– What's up everyone,
welcome to Yoga with Adriene, I'm Adriene and today
we have Yoga for Golfers. This is a big request,
I wanna give a little shout-out to my family,
the Martinez family. Thank you for always
letting me drive the cart, and for all you golfers,
this one is for you, so hop into something
comfy, take off your shoes and let's get started. (upbeat music) Alrighty my friends, let's begin
in a nice comfortable seat. If you are not able
to come onto the ground or you don't
wanna get down super low you can do this
first part in a chair. We're gonna sit
up nice and tall. Just take a moment to take a
big full conscious breath in, and as you breathe
out relax your shoulders, kind of come into the moment. You've committed to do this
practice, hats off to you.
Take another deep breath in and use that exhalation
again to relax your shoulders and just kinda come
into the present moment. This is important, right? On the course, in the game,
the ability to recognize what it feels like to
be really present and calm, and of course the breath
is an awesome tool for that, so take one more deep breath in and use an exhale to
relax your shoulders, awesome. Send one leg out
and hug one knee in. If you're in a
chair you can just do a gentle twist in the chair. If you're on the ground hug
one knee in, send one leg out. Everyone sit up nice and tall, start to really
awaken this line of the spine from the crown to the tail,
so lots of awareness.
We're just gonna
take a gentle twist by hugging the knee
in towards the chest and then taking the
back arm behind you, sitting up nice and tall. If you're in a chair,
again you can just take a regular twist, what
we're wanting to do is gain a lot of
awareness up and down the trunk of the
body here as you twist, so if you feel like
the spine is collapsing, see if you can make soft,
simple self-adjustments to sit up nice and tall. I am in Nicaragua, so there's
lots of sounds around me. Here we are on the little
mini-golf course here, so… You might hear a
unique soundtrack throughout the
course of this video. Take one more
deep breath in here, use your exhale again
to relax the shoulders down and then release and
take it to the other side. Move at your own pace,
there's no need to rush or jerk yourself around
here, be kind to your body and find the
twist on the other side.
Whoa, what a view. Notice how this
side is different. One thing for golfers
is we tend to really work one side of the
body over the other, so we can use
practices like yoga to even that out,
counter-balance, find balance in the body by
strengthening and lengthening the right and
the left side evenly. And take one more deep
breath in here, fill her up. Exhale, relax your
shoulders, awesome. And then we're gonna unravel,
we're gonna come to all fours. So take your time getting there. See if you can
move with your breath. And if you're feeling
like the body is tired, or you know,
that rickety feeling, or oh, I'm not flexible, just remember that's
why we do these practices. If you're already
light and flexible then there would be no
need to do things like this.
So it's all good,
everything is as it should be. Don't let your pesky mind turn
you off from the practice. Once you get down nice and low, stack the
shoulders under the wrists, the knees
underneath the hip points, and then you don't
have to find tension or tightness in the belly but just a little
awareness of your core, and usually I like
to invite people to draw their
navel up a little bit, and that changes the
rotation of the pelvis and a good way to
think about it is you lift the front body up
to meet the back body. So you find a little
support through the trunk, also really good for golf game. Take one more
deep breath in here, just gaining more
awareness throughout the trunk of the body, all
four sides of the torso. And then when
you're ready, inhale, drop the belly to the earth,
rotate the shoulders away from the ears so open up
your chest and look forward. Big inhale in here. Exhale, reverse it,
rounding through the spine, claw into the fingertips
so you're not putting a bunch of pressure in the base
of the palm or the wrist.
And then one more time,
inhale, drop the belly. Nice and slow today,
and exhale round through, take your time. Navel draws up up up. Sweet, inhale,
come to a neutral spine. We're gonna turn the
left fingertips out and around and stretch through
the forearm, the wrist. If you want a little more here depending on how
you feel in your body, you can rock front
and back, breathe deep. Great, then release,
come back to neutral and then turn the
right fingertips out, stretching through
the wrists, the forearm, breathing all the while. Cool, and then release,
awesome, okay. Opening up
through the front body, drop the elbows
where the hands are and you're gonna
walk the knees back. Find a rock in the pelvis and then slowly melt
your heart to the earth. You don't have to come
super close to the ground.
If your forehead
reaches the earth, awesome, but we're opening up
through the shoulders and through the front body here, pressing into the fingertips, pressing into
the tops of the feet. And essentially
you're sticking your butt way up in the air here. Breathing in, (inhales) breathing out. (exhales) Take one more breath here
(inhales) and exhale. (exhales) Awesome, then
slowly come back up. Alright, one more
thing here on all fours. This time you're gonna
bring your knees super wide. Big toes come in to touch maybe, or just come in
towards the center.
