Utthita Parsvakonasana is our pose of the day, in english we refer to it as extended side angle. When I first did this pose I was very challenged by it. Similar in some ways to warrior 2 as it strengthens and works strongly into the legs, knees, and ankles, it also provides a deep stretch into the legs. Often just referred to as parsvakonasana, It also works the upper body strengthening the arms and opening the shoulders. This pose also provides some opening into the heart or backhanding shape, and also helps to open up the sides of the body from ankles to wrists.

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Sitting on the floor takes us back to our roots - there was a time when we didn’t even think twice about doing so and the body could do this easily. Habits through the years creates differences in the body that can make this kind of sitting not as easy as we age. So for today’s posture, I want us to sit on the floor but also to find ease. We are going to do both variations - c crossed legs and also legs extended. We have covered these two poses previously - sukasana (episode 28) and dandasana (episode 31) but today we are going to do each of these poses a bit differently - with our backs resting into a wall.

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The quadriceps are a group of muscles present on the front of the thigh. They consist of four distinct muscles: the rectus femoris, the vastus lateralis, the vastus intermedius, and the vastus medialis. To me, the important thing to remember is that these muscles tend to be tight…very tight in many of us. These muscles work a lot and because of this, they need to be stretched.

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