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Tag: legs up wall pose
Legs up the wall pose is a yoga asana that is a simple inversion. It is a great pose to relieve fatigue and help tired legs.
Yoga for Pickleball
Pickleball is the new sport that is spreading like crazy. It’s easy to pick-up and great fun. Rackets are light and courts are small, but that still doesn’t stop those pesky injuries. Here are some yoga poses I think are great for your pre-hab (exercise to do to stop injuries and needing re-hab).
Best of luck and let me know in the comments how they work out for you.
Pickleball is fun, social and friendly! The rules are simple and the game is easy for beginners to learn, but can develop into a fast-paced, competitive game.
How does yoga help with pickleball?
1. Improve your flexibility
Yoga poses stretch your muscles and tendons. With time and by repeating your yoga practice, you notice you become much much more flexible. Better flexibility will improve your range of motion.
When your range of motion improves you will be reaching balls you couldn’t get to before. You’ll find it easier to get to overhead balls and get down to those low balls too. With a full range of motion, you can twist more easily and be more nimble getting around the court.
2. Prevent getting injured
Your knees, hips, shoulders, and backs, can all take a beating. Ankles can get twisted and wrists might start to complain too. Yoga helps your joints by strengthening the muscles around them. Pre-game yoga poses and stretching will improve the blood flow to your muscles. This helps to prevent muscle soreness and stiffness and help with muscle repair and recovery.
Some yoga poses like triangle pose are weight bearing and are super for working to prevent osteoporosis but increasing bone density.
3. Improve your balance and posture
Yoga poses help improve balance and posture. Better posture means you prevent your joints from overloading and helps prevent injury.
Lots of yoga poses need you to have good balance, Each time you are wobbling and righting yourself you are working your core muscles and all the small muscles as well.
4. Improve your focus
Yoga allows you to find mental clarity. During poses you practice intentional breathing, mindful movements, and you connect with your body. You start to notice improved focus and calm over time. Remember to try some deep, calming breaths before a serve next time you are on the pickleball court. This lets you to settle and become more focused.
Yoga poses for pickleball
Here are some poses for you to try. Never stretch beyond your limits. You may notice an element of slight discomfort but you should not feel pain. Yoga is a balance of effort and ease, you should always be able to breathe comfortably in the poses.
1. Cow Cat
Releases tension in your spine and hips. Great after a long pickleball game.
2. Down Dog
Stretches the back of your legs and back, strengthens your arms, shoulders and legs. Is weight bearing.
3. Cobra
Stretches your psoas, and hip flexors, strengthens your back and glutes.
4. Childs Pose
A counter pose after cobra, this stretches out your lower back. Again super nice after a pickleball game if you feel it in your back.
5. Side Plank
Is a weight bearing pose. Strengthens your arms, shoulders and core & helps with your balance.
6. Twisted Triangle
is also weight bearing. Works on your balance, strengthens your legs and core, opens up your chest and shoulders.
7. Tree Pose
This is great for balance, your core strength and leg strength & working on sharpening your focus.
8. Pigeon Pose
This is a great hip opener.
9. Bridge
Strengthens your glutes, back and core
10. Supine Twist
Releases tension in your lower back.
11. Legs up the Wall
A gentle inversion and a stretch for your back and legs, good for tired feet and legs after a game.
Why pickleball loves yoga
Yoga can improve your pickleball game. You will notice increased flexibility, more strength, and improved focus. Also a regular yoga practice means lowered stress levels, feeling more relaxed, and increased general wellbeing.
Why not book a yoga therapy session with me
Yoga for Peri-menopause
I’m sure none of thought that after the puberty rollercoaster we would ever be on that ride again. Welcome to peri-menopause ladies in our 30s, 40s 50s and 60 plus!! Here’s how Yoga therapy can be helpful with peri-menopause symptoms.
- A Yoga practice can overcome low self-esteem and self-image in women with peri-menopause [1]. Having a positive self-image during peri-menopause is really important, because it can be a time when we can feel at our lowest
- Yoga therapy can help hot flush symptoms and reduce night sweats. It also can improve your brain function. So things like memory, attention and concentration, and recall [2]
- Yoga helps with sleep [3]
What is Peri-menopause?
Peri-menopause or its sometimes called menopause transition usually begins 8 to 10 years before your menopause. Your ovaries gradually begin to make less estrogen.
Estrogens are a group of hormones that play an important role in the normal sexual and reproductive development in women. They are also sex hormones. The woman’s ovaries make most estrogen hormones, although the adrenal glands and fat cells also make small amounts of the hormones.
In addition to regulating the menstrual cycle, estrogen affects the reproductive tract, the urinary tract, the heart and blood vessels, bones, breasts, skin, hair, mucous membranes, pelvic muscles, and the brain. Secondary sexual characteristics, such as pubic and armpit hair, also start to grow when estrogen levels rise. Many organ systems, including the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems, and the brain are affected by estrogen.
