(30-min) Fly Like an Eagle - Strengthen your Hips and Legs! - Fun & Fit Yoga Series with Viki Boyko

Hi, it's Vicky here. Are you ready for a fun fitness yoga workout? You're gonna love it. It's such fun. We're gonna build strength, balance, coordination, and even a bit of cardio. I'm gonna weave that around classic yoga poses. There's gonna be some of your favorites there, I know, such as tree pose, warrior, bridge pose, eagle pose, and more. And what I've done is to take key muscles that you are activating to get in, to hold, and to get out of those poses, and woven a workout that's fun and fitness to get you activating those muscles just that little bit more. There's some cardio in there to get your heart going, and definitely some strengthening for some of those muscles that you might not have felt in a little while. And also, extra bonus, is that coordination is gonna challenge your brain cells. You'll be doing things that you haven't done before, getting in and out of poses in ways you haven't tried, and that's great for building brain-body coordination. It'll create more adaptability, more variability in your movement, and your muscles and your fascia and your brain need this. It's super, super key. So if you don't get it the first time, just watch it again, and suddenly you'll start to get yourself in a rhythm and start getting a little more cheerful in coordinating those muscles, bones, fascia, and brain cells. So what do you need? You need you, a chair, or maybe a wall if you don't want to use a chair, weights. If you haven't got handheld weights, or wrist weights, or ankle weights, then that's okay, and you can also use a couple of cans, like cans of tomatoes or something like that. You also need a large bathtub or yoga blanket, and I think that's probably it, because once you've got all of that, you're ready to move your asana. Hey, let's go with some fun fitness. See you in a bit. Hi, it's Vicky here. Welcome to your fun fitness yoga class. It works and weaves strength, balance, coordination, and cardio around classic eagle pose. Eagle, garudasana. I have one with me. If you just peek down there, there's my eagle. What are the qualities of an eagle? Well, they're great at focus, sharp laser vision that can see their prey, and stay absolutely focused on getting what they want. So can you do that in your practice today? Stay focused, get really clear, stay with it, stay what you feel in your body to do the right thing, and stay with it. Then they're rather fearless, aren't they? They just dive in there, have a go. Can you be fearless? Maybe there are some things in the class today that you haven't done before. You're gonna go for them. Give it a try. And then what? They take flight, aren't they? This one is beautiful. Look at it in flight. So to take flight, you also have to stay light. And for that, you have to have fun. Loosen up, lighten up a bit. We're gonna start that off with our warmup, which is always important before you really get moving, by tapping the body. So a lot of work today is gonna be centered around your pelvis and your legs. So let's begin to tap, get blood circulation and awareness around this area. Keep your breath flowing in and out. And much of the class today is going to be about keeping moving, and that will up your cardio. So if you want to start, adding a little steps with the feet. But anytime you want to back off with that, do it. If you want a little more, lift your legs a little higher. Eagle pose, it focuses a lot on the inner thighs. So stroke and roll down the inner thighs, and then lift and stomp as you do it. Maybe you can feel the inner thighs work as you do that. So a little rub and a tap. And then come down into the knees and rub around the knees. Just give a little bounce into there and rub. There's a lot of work around the knees and the sleeve of muscles around there. So we're gonna get that nice and warm and juicy. And then come back up and a little bit off the hips. So do it from side to side. These side glute muscles, your glute medius and minimus, they're your stabilizers. You'll be waking them up in the practice today. So a little bit of a bop, and then come into the glute muscles at the back and do a little, just like a chair pose and back. Don't you say your pelvis widens as you come down and narrows as you come up? Do you notice that? Wide pelvis, narrow pelvis. Important for your knees. Because if you don't and you do something else, oh, that's not so good. Okay, just a bit of bopping. And then coming up to the chest and tarsum in the chest. Make a little noise, ha. And you know what? The pec muscles at the front of the chest are also involved in eagle pose. So we need to wake these up too, just as much as the legs. So just open out here, open out your wings, and then close in your wings and tap, tap, tap. Maybe you can squawk like an eagle. Open it out and tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Open it out, of course, getting your heart rate up a little bit already. Yeah, so start tapping down again with the feet. And we'll get a wing. Tap into a wing, all over your wing, and even your wrists can move, flutter those little feathers. What