This is great for runners who sit at a desk for work to keep the hip flexor muscles open. When these muscles are tight, your stride length and running mechanics can be negatively affected.

An attainable hip opener stretch for all levels of yoga experience. This targets your piriformis muscle, gluteals, and other muscles involved with ensuring your running form is strong and symmetrical.

This pose wrings out your spine and rejuvenates it with fresh blood, oxygen, and nutrients. It also helps regulate sympathetic nervous system activity and relaxes your body.

This is a great stretch to lengthen your adductors and opens the groin.

This is a great gentle hamstring opener and lower back release. Let’s dive into these last three important poses in a bit more detail…

Begin with your knees bent quite a bit. Slowly fold your upper body forward, draping your chest over your thighs. Inhale to your fingertips and straighten your arms. Exhale gently engage the low belly by pulling the belly button up and back, cinching in around the waist. You will feel the low belly lift off the thighs just slightly.

Maintaining this low belly contraction, try to tilt the pelvis forward to tilt the sit bones up towards the ceiling. Only begin to straighten the knees if you can maintain this tilt of the pelvis, and only go as far as you can comfortably. Focus on your breathing, taking long slow deep inhales, and long slow exhales. Relax the shoulders, face, and jaw. Options of arm variations can also be taken.

In running, it is actually beneficial to have slightly ‘tight’ hamstrings. If you had long, lengthened hamstrings, it would be more difficult to have appropriate elastic recoil to quickly get your foot off the ground when running. So, if you are a runner… when you go into pashimotanasana or uttanasana, don’t get all worked up if your hands are nowhere near your feet. Simply bend your knees and enjoy the stretch!

This is a chest opener and passive hip flexor stretch.

Begin on your stomach, inhale, and place your hands close to your body under your shoulders. Exhale cinch around the waist to engage the low abdominals. You should feel your pubic bone gently press into the floor at the same time the low back and sacrum should lengthen.

Maintaining this subtle engagement of the low belly and tilt of the pelvis into the floor, inhale push through your hands lifting the shoulders and chest up off the floor, gently pushing through the tops of the feet on the floor. Lift the chest as far as is is comfortable, be sure to not clinch the glutes as you lift. Slowly lower the chest on the exhale. Repeat for 3 breath cycles.

This is a great yoga pose to build gluteus medius strength, improve balance and proprioception, as well as increase core stabilization.

Start in a warrior II position with the front foot pointing toward the top edge of your mat. Arms are reaching in opposite directions, bottom ribs knit in and low belly is engaged. Slowly bend through the front knee as you shift your weight forward bringing the front hand to the mat and the back leg lifted so it is up in line with your hips. Open the chest and the pelvis so hips and shoulders are stacked on top of each other. Eyes can look straight ahead or up at top hand. Modify with block as shown, or lift bottom hand off mat for more of a challenge.