Week 5 – Feet and Ankles

Week 5 – Only 2 more week left!

Welcome to week 5 and our last Hatha class together in this 6-week beginners programme! Congratulations on successfully working head to toe, learning new yoga poses to benefit all areas of the body. Last but not least…

How much attention do we really pay to this area of our body that is vital for keeping us going? Ever come home from a long shift where you’ve spent the vast majority of it standing up with your feet tired, aching, and maybe even swollen?

If something is wrong with our feet it can potentially throw our whole alignment and posture off balance, so it’s good to know a few things we can do to help to keep them healthy.

I’m going to be honest here- feet are my least favourite part of the body! I much prefer paws and hooves, but over time believe it or not my yoga practice has helped me to appreciate my feet for what they are, and what they can help me to do. In my personal yoga practice I usually dedicate some time to improving my balance and relaxing the arches of my feet, which helps me to improve my balance. Releasing fascia on the sole of the foot also helps improve my flexibility through the entire fascial chain of the back body. In this week’s class I will show you a simple yet effective way to try this for yourself- so please have a tennis ball or myofascial release ball handy.

Whether you spend all day standing up at work like a lot of vets and nurses, or significant amounts of time sitting down like a receptionist or vet who travels a lot in the car, chances are your ankles spend a lot of time in dorsiflexion. Over time this leads to our extensor tendons and muscles really tightening up, affecting our range of motion. We’ll use yoga poses this week to help us to explore our ankle health, and gently loosen things up a bit.

Week 5 Feature Pose: Legs up the wall

This week we will be doing so many poses to bring strength, flexibility, relief, and awareness to the feet and ankles that I have deliberately chosen the most chill asana as our feature pose, because sometimes the best thing we can do for our feet is to be off them! We spend virtually no time with our feet elevated, so to consciously choose to do this can benefit our lymphatic drainage and circulation, as well as being wonderfully relaxing and restorative for the mind. Use my step-by-step guide to safely try it for yourself: https://vetyogi.com/blog-details/legs-up-the-wall-foundation-yoga-pose-series

Treat your feet during busy times to a 5 min sequence for the feet and ankles, or a 10 minute sequence where you will mostly be reclined, giving them that all important break, by giving this videos on the VetYogi YouTube channel a go:

Feet and ankles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rnZnlTKi6o

Recline and restore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HRf_OOgzi4

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch via email: chloe@vetyogi.com, or follow VetYogi on social media for more info.

‘See’ you on the mat!

Namaste,

Chloe