Then walk your hands
a little bit forward now and as you're ready, inhale, reach your right
fingertips up towards the sky. Feel big stretch here,
and then exhale. Bring your right
fingertips underneath the bridge of your left arm as
we come in for a twist. Big twist in the upper back
body here, breathing deep. You really wanna
feel your breaths, so as you breathe
in you should feel the skin of the torso stretch. And then connect to your core, a little awareness in
the belly as you press into your left palm, so
try to move from your core. And unravel and switch. Inhale, left fingertips reach
for the sky, big stretch, exhale, thread the needle.
Notice how this
side is different. You wanna gain that awareness
so that you can work on that throughout your yoga practice. Again, counterbalancing
any work you do on only one side of the
body during your golf game. Inhale and exhale, come back. Awesome work, okay, from here
we're gonna walk the knees in. Send the hips up high
to a Downward Facing Dog. So don't panic if
you're new to the practice, just move nice and
slow and feel it out, that's the most important thing.
You don't wanna just kind of
push yourself into a shape, but really feel your hands
press evenly into the earth and then don't worry at all about getting the
heels down to the earth. Keep the heels lifted for now and just start to find soft
easy movement that feels good. I just heard a
howler monkey, what? They sound like dinosaurs. Okay, so paddle it out,
and use this valuable time to check in with your body. So the thoughts
are really powerful, and golfers know this, right? You gotta have that connection to the mind, the concentration.
You want your mind working
for you, not against you. So practice that here
in your yoga practice. That was redundant, but
practice that here. (laughs) Okay, take one
more deep breath in. And then exhale, walk the feet
up towards the hands slowly, keep the knees bent. Take a big forward fold here
and bend the knees generously to find awesome
release in the lower back. Make sure you're not
holding the head or the neck. You might even shake the head
a little yes, a little no. You might even rock on the
feet a little, front and back. Connect to your breath. And then when you're ready,
really connect all four corners of the feet to the
earth for stability, and then find a little
connection to your center, your core and as you're ready,
tuck the chin into the chest and enjoy this
next move as you roll all the way up to standing.
And as you
stand up nice and tall in what we call
Mountain Pose or Tadasana, check in with your
beath again and just notice if you are shifting
towards the front of your feet or the back, see if you
can spread awareness evenly throughout all four
corners of the feet. And when you're
ready, take the fingers, swim them around to
interlace behind your tailbone and start to open
up through the chest, even more here by drawing the
knuckles down, and maybe away. And if you need to
square the wrists here, keep lots of space,
go ahead and do it. Otherwise work to
bring the palms together. And then again we wanna breathe
deep and use each exhale to draw the shoulders
down away from the ears. Soft easy movement in the
neck might feel good here.
And then again, just
keep noticing are you shifting weight to one
side or front to back. See if we can
balance out both the right and left side of the body here. Great, take one
more breath, inhale. Use the exhale
to release the arms. Wonderful, we're gonna
inhale, reach for the sky, spread your fingertips,
you're gonna feel a nice flow of
blood and energy here. Inhale, reach for the sky. Exhale, bend
the knees generously as you take it all the way down, just roll with me here. Great, from here we're gonna
step the right foot back. Just the right foot,
keep the left foot forward. And then you're gonna
come onto the right knee and slowly rise back up.
Front knee is over front ankle, so you don't want that
knee coming way over the toes. Stack it up, line it up,
and then (laughs) see if you can just
kind of shift your awareness back to this trunk,
all four sides of the torso, lifting and lengthening up
towards the sky. Awesome, left hand comes to
the top of the left thigh. Inhale, reach your
right fingertips up.
Big breath in, big breath out. Take your right fingertips
over towards the left. You should feel this
really awesome stretch through the front of
the right hip and the psoas. Breathing deep, inhale. Lift the chin
slightly, big stretch. Exhale, come back
to center, beautiful. Both hands reach
up towards the sky and then release it all
the way back down, beautiful.
From here, nothing fancy,
I'm just gonna lift the back leg and then I'm gonna
step the back leg up to meet the front
and I'm gonna switch. So left foot goes back
and lower under the left knee. Front knee is
stacked over front ankle, and when you're ready,
lift up through the torso. Right hand comes to
the top of the right thigh, you can use this
as a little reminder to pull that right hip crease in so you can find
length through the torso. And then when you're ready, reach the left
fingertips up towards the sky. Big stretch, find length
through the left side body. And then when you're
ready, slowly start to reach towards the
right side of your mat. So the lower body is grounded and we're lifting
up through the trunk. Big inhale. Big exhale, (exhales)
one more breath, inhale.
Lift the chin
slightly. (inhales) Awesome, then exhale, come back. Both fingertips
reach up towards the sky, big stretch. (inhales) And then release it down,
you got this, beautiful. Lift the back knee, bring it
up to meet the front, great. From here, tuck the chin,
drop the crown to the earth, and once again,
big release for the lower back. Forward fold, we're here for
five, relax your shoulders, four, soften through the jaw, three, (inhales) breathing deep, two, (exhales) and one. Beautiful, repeat the
roll up, tuck the chin.
