Before any kind of exercise, it is important to do some basic stretching exercises to get your muscles loosened up and ready to go. While it seems strange given the nature of yoga, stretching is important to this kind of exercise as well.
The two most important areas to stretch are your lower back and your groin muscles, as these are the most commonly injured and sprained muscles in yoga practice.
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Stretch your leg muscles out by sitting down and spreading your feet as far as you can. Try to push your upper body down in between your legs, and off to either side. This will help stretch your groin muscles and your back at the same time.
Pull your feet into your groin and position yourself in the “butterfly position”. This is designed to again work out your groin muscles. Bring your feet in close and use your elbows to help push your knees down flat.
From a sitting position, hold your foot in your hand and stretch out your legs one at a time. This will stretch the quadraceps and the arm muscles as well.
Now stand up and do hip rotations. This will start to loosen up your lower back. As you continue with hip rotations, start getting your whole body into it for maximum effect.
At the end of your workout, you should stretch out the shoulders and arms by extending your arms out to either side, and then moving them in small circles which gradually get larger as you go. Make sure to rotate the arms in both directions to work all of the muscles.
If you are practicing in a class, then you should consider getting together with another person to work on stretches. There are many two-person stretches you can work into your routine which might be beneficial to you, and you can help each other gain flexibility by putting light pressure on one another. This allows you to progress farther in a stretch than you could on your own and will help you gain flexibility faster.
To do a two-person modification to the basic stretches, you could have your partner use their feet to help push your legs outwards during the sitting stretch, or you could have them stand over your shoulders and put their weight on your thighs doing the butterfly stretch. If you lie down, you can modify the leg extensions where your partner puts their body in between your legs and pushes one leg up towards your head.
Performing these basic stretching exercises before class will help you get limbered up for the coming poses and exercises, and will greatly reduce your chance of injury. In addition, performing these stretches regularly will help you maintain or strengthen your flexibility, one of the key elements of performing yoga.
