Let’s face it, we are surrounded by ‘inspiration’ these days, which often means that the time we might spend getting healthy is often spent staring at healthy people on a screen. This option (the staring) is often an easier option then getting up off our arses and getting out into fresh air, or onto a mat or to a class, particularly after a LONG day at work.

By long I don’t necessarily mean 12 hour days, I just mean it felt like a lifetime for 5pm to come around. It’s sometimes easier to find the time to get out and do something (hopefully something relatively healthy) after a really shit day at work because we’re often fuelled by some sort of emotion that makes it hard for us to slow down.

But my point is that the last thing we often feel like doing is moving, cooking a relatively decent dinner can sometimes seem like a stretch unless we have a reason for doing so (e.g. someone else relying on us).

And for those of you who think that we ‘office’ workers have it easy, sitting down all day, only using our hands and our brains to work, you’re wrong, it’s tough. Imagine staring at a screen all day, or reading and then trying to keep your eyes open let alone your brain awake to process the mass amount of information that’s running through your mind. Let alone having to deal with office politics, being in a space that is artificially lit breathing in ‘recycled’ air. Ok it’s not all that bad, but really, work is work, even when we are passionate about what we do and excited by the opportunities and projects – there is always the normal day to day that we experience that is quite frankly exhausting.

For a while now I’ve been wanting to challenge myself, and the timing is right, while I’m doing a lot of office work for my yoga, to set myself a goal of 7 days of rolling around on the floor to see just how much I can increase my flexibility and how easy it is to stick to the routine.

I’m going to aim to increase some of the repetitions or times for each posture but am keeping it simple so that I don’t have to remember more than 6 things to do (in any order as well).

And so without any further ado, here is my 30 minute ‘lazy-yoga-sequence’ so that I can test just how much I can increase my flexibility and strength (to a certain extent) in just 7 days.

10 x modified Chaturangas – I’m keeping my knees on the ground so that I can focus on using the triceps, rhomboids (in the middle of the back between the shoulder blades) and abdominals – my aim is to do 30 by the end of 7 days.
20 x hip lifts – I get a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders when I do abdominal exercises which doesn’t help my clenched jaw at the end of a work day, so this helps me to keep the top half of my body relaxed and uses the bottom abdominal muscles – my aim is to up this to 50 within 7 days.
20 x downward facing dog to plank – for a little bit of movement, stretching the hamstrings, strengthening the torso (use the latissimus dorsi & abdominals).
5 minutes each side sleeping swan a.k.a. pigeon – opening the glutes and a little bit of the I.T. Band, a place where we hold a lot of emotions.
5 minutes each side dragon pose a.k.a. low lunge- opening the front of the body, quads, hip flexors, iliopsoas, a place where we hold stress and anxiety.
5 minutes in frog pose a.k.a. crocodile – opening the groin / adductors.

What you’ll notice in each of these videos (they will be posted on my Facebook via my Youtube channel each day) is that I’m not even rolling out a yoga mat, I’m just simply rolling around on the ground… All you will potentially need is a pillow/towel or cushioning under your knee in your low lunge if your knee hurts on the floor and well, that’s it!

Feel free to join me or just enjoy my 30 minute videos sped up into 1 minute, they do look pretty funny. If you’re joining me make sure to tag me in your posts @yogakiss on instagram or Yoga Kiss / Kat Harding Yoga on facebook.

Looking forward to doing some lazy yoga with you all - Bad Yogi would be proud ;)

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