It’s always fun to build a balanced workout with a variety of movements depending on what your cardio focus is. Most people may go from extreme sitting in an office setting to intense exercise causing their body to ache or get a muscle strain. Ouch!

Set your mind and body up for success by incorporating these yoga moves into your daily routine.

Here are 5 moves to help you physically and mentally for better truck driver health.

Here are 5 trucking yoga moves that any driver can do at home or on the go. They are about finding the balance to help you continue to do what you love and enjoy… without the body aches or unnecessary pain.

1. Move #2: Core Care Rolling Forward Bend

Who doesn’t like core work? Well, I know many don’t, and that is because they are still being taught outdated sit-ups- YUCK!

If you are in need of combating a tight front body… Good news! This yoga extension move works your core ten times more effectively than flexion. And this fun move will help you liberate your tight spots!  I call it a stretch and strengthen combo (the best moves are both).

Here, powerfully release your spine and hip flexors as you fully engage your core from the inside out! You don’t have to have a yoga mat to practice trucking yoga moves.

1. Find a comfortable hips distance footing.
2. Exhale, bend the knees, and “fall” into a forward bend with soft (even bent) knees.
3. Inhale with bent knees begin to roll up the body focusing on getting your pelvis underneath you and then stacking the spine as you rise.
4. Keeping your knees bent, before the head and shoulders stack, start to glide the pelvis forward.
5. Imagine the pubic bone hitting a wall to open the hip flexors and extend your spine.
6. With the arms extending alongside the ears you should feel the core quiver (earthquake) and turn on as you open the entire front line of the body.
7. Exhale, bend the knees a bit more, and roll back down into a soft flowing forward bend.
8. Repeat this rolling sequence 5 to 10 times.

 

Move #2: Sinking Runners Lunge

Psoas tightness is a chronic issue and if you are someone who goes from sitting all day to running or biking, you may be finding more pain than gain. Liberate the psoas to help aid the lower back and dissolve possible knee pain and possibly shoulder pain (as the psoas can pull down the shoulder).

This is one move every driver should do daily.

1. From a runner’s lunge (low lunge) with the feet hips-width and fingertips on the highest level of the block (option to use stools or chairs).
2. Square the hips forward, tucking the glute of the front leg underneath the body for more stability and a better stretch.
3. Keeping the spine long, exhale and begin to sink the hip of the back leg down, pressing long through the back heel and up through the crown of the head.
4. Inhale and rise back up to a comfortable lunge.
5. Continue this dynamic movement and imagine you were sinking into the front pocket of your jeans. Try finding the areas you normally don’t automatically default to. Try to find the areas that are, otherwise, avoided and sink there.
6. If the stretch is too intense, just focus on sinking into the hip and let up on extending up through the crown of the head.
7. Repeat this dynamic movement 10 times, stepping up into standing forward bend in-between.

Move #3 Psoas Release

1. Lying down supine on the mat place a yoga block underneath the sacrum (or just lay flat).
2. Slowly begin to extend one leg out, down, and away from the body like pushing your heel through sand (do not worry if the leg does not go straight).
3. Breathing calmly slowly begin to draw the opposite knee in towards the abdomen.
4. Do not aggressively pull the bent knee in. Slowly and mindfully draw the knee into the place where you first feel a stretch, when that sensation passes, draw the knee in a bit closer.
5. Work through this process one layer of tension at a time as you continue to reach out, down, and away through the heel of the straight leg.
6. To be effective with the psoas hold this pose for 3-5 minutes.
7. If you feel the stretch in the lower back, remove the block.
8. If unable to clasp the bent knee, use a strap to hold the leg, or place a block under the bent knee’s foot. The tighter the psoas the more likely you may need head support.
9. Repeat the opposite side.

Watch the video with Hope on how to step by step release that pesky psoas muscle and get your trucking yoga moves to go!

Move #5 Sliding Side Lunge

All that stepping, sliding, moving and lunging can create some lines of tension or restriction from foot to hip. Wring out your lower body and leave yourself with happy hips. This is a perfect pose to do with a workout or if you find yourself stiff when you wake up when you get out of the truck or have back pain and can’t fall asleep.

Trucking fitness does not have to be complicated and doesn’t have to mean a gym-style workout. It’s time for out with the old and in with Mother Trucker Yoga. 

1. Begin in a wide straddle with the feet in a parallel position, firmly planted into the mat.
2. Inhale rise up to the fingertips, and extend the spine out from the hips.
3. With a strong belly and long lower back exhale and begin to bend one knee and slide your body towards that leg.
4. Use your elbow, shoulder, or tricep and press into the inner leg to help open the hip.
5. Do not lift the heel of the bent leg or roll into the arch of the straight leg.
6. Stay plugged into the feet and engage the quad of the straight leg to help direct the stretch along the inner thigh.
7. Hold the side lunge for 5 – 10 breaths before you return back to the center and repeat on the opposite side.
8. If your fingertips do not comfortably, reach the ground, use blocks to assist.

Move #7 Stretch It Out Side Bend with Chair

Think about the direction your lifestyle choices and movements are taking you in? Much of what we do is forward-moving (Sagittal Plane).

• Sitting in the driver’s seat.
• Walking.
• Running.
• Sleeping.
• Working on X.

All forward-moving (bending).

It is vital that we change up our movement patterns and move in other planes of motion to help reduce pain and tension patterns. For many drivers, trucking fitness can feel like doing moves your body just won’t let you do right now. But with Mother Trucker Yoga and our take on trucking yoga, those moves can be both easily accessible and beneficial- like this chair yoga stretch.

Here release your side body from hip to shoulder in one quick move. All that sticky fascia under your arms will surely get the acknowledgment it deserves. What’s fascia? Well, it’s the catsuit your body is covered in (and every muscle and every fiber of every muscle- but that for another day).

1. Take a seat on a chair (preferably with no sides).
2. Open your legs wide to expose the edges of the chair (if able).
3. If your feet do not comfortably, reach the floor, place blocks under your feet.
4. Grab hold of the opposite side of the chair with one hand (think right hand to the left side).
5. Gently rotate your body in the same direction (towards clasping hand).
6. Extend your free arm up alongside the ear, with the palm and elbow fold facing your head (think external rotation at the shoulder)
7. Inhale deeply, and now exhale and begin to side bend feeling the clasped arm’s shoulder roll more deeply into the slight rotation.
8. Relax the shoulders, and anchor the hips.
9. Keep breathing and work to hold this pose for up to 10 breaths.
10. To come out, roll your body to the center of the chair and relax for a moment before you roll up and repeat the opposite side.

If you are still on the fence as to yoga is right for you. Look at the five yoga poses above, is there one you can try? Is there one move you can commit to for one week, one month, and then tell me how you feel?

One pose is yoga, one mindful breath is yoga, and when you take a mindful breath in a yoga pose, well you, my friend just took it to a whole new level.

Trucking Yoga Made Easy For Drivers Like You

Have you heard about Mother Trucker Yoga LIFESTYLE JUMPSTART Platform & APP? It’s a subscription-based service that provides you with more than 100 videos, downloads, and lifestyle-focused content made just for drivers.

While everyone else is still taking the traditional route of gym-style exercises and diets, we see the gap and want to help.

You are busy, you are always on the go, and who has time for a long-drawn-out workout?

Come check out Mother Trucker Yoga LIFE STYLE JUMPSTART Platform & APP and see how we can help you feel better one small simple change at a time.

 

Mother Trucker Yoga is the only place you can get trucking yoga moves from an instructor that has been teaching yoga for more than 20 years and has customized yoga and functional movement (fitness) to a drivers biggest needs.