Winter Sports Recovery: 5 Essential Yoga Poses

Check out Alice Blunden’s new article about winter sports recovery. These poses are great for skiers, snowboarders, skaters, and anyone else feeling a little tight this winter.

“In an ideal world, we would be able to click our fingers and be transported to the snowy mountains whenever we wished so that we could maintain the strength and fitness that skiing and other winter sports require. But until that is possible, here are five yoga poses that can be practiced before and after your session on the mountain to help improve your flexibility, strengthen, and ability to focus.

1. Reclining Big Toe Pose

Our hamstrings are an area that tends to tighten up and over time, this can limit your freedom of movement, potentially resulting in lower back pain and knee injuries.

This pose is a simple way to stretch this muscle. Lie on your back with both legs straight and feet flexed so your toes are pointing upwards. Raise one leg and hold onto the back of your thigh or your big toe. You want it to be relaxing so if you find that your leg starts shaking, just ease off slightly so that you can find a softness in the pose, maybe even bend your raised knee slightly if your hamstrings are particularly tight. Stay in this position for one to three minutes per leg.”

Read the full article here!

About Alice Louise Blunden. Alice Louise Blunden is a Yoga Medicine senior teacher and assistant to Tiffany Cruikshank. She is currently completing her 500 hours and working towards her 1000-hour advanced Yoga Medicine teacher training. As well as teaching yoga in studios across London, she is the founder of The Yoga Project UK, a business that connects yoga teachers with schools across the UK.