have you got here? It's got those lovely feathers. Going to do that with the wrists and fingers. Because even the wrists and the feet are targeted in eagle pose if you really want to get that wrap. Okay, so we're going to open the wing, tap, and close the wing. You can maybe tap a little over the back of the wing. Open a wing, tap the front, back of the wing, tap the back. And one more time like that, and good. Shake out that wing, as if you're shaking water off. I don't know, maybe the eagle's dived into the water. It's got to get nice and dry. Excellent, and then brush off the wing all the way from top to bottom. Whoosh! Just notice, maybe you have a longer wing on this side. I think I do have a longer wing. Okay, so I'm going to tap the other wing. And again, you march it out if you want to march it out, or don't if you feel that it's too much, because we're only warming up, nice and gentle. And always breath in and breath out. And if you can, breathe in through your nose, and you can breathe out through the nose or the mouth, but try to get the breath in through the nose, that's most important. Ooh, I'm getting warmer. Okay, so then wing opens, wing closes. Wing opens, wing closes. Opening, you're tapping along there, and closes. Excellent, and then shake out the wing, and then brush off the wing, brush it off. Whoo, wow. Okay, roll the shoulders, breath in. Excellent, roll the shoulders now. Breath in, up we go. Rolling the wings, rolling the wings. Ah, a little something for the feet now. So take one foot in front, it doesn't matter which one. You're on the heel, you're just going to roll the foot, forefoot, back and forth. Try to touch your big toe and your pinky toe, and then do the same with the wrist. So you're trying to wave with the foot. It's tempting to want to move the leg a lot, like this. Try not to do that too much, but keep it more in the foot. And of course, you'll move your leg a bit, but that's fine. On breath in, and breath out. Again, the joints of the foot warmed up, so that we can wrap the foot if we want to. Shake out the hand. You need to hold onto a chair or the wall. Shake out your leg as well. Oh my goodness, shaky wings. Okay, just pause, notice. Feel a little light down that side. Oh my gosh, we've got to do it on this side now. So just put your weight into your leg, heel of the other foot forward, and dip. You can do this with the wrist too. Big toe, pinky toe, windshield wipering. Always aware of the knee. So there's a lot of stuff in the practice today that could, you know, make you feel tired in your knees. Just do what you can. Don't grind or hurt them, please. Because, I don't know, eagles, they don't crank you. Wonderful, okay then. Hold on to your knee to hold on. Shake out the hand, shake out the foot. Let your breath keep flowing. So don't do this unless you've got your breath flowing, or, you know, hold on to something. Smile, have fun, lighten up. Okay, now we're going to notice. This is the focus part that the eagle has to do. Focus on what you feel in your body. Focus on the flow of breath. Focus on your heartbeat. Has that changed? Has it ramped up just a little bit? It has for me. Is it right for you? There's the question. Of course it is. Okay, so we're going to do our next warm-up series. And this is warming up into the hip joint. And we'll start to move a little bit more, but not until we've got all of this on board. So, you know, we can just roll in the pelvis in a nice circle while you're breathing it out. We're going to do another five, four, three, two, one. Roll the other way. And 10, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. Excellent. Now walk it in place. And you can get all of the joints moving, your feet, your knees, and your hips. So all of the things that we do today will improve your mobility. Walk into that ground. I love it. But we've got to move it in a little slinky. If you put your hands onto your hips, see if you can really feel that the pelvis is moving in a kind of almost spherically, circularly kind of fashion. There's good movement here. We're going to break that down, and that's going to help our eagle pose a lot. So feet about hip distance apart, bend into your right leg, shift the weight there. We're going to hip hike. So what does that mean? If you put your hands onto your hips, it's in fact even better. Like little balls here. We're going to pretend we're holding a steering wheel. You're going to turn the steering wheel so this side comes up, your left side comes up, and then it goes down and up, making the space short here and then long. Your weight is centered on your right leg while you're hiking the left up and down. Let's do another 10, and nine, and eight, and seven. Hike it up, and six, and five, and four, and three. Keep your breathing, and two, and one. Bit bop the hips again, little side to side, bit bop, and then we'll step it out before we do the other side. So just stepping it out, easing it, neutralizing, and then let's do the other side. So shift your weight into the left leg. And again, paying attention now. Right hip rises, right hip lowers. And seriously, like I've got my hands to show you, as