the shoulder and and lats.
So this is more of a stretching technique as well.
We don't do too much in yoga forthe biceps and triceps often,
and usually they don't need too much compared to other areas of
the body. But this is a great technique to

(27:24):
have as well when you have tension and your triceps and
your arms for the forearms and hands, now another common area
of tension and stress in the body.
So very simple, just from kneeling, you just sit back
comfortably, say your hips back,and then you have your hands
down on the mat, but you turn your fingers towards your knees.

(27:45):
So now you're getting into the stretch of the wrist and there's
lots of different angles you cando with that.
Fingers pointing back towards you, tops of the hands down,
fingers pointing back, You can just use your own hands to
stretch the other hand. This is again, this is more of a
stretching technique with the forearms and wrists.

(28:05):
Great one to do to release tension here for the shoulders
and neck. One of my favorites that I teach
quite a bit is shrugging the shoulders and then using your.
So you say you shrug your right shoulder and then use your free
hands to squeeze the trapezius muscle the upper traps, and just

(28:31):
hold it, holding the contractionand holding the squeeze for
about a minute or until you start to get tired.
So as you're holding it, you're recruiting more muscle fibers
until you recruited all of the muscle fibers as best you can,
and you're holding on a pressurepoint where you feel some
tension to encourage your nervous system to soften their

(28:53):
on that pressure. And then you can.
When you feel tired you can release the contraction of the
muscles so you're back to normalshoulders, but you can keep the
grip with your hand and go another layer of just holding on
the tension long exhale, softening, softening, softening.

(29:16):
But you keep the pressure. So again when you do this is a
little more advanced because part of you is still holding a
firm grip in pressure on your shoulder, but the other part of
you is just softening, softeningand you can feel the tension
start to melt away over time. Again, 3 repetitions of this on
each side before you do it again, a little check in as you

(29:39):
might just notice your shouldersshrugging before you do
anything. See how that feels and then see
how it feels afterwards and you'll likely feel a pretty
significant release of tension there.
This one that's been very helpful to me over the years and
I teach it a lot because it's sogood.
And then finally for the head, like if you have a headache, If

(30:01):
you have a headache, you'll feelthe pain in your head.
But what's interesting is almostalways if you have a headache,
you probably have tension in your rhomboids.
So these are the muscles that connect your shoulder blades to
your spine and they go up the back of the neck and you
probably have tension in the back of the neck and all the way
up into the muscles of the head and this is causing contributing

(30:26):
to the headache. Might be dehydration, might be
other factors, but it is very common that if somebody has a
headache, they also have tensionin the rhomboids and we can't do
too much to get into the head torelease the headache.
But we can very much work with the rhomboids like I mentioned
before, so supported fish pose, cross your arms, massage into

(30:50):
those spaces between the shoulder blades and spine, and
you can really, with the crossedarms, open up that space and
find those tight spots, hold andbreathe on them.
And I have found for myself and students that this can release
tension in the back and then tension of the headache.
Not always. There's a lot of reasons you

(31:12):
could have a headache. Could be stress, could be other
tight muscles, could be dehydration, so many other
things hormones. So it's it's not something I can
say will always relief release aheadache, but it definitely
helps. It doesn't hurt and it's worth
trying. And also, of course, staying

(31:32):
hydrated, tight muscles often ispart of that reason they're
tight is dehydration, so stayingvery hydrated can also help if
you have chronic tension in yourmuscles overall, making sure
you're getting hydrated to support that.
So that's our look at how to relieve tension in 12 major

(31:53):
muscle groups with the feet and the lacrosse ball rolling the
calves and shins doing. Hero pose with a prop
underneath, calf smashing for the quads and hamstrings doing.
Bridge pose with the heels digging in for the hips and
glutes, doing sort of crab pigeon with a piriformis

(32:16):
emphasis. So you're using a lacrosse ball
in the piriformis, the outer hipfor the core.
We talked about laying on the rolled up blanket or mat to
relax your belly. For the low back deer.
Pose for the upper back supported fish.
For the chest supported fish, just emphasizing the arms
opening. For the triceps, the puppy dog

(32:39):
with the bent elbows. For the forearms, just simply
hands and knees and then stretching the forearms and
wrist with different hand positions for the neck and
shoulders, doing the shoulder shrug and squeezing and holding
the trapezius muscle. And then for the head and
headaches, doing the supported fish pose but emphasizing

(33:00):
massaging and releasing tension in the rhomboids.
So if you found this helpful, this is just part of what I
teach in the yoga and ayurveda mentorship.
It's just one little piece of the whole thing, but it's a 12
week deep dive into soul nourishing practices to deepen
your yoga and ayurveda and meditation spiritual practices.

(33:22):
So really cool stuff. I'll be deep diving into
anatomy, philosophy, the yoga sutras, the limbs of yoga,
Ayurvedic practices, knowing your dosha, and even integrating
what I teach in Quiet Mind astrology of knowing your own
birth chart and how to adapt things for that as well because
there's a lot there. So enrollment is open right now.

(33:45):
If you're listening to this one,it goes live, but if you miss
it, get on the wait list for thenext time it opens.
It's a really cool program and it's like for me, it's like the
most soul nourishing offer I have where it's so much just
about getting really intimate with yourself, with your
practices, with your body, your mind, your spirit.
Really cool. And that's like the foundation

(34:07):
of everything else. So I wouldn't be here without
those things in my life. I wouldn't be able to do
anything I do if I didn't have years of immersion in these
practices. So I'll be sharing this in this
program. You can check it out now at
Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash yam or yam, my favorite food yams.

(34:27):
So if you enjoyed this podcast, take a moment to leave a rating
review on the Quiet Mind Yoga Teacher Training Podcast.
Thanks for listening or watching.
Hope you have a great week. See you soon.