Walking is one of the best forms of low-impact cardiovascular exercise we can do on a regular basis. The hiking trails found throughout Southern California offer numerous opportunities both scenic and challenging to stretch out our legs and take a hike. In order to keep your hiking legs limber for the next trip out on the trails, try incorporating these yoga poses on or off the mat.
Triangle Pose
Benefits: Stretches and opens the hips, groin, hamstrings, muscles around the knees, calves, shoulders, chest, and spine.
Stand in mountain pose. Spread your legs about 4 feet apart. Turn right leg out about 90 degrees, and angle your left foot 45 degrees to the right. Inhale, lift arms out parallel to shoulders, palms down. Exhale, hinge at the hip and place the right hand, on the thigh, shin, or ankle. Lift your left arm towards the sky. Cast your gaze up or down, making sure to keep your neck comfortable. Hold pose for 30 seconds, slowly come up and switch sides.
Standing hamstring stretch
Benefits: Stretches hamstrings, calves, and ankles.
Place one foot on a rock, chair, table, or fence in front of you with the heel pressing down and the foot straight up. Check that the hips are parallel. Inhale, lift up, and exhale forward as you engage your core. Place hands wherever they fall comfortably. Check that your shoulder blades are down. If you want to increase the stretch in your calves, flex your toes towards your face. Breathe fully, exhale deeply, and hold for 20 seconds. Repeat on other leg.
Pigeon/Squat Variation
(one legged chair variation)
Benefits: Helps release the piriformis and other gluteal muscles. Strengthens ankles.
Standing with both feet parallel, cross one of your ankles above the opposite knee and flex the foot. Bend your standing knee as much as desired to drop into the pose and balance. Use your arm to slowly press the bent leg back for a little extra stretch. Breathe deeply. If you want to go further in the pose, put your weight on the standing leg, as you slowly hinge the 
chest and torso forward. Put hands in prayer position. Check that your abs are engaged and that your shoulders are relaxed. Hold for 25 seconds, then slowly come up and switch sides.
Dancer’s Pose
Benefits: Full body stretch. Relieves tension in ankle and feet, stretches hip flexors and strengthens knees, ankles, hips and spine. Opens and expands the chest and lungs.
Bend left leg back, hold inside or outside of ankle with your left hand. Inhale, stretch your right hand out in front of you. Exhale. Extend through the left side of your body and bend forward from the hip. Press the left foot into the left hand, while extending the right hand forward. Check that your neck is in a comfortable position. Breathe into the stretch on inhale, and relax on the exhale. Hold for 30 seconds. Repeat on the other side.
Dale Nieli (MSW, hypnotherapist) is a certified yoga teacher and fitness expert whose decades of study provide continual inspiration in her practice of guiding people in full-body holistic fitness. dalefit@roadrunner.com.
Dale Nieli MSW, C-IAYT, CHT has a powerful gift for helping people discover sources of pain and stress, whether the source is physical, emotional, or spiritual. She is a compassionate transformational guide for people when they are in crisis points in their lives. Dale is skilled at facilitation with people at all stages of recovery, from those who are beginning their own path to those deepening their long-term sobriety. Her work allows people to release patterns of long-held tension that become lodged in the body, holding them back and often leading to symptoms such as fatigue, sleeplessness, and anxiety. Dale helps people remove these barriers to health in order to experience increased energy, enjoy sound sleep, and to feel peaceful, more at ease, and even full of joy.
In her work one-on-one and in groups, Dale uses her intuitive skills to help people integrate body, mind, and spirit in order to actualize their full potential. Some of the interconnected techniques she uses include the therapeutic application of yoga, trauma release work, somatic experiencing, vagus nerve regulation, psychoneuroenergetics, sound healing, user-friendly mindfulness meditation, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy and affirmations, pressure points and hands-on healing, breath training, therapeutic movement, energy work, intuitive healing, and mind-body fitness.