if you've got a steering wheel and you're turning the steering wheel back and forth. And breathing. Whee, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. Woo, step it out, shake it out. So that's our first hip series. What about up here? Because we've got to get those pecs open and closed as well. So while we're walking, we're going to do the arms and have them out to the sides and pulse them up and down, and up. Breath in and out as you do this. The pulsing up and down, excellent. Okay, next hip one, let's see. So shift your weight again to the right leg, bend into it. And we're going to turn the other leg around and show your foot, and we're going to do the stomp, the swirl and stomp. Take it behind, swirl and stomp, and forward, and back, and swirl and stomp. And the right leg is like a pin that's anchored down while we swirl the rest of the body around to swirl and stomp, swirl and stomp. If you can, take the opposite hand and tap. So we're counter-rotating with the upper body, breath, swirl and stomp. We're going to go 10, and nine, and eight, stay light, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and you can hold on if you need to, three, and two, and one. Okay, step it out, excellent. Ready for the other side, let's go. So shift your weight to your left leg, keep a little bend into it, stay a little bouncy. So no locking the knee or anything like that, stay bouncy. And then we're just going to turn the foot around and back. Now plant like it's a little pole, and we're twirling around the pole. Okay, you getting it? And if you can, even turn your foot into this, so the foot's kind of turning like that. Okay, and we go, and the 10, add the arm, nine, and eight, and seven, and six, swing it, be a little dancy, five, stay light, and four, and three, and two, and one, excellent. Walk it out, so this is toning these muscles of the inner thigh and the outer thigh, strengthening your legs, building your bones, getting the fascia warmed up too. Okay, next thing for the chest, we'll do a little crisscross. So as you step, cross the wings, open the wings, and crisscross the other arm on top, and open. If you need to be slower in the marching, slow it down. If you wanted a little more, then speed it up, but we haven't finished yet, folks. Okay, and 10, and nine, and eight, and seven, can't keep up with myself, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. Flap the wings out a little bit, flapping a little bend into the knees as you flap the wings. Breath in, extend the leg out, you feel that lengthens, it lengthens. So we're going to do that a few times, step and tap. Step and tap, and you can also add the arms, and step and tap with the opposite arm to opposite leg, coordinating brain and body. And then opposite wing opens, so we're stretching out a little bit, but also working inner thighs, and flex. 10, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one, and march on the spot. We need a yoga block, or a blanket, or a rolled up towel. Let's go. So I'm going to put my block, you can also roll a towel and put that between the thighs. We're going to give some pulses and squeezes of the block to tune into those adductor muscles. So we lengthen them a little bit, now we're going to contract them and give them some isometric work. So 10 pulses, squeeze the block with your thighs and feel that, you can feel that, put your hands there, whoa. And nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And it's time to go for a walk. So go for a walk with the block between your legs. Walk forwards, walk backwards. Can you feel there's a little squeeze as you walk? Don't overdo it, just feel there's a natural drawing in. These muscles are key to stabilising your hips in walking. So we're getting them a little extra dose, maybe walk and turn. Is your breath flowing in and out? I hope so. Can you feel they're getting that little extra work? Now while we walk on the spot, I just need to readjust, readjust if you need to. While we're walking on the spot with a block, I'm going to do a little extra for the wings. Okay, so open your wings. And then we bring chin to chest, wings in. Breath in, wings open, chin lifts. Exhale, chin in. Inhale, chin up, and cheer up. Exhale, chin in, wings in. Open up the wings. Exhale, chin down. And five more. Exhale, and inhale. One more. There we did it. Pause here, a little bit of a strengthener for the arms. Fantastic, let those wings come down. Take out the block, but you can use the block to just tap into the inner thigh and the other inner thigh. I've got a matching block and pants today. I really scheduled that in my diary. No. Okay, and put the block down. Take a sip of water if you need. Check in. Now, let's activate those inner thighs with a curtsy. Curtsy to the queen, you know. You meet the queen regularly, I'm sure, as I do. Okay, so it goes like this. We're going to cross one leg over. It doesn't matter which one. Cross it over and curtsy. And then touch back and come in, right? Cross it over, back, and come in. Whoops, I nearly forgot it. Coordination, I've got to get my own brain. Cross, tap, and back. Three more. Cross, tap, and back. Two and one. Now, we'll