In honor of birthday week (this past week for me and Ken), here’s a pose that one of our former yoga teachers called Life Changing Quad Stretch. Not gonna lie, it pretty much sucks. It’s one of those poses where you feel out of weirdly out of breath and you’re gasping for air and your face scrunches up and your body and mind are freaking each other out. But she always made us stay in it longer than we thought we could—which feels amazing and empowering. And that’s why it’s Life Changing! Click through picture for more stretches.

—y

Hip Flexor Stretches Against the Wall

Combination leg stretches for the quads and hip flexors include these variations using the wall.

Reach your back ribs and back of your head up the wall, away from your pelvis. You can use your front leg to brace you. Press your front foot forwards. Work against the floor.Starting with your shin against the wall (and with padding under the knee if you need it), you can first focus on pushing your pelvis and ribcage back against the wall.

Experiment with pushing your shin into the wall.

Keep pressing your back shin into the wall. You’ll feel the front of your thigh engaging and you may also notice that this helps to press your pelvis down. Keep your neck and torso long.The next variation is to sink your pelvis but keep your torso upright, hands on your leg or on blocks.

From here you can work at moving your front foot forwards so that you work towards front to back splits.

Keep the torso upright to keep this as a hip flexor stretch.