Come all the way up to standing. Alright, one more time. Swim the fingertips around, interlace this time,
opposite thumb on top. Knuckles drawn down and away,
we open up through the chest, lengthen through all
four sides of the torso. Stand up nice and tall. Breathing deep. Awesome, then slowly release. Inhale, reach for the sky. Exhale all the way down. Step the right foot back, this
time you can lower the knee just like we did before
or you can keep it lifted.
Right hand comes
to the earth, inhale, left fingertips
towards the sky, big stretch. Inhale in, exhale. If the back knee is lifted,
maybe you try to keep it lifted. If it's lowered you
can keep it lowered. You're gonna slowly
bring the left fingertips back, right fingertips forward and
lift up through the torso. Imagine lifting up
from the armpit chest, so a little more challenging
version of that is here.
Back knee lifted
or back knee lowered. Tap into that core
strength, this is huge here for you to breathe using
the inhale to find length, the exhale to
relax the shoulders down. Take one more big beautiful
breath in here, you got this. Gorgeous, then check it
out, this is a challenge. You're gonna send
the left fingertips down, right fingertips up for
one big stretch here, inhale. And then exhale
all the way back down. Awesome work, 'kay,
same thing on the other side. We're almost done here. Step the back foot
up to meet the front. Take a deep breath in, (inhales) reset and left foot goes back. Alright, your choice,
back knee lowered or lifted. Big twist here
when you're ready, plant the left palm, inhale, lift the right
fingertips up high. Draw the shoulder
blades together, stick with it, breathing deep, back
knee lowered or lifted.
Then when you're
ready, light a little fire under your belly,
connect to your core. And we'll lift off,
squeezing our thighs to the midline
for stability here. Pull the right fingertips back, left fingertips
are reaching forward. Imagine you're sandwiched between two wall
pieces or two windowpanes. Back knee lowered or lifted, take one more
breath, try to lift up through all four sides
of the torso, find length. And then here's our
challenge, more rotation. Right fingertips go down as
the left fingertips reach up, you got this, breathing deep. Long beautiful neck, maybe
lift your chin just slightly. Yes, and then exhale,
take it down slowly. Awesome work, plant the palms. This time you're gonna
step the right toes back, one plank pose here. You can come onto the
forearms here if you like. And we're here
for five, breathing, four, three, two, and lower the knees on the one.
Great, take the knees
just like we did before as wide as the yoga mat. Inhale, look forward. Exhale, relax, Child's Pose. If a Child's Pose is not a
relaxing pose for you, (laughs) then you can just
sit up nice and tall. Notice how you feel. Alright, slowly rise up,
come to lie flat on your back. This is the good stuff. We'll end with a
little release for the hips, so if you have open hips,
flexibility in the hips already, then you can do regular pigeon.
Otherwise I'm gonna
guide us to flat back and we're gonna do our
reclined one-legged pigeon. So you'll keep both
feet on the ground to start and you're gonna
cross your right ankle over the top of your left thigh. And if you're new to this,
this can be a little confusing at first but then
once you get the hang of it it's a good go-to release
for the lower back and spine and the hips, yeah, and
the glutes and everything. Okay, right fingertips
go in through the hole and then we'll
interlace behind the thigh, not the shin, behind the thigh. Then press your left
foot into an imaginary wall, so you're creating a 90 degree
angle here, best you can. And then we'll squeeze
the legs towards the heart.
You can close your
eyes here and just use the sound of my
voice to guide you. You can rock gently left to
right for a little more stretch. And if you want
more in the hamstrings, you'll release that right ankle and just send
the left leg up high. So there's lots of
options to play and wiggle in and out here, creating space. Awesome, and then
we'll slowly release. Both feet come to the ground,
reset, take a deep breath in. Long breath out, and
then cross the left ankle over the top of the right thigh and find it on the other side.
I like to imagine
my right foot kicking into an imaginary wall here, and then I'm
slowly using my left elbow to kind of guide the
left thigh a little bit out. Every body will be
different of course, so use your breath to explore
and find what feels good. Use your
exhalations to relax places where you might
have gotten tight here, perhaps in the shoulders. Extend that leg if you
did it on the other side, and we've taken the
right foot up towards the sky. Cool, beautiful work,
take one more big breath in and use an exhale to release. Take a second here
to bring the arms out to your sides and just
windshield wiper the legs one side and then the other, getting a little booty massage, a little massage on
the piriformis maybe.
Cool, and then from
here you can rock and roll up to a seat, take a
nice breath at a seat or if you wanna
take a quick Savasana you'll just
extend the legs out long. Hats off to you for taking
the time to tend to your body. I wish you the
best on the course. Share this with your friends, your family,
other people who play. And we'll finish by
bringing the palms together and bowing to one
another, we say namaste. (upbeat music).