For the first time in over a year, I’m not teaching my “Unwind the Spine” class on a Friday night. I have mixed emotions about this. First, I welcome the opportunity to spend more time with my family. I’m looking forward to pouring my energy into creating a delicious Friday night Shabbat meal for family and close friends. However, I’ll miss spending time with my family of yogis as we welcome the weekend, and let go of tension from the week.
“Unwind the Spine” was a lovely class that started just before the pandemic forced us all to rethink where and how we do yoga. When I first started this class I was excited to use foam rollers and other props that were available at Refresh Studios. Since foam rollers, blocks, bolsters and the like are not always available to students in their homes, I had to shift my teaching style to find household items to use as props. The homemade towel roll bolster was born! I found that simply folding a bath towel in four and rolling it from the short end can work wonders to unravel tight areas of the spine. One day I’ll teach “Unwind the Spine” again. Until then, roll up your towel and try these tips to loosen up some of your tightest areas:
- To relieve upper back tension:
- Place the towel roll horizontally on your yoga mat and lie down with the roll across your shoulder blades
- Bring your arms out to a Cactus/Goal Post position
- Take 10 (ish) slow breaths in and out through the nose. Try to release and relax with each exhale
- Next, on the inhale bring your arms (with elbows bent) toward each other
- As you exhale lower the arms (still with elbows bent) to or toward the floor
- Repeat this sequence 5-10 times
- To release lower back/hip tension:
- Place the towel horizontally on your yoga mat and lie down with the roll under the small of your back
- Make sure your tushie is supported and touching the floor
- Bring the legs a little wider than hip distance apart and let the toes point inward toward each other
- Take 10 (ish) slow breaths in and out through the nose. Try to release and relax with each exhale
- Now bend the knees and place feet flat on floor, lift the hips and move the roll downward so it is under the hip bones
- As you exhale lower both knees toward the right until the left hip raises slightly off the towel roll
- Inhale knees to center, then exhale both knees to the left
- Repeat this sequence 5-10 times
- Alter the position above by lifting hips and moving the towel roll to the right. Now only the right hip will be on the towel, while the left hip comes to the floor.
- Lift the right foot off the floor with the knee bent
- Keeping the knee bent, make slow circles with the right leg
- You can leave the left knee bent with foot on floor, or extend it and let the leg rest on the floor (extending the leg will intensify the massage)
- After you’ve made 5-10 circles on the right, repeat on left side.
One day, I hope to bring “Unwind the Spine” back. Until then, try the above towel tricks or join me for one of my weekly offerings. I teach Hatha Yoga (Sundays 5-6 pm MT), Yoga 1 (Mondays, 5:30 pm MT) and Healing through Yoga (Wednesdays at 5:30 MT).
If you’d like a personalized sequence or an individual session focused on your health goals, please drop me a line at lorie@wellnesswithlorie.com. You can also sign up for a class or private session by clicking here. For more tips on pain relief and injury prevention through yoga and physical therapy, sign up for my newsletter here, or follow me on social media on FaceBook @yogalorie, Instagram Wellness_with_Lorie, or LinkedIn yogalorie