Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Your glutes and hamstrings are some of the hardest-working muscles in your body, powering you through everything from walking and climbing stairs to balancing, bending, and moving through your yoga practice. But with so much of modern life spent sitting, these powerful muscles don't always get the attention they deserve. This week, we're turning our attention to the back side of the body with two new practices designed to strengthen, activate, and mobilize your hips, glutes, and hamstrings. And while you can expect a little booty burn, the benefits go far beyond building stronger glutes. Your glutes, hamstrings, and surrounding hip muscles play an important role in supporting your pelvis, stabilizing your lower body, and helping you move efficiently. When they're strong and mobile, everyday movements can feel easier and your yoga practice can feel more stable and powerful. Strength is only part of the equation, though. These muscles also need the freedom to move. That's why combining targeted strengthening with mobility work and stretching can be such an effective approach—building a lower body that's not only strong, but functional and adaptable.

Flexibility gets the spotlight. Mobility does the real work. If you’ve ever stretched your shoulders only to feel tight again a few hours later, you’ve experienced the difference. Stretching lengthens muscles temporarily. Mobility builds strength and control through your full range of motion — and that’s what creates lasting change. This week’s theme, The Mobility Method, is all about moving better — not just farther. Because the goal isn’t to force a deeper stretch. It’s to own the range you already have.

You may have heard the terms flexibility and mobility used interchangeably but although they are complementary, there are distinctions. Think of flexibility as the muscle’s ability to stretch passively. Mobility incorporates flexibility but also requires strength to actively move a joint through its full range of motion. It’s important to work on both flexibility and mobility and guess what? Yoga provides a way to improve and maintain both. Mobility and flexibility provide a myriad of benefits to help you feel your best. The combination of both helps you move your body through your full range of motion, whether you’re swinging a golf club, picking up a heavy box, or flowing through chatarangua dandasana. When your muscles are tight or inflexible, they can create restriction of the joints and restrict range of motion.

Often when people think of yoga, they automatically assume it is all about flexibility or simple stretching. But yoga is also an excellent modality to improve joint mobility. It's important to work on mobility and flexibility and a well-balanced yoga program provides both. Dynamic movement is one of the best ways to maintain or increase mobility in your joints. Mobility takes strength and requires your muscles and joints to work together. A couple examples of poses that are excellent for mobility are Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Dog) and Utkatasana (Chair Pose). Both poses emphasize the posterior chain of the body as well as shoulder, hip, and ankle mobility.