Legs Up the Wall

Sit up against a wall, swing the legs up it, and stay. Three shapes in one position — straight, wide, soles together — and you never come down between them.

· 3 min read

yoga · hamstring · adductor · hip · recovery · supine

The lesson

  1. 1

    Sit sideways, then swing up

    Sit with one hip against the wall, then lie down and swing both legs up it. Awkward the first time, automatic after that.

  2. 2

    Choose your distance from the wall

    Hips right against the wall is the strongest version. Shuffle a hand's width or two away and it eases off immediately — do that if the backs of the legs are shouting or the low back lifts.

  3. 3

    Bend the knees if you need to

    Straight legs are not the point. A soft bend, or a folded towel under the hips, keeps the low back down where it belongs.

  4. 4

    Shape one — legs straight up

    Legs together and resting on the wall, feet relaxed. Arms wide, palms up. This is the drain: everything that has been pooling in your legs since the run starts heading back the other way.

  5. 5

    Shape two — let them go wide

    Let the legs slide apart down the wall as far as they go on their own. The wall carries them, so the inner thighs open without you doing anything about it.

  6. 6

    Shape three — soles together

    Slide the feet down the wall toward each other until the soles meet and the knees fall open. The deepest of the three, and the last.

  7. 7

    Come down slowly

    Bend the knees into the chest, roll onto your side, and take a moment there before you get up. Standing straight out of this makes people dizzy.

Legs Up the Wall

How to do it

Sit sideways on the floor with one hip touching a wall. Lie back and swing both legs up it, shuffling your hips as close to the wall as is comfortable. Let the arms rest wide with the palms up. Then move through three shapes without coming down: legs straight up the wall, then sliding wide apart, then feet drawn down toward each other until the soles meet and the knees fall open. When you are done, bend the knees into the chest and roll onto your side before getting up.

Why it's good for runners

Nothing else in the method puts the legs above the heart, and after three hours on your feet that alone changes how they feel. The legs have spent the whole run fighting gravity to send blood back up; inverting them for a few minutes hands that job to gravity instead, and the heaviness comes out of them faster than it does lying flat.

The three shapes are what make it more than a rest position. Straight up lengthens the whole back of the leg from heel to sitting bone. Wide opens the inner thighs — the tissue running never asks for and the one that quietly limits how the hips move. Soles together takes both hips into external rotation. That is the entire lower body, one chain at a time, and the wall is doing all the holding. You are not stretching anything so much as putting the leg somewhere and getting out of the way.

It is also the most reliably down-regulating shape in the method after corpse. Being inverted, supported and still is a strong signal to a nervous system that has been switched on all morning.

Common mistakes

Don't force your hips against the wall. If the backs of the legs are screaming or the low back arches off the floor, you are too close — shuffle back until the pose is boring, because boring is where it works. Don't insist on straight legs; bend them. Don't stay if the feet go numb or tingly, which means the hips are too high or you have been there too long. And don't leap up at the end — roll onto your side first and give yourself a moment, or the head-rush will do it for you.

Related

Yoga poses

Reclined Butterfly

On your back, soles of the feet together, knees falling wide. Both hips and the whole front of the body open at once, with the floor doing the holding.

Yoga poses

Triangle

Wide stance, front leg straight, reaching long over it. Hamstring, adductor, outer hip and side ribs in one standing shape.

Yoga poses

Butterfly

Seated, soles of the feet together, knees falling wide. The inner thigh and the deep hip, with nothing holding you up.

Back to Yoga poses