Our Hands and Feet
When practicing yoga, we massage and build strength and flexiblility in our hands and our feet.
Our hands and feet not only provide support for our yoga poses but provide support for almost everything we do in our daily lives.
Our poor feet hold us up every day, take us everywhere we want to go, and are often the last things we think about . . . until they are killing us!
Practicing yoga can help invigorate our hands and feet and even help relieve some pain caused by neglect.
Hands
When we practice extensions, such as reaching high in Active Mountain, we are mindful to stretch all the way through and beyond our fingers and our palms.
When we use our hands in support positions, we spread our finger wide on the ground and push through our palms into the ground.
This stretch and release can help strengthen the small muscles in our hands and fingers.
We can always take the time to massage our hands and fingers either before or after our yoga practice.
Feet
Our feet are so important and yet we often spend so little time taking care of them.
Practicing yoga and stretching and massaging our feet helps to strengthen our feet and may help to relieve pain.
Always practice yoga in bare feet to allow the muscles and ligaments to stretch and strengthen.
Poses such as downward dog, help to stretch the bottom of our feet as we push our heels downward.
In standing positions, we push through the three points of our foot (ball of our foot, outside by our little toe, and heel) stretching and raising our toes.
Try not to grab our mat with our toes, but push through the three points of our foot . . . ball of our foot, outside by our little toe, and heel.
When in lunge positions like Warrior II, we roll our back foot to the outside (little toe side) and lift our arch.
Our forward foot rolls to the outer edge, toward our little toe, being mindful to keep our knee over our ankle. We roll to the outer edge just enough to see our big toe and second toe.
We can always take the time to massage our feet and toes from the heel, across the arch and up to the ball of the foot. We can also rub each toe between our fingers.
Our feet do a lot of work for us and can use a little special attention. They will definitely feel better!