The time has come…to tune up your life! Eradicate pain, improve your posture, and enhance your performance with The 10 Days of Yoga Tune Up®. Follow along on social media for the next 10 days, and give these techniques a try.
Day 1 – Wake Up with Yoga Tune Up®
Refresh your morning routine by adding in some quick-fix moves. If you can make time to brush your teeth, you can surely fit in a quick fix. Just 5 minutes of rolling in the morning can make a difference. YTU Teacher Max Bayuk will give you some guidance on where to start.
Day 2 – Strengthen and Stretch with Sidewinder
The Yoga Tune Up® Sidewinder Minivini accomplishes both strengthening and stretching goals in one fell swoop – check it out! In addition, if integrating quadratus lumborum (QL) stabilization with core and upper body strength is the goal, explore variations of rotational movement in Vastistasana (Side Plank). To massage the QL use the YTU Alpha Ball – its broader surface offers the perfect distribution of pressure to target and address the unique QL tissue size and shape.
Day 3 – Hip Flexor Stretch
If you sit a lot, shortness in the front of the hip can be hard to avoid – but see what happens if you add in this hip stretch to your daily routine (or even better, get up a few times during the day to stretch it out and keep your hips supple and mobile!).
Day 4 – Integrate YTU Therapy Balls into Your Daily Routine
Even if you can’t spare a big chunk of time every day, you can still fit in soft-tissue self-care if you’re strategic. “How?” you may be wondering. Well, simply by integrating self-massage into your daily routine with a few self-care multi-tasking hacks.
Day 5- Integrate Yoga Tune Up Stretches into Your Daily Routine
One of the main ways to reduce pain, improve posture, and enhance performance is to restore muscles to their naturally relaxed state, which means lengthening (stretching) them just beyond their natural length, so that they can ultimately rest at their natural length, where they can be relaxed. Learn about the benefits of incorporating self-massage AND stretching.
Day 6- Foot & Ankle Pain Relief
25% of your body’s bones are located in the feet and ankles! Misalignment in your feet can lead to overuse and underuse issues throughout the lower legs, knees, and all the way up into your hips and back which in turn can throw off your posture and lead to much more serious problems. This Yoga Tune Up® 5 minute Quickfix will help strengthen the side stabilizers of your feet and ankles, while helping to create suppleness in your footfall.
Day 7- From Stress to Rest in 3 Minutes or Less!
Did you know that your breath can help you shift your stress in as little as 3 minutes? Starting today, it is time to realize the potential of oxygen! By doing so, you can begin soothing your nervous system, eliminating stress, boost your brain power and improve the energy in every system of your body. It only takes a few minutes of abdominal breathing to have more resilience, power and enhanced recovery time. Learn how to shift your stress in just 3 minutes.
Day 8- Target Your Soleus Muscle for a Better Squat
A healthy, full squat requires a good amount of dorsiflexion at the ankle joint. Inflexible calf muscles limit your ability to dorsiflex and therefore have a negative impact on your ability to squat well. We could all improve our squat somewhat and calf-stretching is a wonderful practice for us to integrate into our movement routine. The majority of calf stretches target only the most superficial of our calf muscles – the gastrocnemius. While it’s great to stretch this muscle, if our goal is to squat better, you need to target the deeper calf muscle – the soleus.
To target the soleus, dorsiflex the ankle and flex the knee. Here are two Yoga Tune Up® poses which have the potential to stretch this all-important muscle.
Day 9- Essential YTU Stretches for Your Workday
Do you spend a lot of time sitting at a computer during the day? If so, you may often feel the consequences in your hands and wrists, neck, and lower back. Try these moves at the workplace to relieve pain in some of these target areas.
Day 10- Clear Your Mind
Top performers know that mindset is key to achieving their goals. They also know they need to clear their heads to have the right mental space for their pursuits. Here are two body releases and one self-care technique from Jill Miller, which are designed to help you keep your head on straight through the busyness of life.
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A 10 day challenge? After sweating for 7 days with Jill, almost around the clock during my Yoga Tune Teacher Training Certification, a few days’ vacation are on the agenda. What could be better than training hard for myself for 10 days… Since the series is no longer new, I’m curious about to see how Jill’s style has changed in recent years.
Thanks i will Try this
This article is so informative and helpful! It makes the act of self care a lot more accessible too so thank you! My mom has Parkinson’s disease and her mobility and ease in her body is slowly slipping away. I really want to try this with her! It’s all quick and really effective stuff! Sometimes taking small bites out of things makes them easier to swallow. I honestly can’t wait to do this myself. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Love to take on this 10 days challenge. Great way and guide to get someone into doing daily self care exercise. Will definitely give this a try and see how it goes. Thanks!
10 day challenge is a must. Actually, I need to do a bit of YTU everyday.
This is a great way to start to practice using the Yoga Tune Up everyday, to get into the practice of self care of a regular basis . Just printed this out – am going to do the 10 day challenge starting today!
Thank you!
Finally found a Yoga Tune Up class in my area and I am loving it! Will start this challenge at home with my family. Thank you!
This is great breakdown of how I can target my whole body. Until I get a sidewinder mini, are there any other QL stretches that will work well with this program? Thanks
Great and helpful and do-able . I plan on doing this 10 day challenge. thank you!
This is very helpful! I clicked on each link, and each one is very doable for everyday life. There are exercises in the link for stretches to do in the workplace I can teach to my family members who are yoga -phobic, and I really like the mind-clearing day. I can use some of these techniques i my yoga classes, and even with my fifth graders at school to practice mindfulness.
Tried a Yoga Tune-Up class may years ago and found it unpleasant, to say the least. Worth noting, as with all things yoga, those who need it most, generally aren’t getting it.
I’ve been slowly easing into the idea that MAYBE I could benefit from a more regular Yoga Tune-Up practice. I plan to jump into this 10 day challenge not only to save myself (from myself), but to improve my yoga practice; as a teacher and student.