add the arm for the next five. So, whichever leg was over the top, find the opposite arm. So, I have my right leg, a little bit of the left arm, okay? So, cross, tap, and back. Cross, tap, and back. Whew, great stuff. Toast it out, equalize. We're going to do the other side. Gosh, I've got to work this out. It's great for your brain cells. And you know, sometimes one side, you get it, and the other side, you're not so sure, which is great to keep trying this again and again and come back and see if you improve with each turn of the video that you watch and see, do I get it better on each side? So, I love this, okay? So, other leg is going to cross over, step back, and in. Cross and curtsy, out, and back. You can imagine you've got a lovely big skirt and you're taking the pleats of your skirt and whoosh, two more like that. So, whoosh, curtsy, cross out, and back. Now, add the arm. So, whichever arm, leg is over the top, switch the arms, cross, and back. Swish, cross, and back. I've definitely got big flowy eagle wings for this one. You feel your eagle flowy wings? And breath is flowing. No holding breath. Two more, you've got it. Whee! I don't. Because I've got my wings miscrossed. Oh, great. Step it out. So, lots of coordination fun to build you into that pose. Okay. So, we'll take the feet now in the other direction. So, coming back to your first side leg, we'll take the other leg behind, curtsy, cross, and back. Behind, curtsy, and back, yeah? Keep your breath flowing. And then we'll add the wings. So, whichever arm goes back of the arm is going to cross under. Ooh. Can we do it? I think so. Here we go. And five, and four, and three, building our confidence, and two, and one. Oh, step it out. Can you please dare to do it a little higher? Dare you. Or slow it down, or just walk very, very slowly if you need to. Ready for the other side? Okay, so we're doing our curtsy behind this time. So, we go behind, out, and back. Behind, out, and back. Ta-da! Two more before we add the arms. So, which leg is going behind? The opposite one's going to go under. Ready? And eight. Ooh, I went wobbly. Seven. Six. Five. Get the wings. Four. And three. Nice and light. Two. One. And just stay there, gently. Wow! Give yourself a pause. 20 seconds. Just notice your body. Eagle's focus. Is everything good in your body? How's your cardio? Is it to the right level? Increasing the volume, decrease the volume. Do what you need to do. Focus. Focus on the breath flowing in and out. Focus on the body being as relaxed and easy as possible. So, that might be in a roll of the shoulders. And while we gather a little more energy, we're going to get those ends of the wings and move the ends of the wings. So, I love this beautiful display of feathers. So, we're going to do that. Display your feathers. So, the arms, the wrists are going to display the feathers. So, making little swirls and spirals with the wings. Feel your feathers. Doing a variety of different things, not always the same thing. Excellent. All right. Now, wings open. Exhale, wrap one wing over the top. Round in, burst your barstrap. Breath in, open the wings. Now, other arm on the top. Chin to chest. We're going to do several of these, but make sure you're rounding your spine in. The upper spine rounds in. The chin draws to the chest. You have a little bend in your knees. Let's do another five. Five. Do the other side. And four. And three. And two. Undulating. And one. Lovely undulating spine. Woo. And rest and roll. Woo. Okay. We're ready for you. So, let's shift the weight onto your right leg. Bend into it. And we'll just do that a little bend down to get that pelvic widening as you go down. Feel that. Pelvis widens as you go down. See that? If it doesn't, you're going to have a very sorry eagle in your low back and knees. So, make sure that widens. Crisscross over. Now, stay here and hug those thighs together. Remember we had the block? Hug them in, squeeze them in. But you know what? Your pecs and your abdominals at the front have to squeeze in too. So, just hug in and draw your arms in together. Your arms in together. Pause there. Now, crisscross the opposite arm. That's opposite to your leg. The opposite arm to your leg. Crisscross over and hook into the elbows. Hook in and hug in. Pull in with your pec muscles here. Hug in. Now, maybe your wrists can roll a little. Hello, wrists. Aw. Big toes touching the floor so far. Maybe you can hug in for that extra eagle wrap here. Round into your upper back. Pop your bra strap at the back so you round in a little bit. Your chin towards chest. Breathe. And you can always support here with a chair, your arms on a chair if you need to. Keep your breath going. Maybe you've also got the wrap of the foot. I don't know. Ooh. Breathe. Focus. Fearlessness. Breath. Let the breeze let you hold for one more breath before you take flight. Softly, lightly. With fun. Wow. Shake it out. How was that eagle? Did you take flight nice and smooth? So, we've always got a chair, I hope, here, or your wall to help you balance because as you come in, you might be able to rest your arms if you need to onto the chair. Let's do the other side. Bend into