A Routine for the Legs

I have just spent two weeks travelling with, teaching with and assisting my Iyengar mentor.

One of the perks of travelling with her was practicing together. We practiced every night and every morning.

In the mornings we practiced outside on the lanai.

Here’s me doing Parivrttaikapada Sirsasana on the lanai.

In the evenings we practiced in our little living room, I wish I had a picture of the two of us practicing on the rug in our little tiny house, but I don’t. All I have is a photo of the room we practiced in. Both of us practiced together on the 4’ x 6’ rug you see in this photo. It was kind of hilarious!

Can you believe 2 people practicing yoga could fit on that rug? Also, check out the view. That’s the Pacific Ocean you can see out of our window.

The purpose of the practice was just to reset the legs, to keep them in a state of yoga. But one of the benefits of the practice was that it cured my nighttime leg cramps. The nice thing about the practice that makes it easy to do was that we did everything sitting down or lying on the floor.

You can modify this practice to suit your needs. But make sure that you work the legs in all of the ranges of motion: flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, internal rotation, external rotation.

Here’s my version of what we called “The Routine”.

  • Foam roll the quads, adductors, hamstrings, calves and outer hips.

  • Supta Padangusthasana, leg up, out to the side and twist.

  • Sukhasana, lean to the right, left and fold forward, change legs

  • Upavishta Konasana, stretch to the right, left and fold forward

  • Baddha Konasana, stretch to the right, left and fold forward

  • Ardha Bhekasana

  • Virasana with different foot positions

  • Gomukhasana, sit on feet and feet wide

  • Supta Virasana

  • Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, brick under tailbone, (low, medium and high) legs straight

  • Padmasana and Supta Padmasana

  • Pascimottanasana

  • Janu SIrsasana

  • Triangamukaikapada Pascimottanasana

  • Marichyasana I

  • Pascimottanasana