Perimenopause usually starts in your 40s but can start in even in your 30s or earlier.
Peri-menopause lasts up until menopause. Menopause is when your ovaries stop releasing eggs. In the last 1 to 2 years of peri-menopause, the drop in estrogen speeds up,
So what is menopause?
Menopause is when your periods stop. It marks the end of your reproductive years. The symptoms you experience in peri-menopause continue after your periods stop.
What happens after menopause?
If your periods have stopped for a year or more you are described as being post-menopausal.
In post-menopause, your menopause symptoms may ease or stop altogether, but some women continue to have symptoms for longer.
Because your body is producing less estrogen there can be an increased risk of some health conditions like;
- cardiovascular (heart) disease
- osteoporosis (weak bones)
- urinary tract infections (UTIs)
So it’s really important to make sure you have a good, healthy diet and lifestyle, you exercise and keep going to your regular screenings.
What are peri-menopause symptoms?
- Hot flashes
- Night sweats
- Brain fog/ memory problems
- Mood swings
- Depression/Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Insomnia
- Vaginal dryness
- Discomfort during sex
- Lower sex drive
this list is only some of the main reported symptoms.
How can yoga help peri-menopause?
Here are some of the best simple poses to try to help with those peri symptoms.
1. Forward bends are good for anxiety, irritability and insomnia
Forward bends can help reduce anxiety, irritability, and tension. Folding forward and shutting out all your external stimuli will soothe your mind and reduce stress. When your nervous system signals that all is well, your adrenal glands and sympathetic nervous system can stop working so hard.
Standing forward bend
Have a generous bend in your knees and fold from your hips. Let your head your upper body hang loose like a rag doll.
Seated forward bend
Bend your knees if you need to, fold from your hips, try with a pillow on your lap to support your upper body as it folds forward. Let your head hang, maybe build up the pillows to rest your forehead.
2. Backbends help with fatigue, supported backbends help with hot flashes
Gentle-supported backbends encourage your chest and the heart to open and increase your energy. It also improves respiration and circulation and helps lift spirits. Any tension in your body can make hot flashes worse. Use bolsters, blankets, or blocks to support your entire body. Reclined poses with proper support should cool and ease hot flashes.
Reclined bound angle pose
This is one of the best therapeutic yoga poses for peri-menopause. It can be tremendously beneficial with hot flashes and fatigue.
Press the soles of your feet press together. Let your legs open like a butterfly. Put pillows on the outside of your knees to support your legs as they open. Recline and use as many pillows you need to support your back and head. Your head can be level with your back there is no need for a big arch in your back in this back bend. Make it feel good. Hang here for 20 breaths or so.
Supported Bridge pose
Bridge pose can be amazing for your pelvic floor muscles. Whilst in the pose you can place a block between your knees and squeeze to activate inner thigh muscles. Also do your Kegels whilst your hips are raised. Link below for how to guide.
Kegel exercises strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. These muscles support the uterus, bladder, small intestine and rectum. Kegel exercises also are known as pelvic floor muscle training.
3. Inversions help with depression & brain fog
Everything you do with your body can affect your thoughts and attitude. Sometimes something as subtle as a shift in posture can lighten a dark mood. Inversions can help improve a depressed mood. In effect, they are turning everything upside down. Of course being upside down also increases blood to the brain.
Legs up a wall
Start by sitting sideways to the wall with your hip pressed against the wall. Lie back and swing the legs up. Use a pillow under your head if needed. This should feel comfortable.
Triangle pose
Triangle pose is great for preventing osteoporosis, because it is weight-bearing. stimulates your abdominal organs and calms your nervous system. It also helps reduce anxiety & can help with digestive issues.
Try self affirmations
These allow you to challenge any negative thoughts. If you do it every day, can start to retrain the way you think. You can remove the negative self-talk and increase your self-esteem. Pick something that resonates with you.
The morning is a time to create an intention for the day.
- I am strong, capable & kind.
- I have the power to change my story.
- I am healthy, happy, and radiant.
- I choose to respond to this challenge with grace and positivity.
- I will not worry about tomorrow. I will enjoy today.
At night is a more reflective time. Perhaps a time for gratitude
- I am grateful for my supportive family & friends.
- I am grateful for the growth I experienced today.
Try mudras
Mudra means seal mark or gesture in Sanskrit.
Mudras are practiced to intensify the effects of your yoga or meditation practice and enhance the flow of energy. The Yoni Mudra is dedicated to the female Hindu goddess Shakti. Yoni means womb. The practice of Yoni Mudra brings strength and power.
You place your thumbs together and pointed upwards, index fingers together pointed downwards, press the other fingers together. Sit comfortably and follow your breath.
Try yoga therapy
A yoga therapy session blends mind-body psychology and yoga to meet you where you are right now physically and mentally.
Our bodies can hold trauma and carry stresses and worries. By using movement and breath work to deepen your body connection, you can discover how processing mentally and emotionally in this new way can be transformative
book a session here
References
[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18019884