the other leg. So, what we're thinking here is just a little widening and you can always tap out here. Tap into the sit bone or your bottom just to feel it's going out a little to the side when you come down, right? Some widening here. If it tucks under, not healthy, right? So, a little widening and crisscross. Feel you're widening your pelvis. Very important. Squeeze those inner thighs. Hug them in, hug them in. Hug in tightly. Then we've got our wings. Bring the wings together and just squeeze in at your pecs here. So, the pecs, your chest hugs in tightly. Now, the opposite arm is gonna come in. So, if you've got your right leg over, your left arm is the top arm. Hug in tightly, hug in, squeeze. And then maybe you're gonna take the arms back to back or roll the wrists a couple of times just to get into there. Squeeze in. Chin towards chest. Hug in your belly. But still breathing. Squeeze in. Maybe you wrap your feet. You can always balance here with your hands onto the chair if you need. Can you be here another two breaths? You're fearless. You're so strong. Focused. And you're ready to take flight. Lightly, unwrap the wings and take flight. Ah. Take it out. Ah. Letting the breath flow. Did that feel good? Did you have those evil qualities? Soft gossamer wings. It's time to cool down now. So, gently sway the hips from side to side. You might rub in there a little bit. And then rubbing down into the legs and coming towards the knees. And just rubbing the knees as you shift your weight from side to side. One of my favourite poses to really stretch out into the inner thighs is the straddle pose. So, you might need your chair for this one. Get your chair ready. You'll toe your feet apart and have your chair so that you can hinge forward at your hip joint. Reach over. You can use the top of the chair or lower down to forward fold. Allow your head to rest here. Maybe even just shaking out the head. Feel your feet pressed evenly into the floor. And if you've got all the weight on your heels, see if you can shift it a little more forward to the balls of the feet. Slide back a little bit more. Reach here. Ah. Feel that lovely stretching of the inner thighs. And you might even just hold the chair with one hand and tap gently on the inside of the legs. Maybe down onto the inside of the knee. And feel how those muscles are really, they're doing their work stretching now. Ah. But they're not stretching with no activity. They do have activity because they have to stabilise your legs to be there. So, it's not that they're not working. They are working. Just because they're stretching does not mean they're not working. Let's have two more delicious breaths. Long exhale. Great, bend into the legs. Let's walk our way back up. Coming back up. Taking the chair away. And then a nice gentle warm-out. Now, you can slowly sway the hips or pace out a little or just stay in one place just as we finish up a little bit of chest work here. That would be nice. So, take one wing. It doesn't matter which one. Let the wing flow out. Maybe even push the palm behind you and stretch and roll the wrist or wiggle your feathers here. And then gently tap across into your pectoral muscle here while you turn the head in the other direction. Ah, you know you're tapping under your lung, over your lung here? That's your lung. Move into your fingers. Ah. And then wrap that arm all the way across. The wing is like a big cloak. Catch it at the top of the wing while you turn your head to look up. And maybe there's some prey that you can see, that you can pounce on. Ah, that feels good. Maybe you can sponge the muscle at the top here, your deltoid muscle. Rub. Excellent. Shake that. Shake the wing. And brush off the wing. Perfect. I love my wing now. Look at the long wing. Go to the other side then. And take the other wing out. And maybe roll the wrist or push the wrist back, the palm back. And start to turn your head to the other direction as you tap into your lovely pec muscles here at the front. And your lungs rest under there and they're moving under your fingers with every breath. Ah, how good that is. Maybe you want to make a sound. Ooh, we've got a little squawk here. Great. And then we'll sweep the wing across, catch it at the other end, and maybe massage the top of the wing while you turn to look at the prey down over that wing. There's a little mouse down there, you're going to have for lunch. Excellent. Ah, that feels really good. Coming into the Dasana, mountain pose. Softly resting. Take a breath in and lift your wings. Exhale, roll back. Lifting it up. Exhale. And then take a breath in, let the wings gently open. Chin gently rises. Exhale, chin draws in, wings close. Inhale, open the wings. Exhale, close. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. And then take the wings a little wider and crisscross over one more time and then give yourself a little wing romance. And then open it out. Crisscross the other way, give yourself a little wing romance. Just gently twisting the body. And bringing those wings together at the heart center. Focused. Fearless. Fabulous. Fit. Having taken flight. Have a wonderful day today, you girls. Namaste.