Lockdown 3.0 has got me feeling all kinds of confused. It could quite easily be a looped variation of that week between Christmas and New Year's Eve where I feel simultaneously busy and useless and don’t know what day it is.

While I can’t complete any face-to-face sessions, I still get to see my lovely clients during Zoom and Facebook Live sessions, and they always amaze me: three weeks of uncertainty could quite easily prompt them to put their fitness goals on hold while they ride out the storm, but no, here they are, pushing themselves harder than they have done before.

A question I got asked a lot during last year's lockdown – and throughout January and March's circuit-breakers – is how to warm-up/cool-down sufficiently after a long walk. The nature of lockdown and the social distancing we're adhering to means that people are enjoying the great outdoors more than they usually would, and to answer my clients' questions, I put together this handy little yoga routine that can be performed before or after a particularly strenuous walk.

Yoga is excellent for remedying muscle stiffness, as it provides a greater degree of flexibility and range of motion, meaning we're less prone to sustaining the familiar strains and sprains of walking. The below routine has been formulated to target the muscle groups we most use when navigating hiking trails and includes poses that will help build stamina and improve endurance.

By building stronger hamstrings and gluteal muscles, you'll be able to smash that challenging trail that's your archnemesis, and you’ll crush that incline that usually reduces you to tears. While the below poses have been designed to be completed in order, you can mix them up each time: it’s entirely up to you. Don't forget to use a yoga block for some of the more challenging poses if you're feeling a little unsteady.

Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Perhaps one of modern yoga's most widely-recognised poses, Downward-Facing Dog improves the body's circulation by stretching and strengthening the entire body. Start on your hands and knees in a table top position, and inhale deeply as you bring the hips up and back. Keep the arms straight and strong, and hold the pose for around three to five breaths.

This asana is excellent for toning the arms and legs and opens and strengthens the shoulders. It also lengthens and stretches the hamstrings and calves, which is perfect conditioning for those future walks.

Standing Forward Fold (Uttanasana)

This is a great little pose for stretching and strengthening the lower back, and although the traditional version is quite challenging, a simplified version will be enough for that post-walk relief.

The tip to completing uttanasana with proper form is to try and control the tilting of the pelvis as you go down and as you come back up. Keep your hands on your hips, and on the exhale, contract the abdominal muscles as you bend forward, folding from the hips. Resist the urge to plummet forward: keep your chest raised without exaggerating the curve of the lower back. Once you feel your hamstrings (back of the legs) hold and breathe.

Lunge Pose

The lunge asana works just like any aerobic/resistance lunge by stretching out the groin and strengthening both the arms and the legs.

From Downward-Facing Dog, step your right foot forward and place it in between your hands, keeping the right knee directly above your ankle at a 90-degree angle. Press down through your feet and squeeze the inner thighs toward one another. On the inhale, slowly move your hands to your hips and then stretch your arms up and overhead. Take three breaths while you hold here. Switch legs and repeat.

Extended Side-Angle Pose (Uthitta Parsvakonasana)

Practising Uthitta Parsvakonasana replicates the same feeling of the first stretch of the morning. Not only does it energise, but it teaches us how to stabilise our legs while we open and expand our rib cage, giving the muscles that support good breathing a great workout. It also helps to tone the muscles that run along the sides of our body and develop the strength and structural support we need to lengthen our spine.

Engage your muscles fully by creating a single extension from the heel of the straightened leg all the way up to the fingertips of the overhead arm. Try to establish a solid stance in your legs and shift your focus to stretching the arms and expanding the chest. Finally, as you bring your top arm over your ear, rotate the stomach and chest up while maintaining the broadness that you’ve created in the chest.

Triangle Pose (Uthitta Trikonasana)

Whether you're looking to perfect your yoga form or simply want an excellent post-hike stretch, uthitta trikonasana is your girl: not only does she stretch and strengthen the thighs, ankles, and knees, she also extends the hips, hamstrings, groin, spine, and calves, and helps to relieve back pain and lower anxiety.

From Extended Side-Angle Pose, straighten your front leg, and instead of bringing the bicep up over your ear, stretch your top arm skyward. Stretch out the chest, tighten the stomach, tuck in the legs, and hold for three to five inhalations before repeating on the other side: tuck the chin down toward the chest to avoid excessive strain on the neck.

Half-Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana)

Half-Moon Pose just sounds so magical, doesn’t it? By bringing in opposing energies, Ardha Chandrasana invites us to utilise both the serene, balancing power of the moon and the fiery ferocity of the sun.

Start by bending the grounded leg without lifting the other leg off the floor. Use the arm for balance, shifting your body's weight forward so it is directly over the front hand and foot. Hold this for a few breaths until you begin to feel some stability. Next, press down through the ball and heel of the foot as you move the kneecap toward the toes. Make sure you turn and open the outer thigh sufficiently to maintain the direction of the knee. If you don't, you may find that you start to lose balance. Lastly, keep your leg steady as you revolve the shoulders, chest, and abdomen upward.

Half-Moon Pose helps us develop strong legs and more flexible hips, and by the very nature of anatomy, most people have one leg that’s dominant and one that’s weaker, which can lead to postural imbalances. Half-Moon Pose helps to calibrate this and works on strengthening both legs simultaneously.

Pyramid Pose (Parsvottanasana)

Parsvottanasana is a wonderful little pose that combines three major stretching movements: forward bending, backward bending, and balancing. This pose is perfect for simultaneously giving the hamstrings and shoulders a great stretch, which in turn helps us to build better coordination, calm the mind, and improve our posture.

With feet apart and facing forward, place the hands on the hips and fold forward as you exhale, extending the torso over your right leg: try to maintain a straight spine. Then, draw the abdominals in and slowly round the upper spine, drawing your crown down toward the toes. Hold for around 5-10 slow breaths, before slowly returning to neutral.

Warrior III Pose (Virabhadrasana III)

As the name suggests, this is a dynamic yoga pose that’s going to strengthen the body, shoulders, calves, ankles, hamstrings, and back, as well as toning and strengthening the abdominal muscles.

Begin in a lunge with the right foot forward, knee bent 90 degrees over the foot and the rear leg extended. Bring your hands to your hips. Lean forward, bringing your weight into your forward foot while keeping the rear knee bent.

Straighten the forward leg and continue to bring your torso into a position parallel with the floor, counterbalancing the rear leg as it lifts and extends backward. Eventually, both the torso and the rear leg will become parallel with the floor at roughly the same time. Keep the neck relaxed and hold for 30-60 seconds, before gently returning to a neutral position.

Seated-Forward Fold (Pachimottanasana)

This pose is the little cousin of the second yoga post in this list, the Standing Forward Fold, and it isn’t difficult to see why it’s one of the most popular yoga poses. It stretches the hamstrings and gluteal muscles, strengthens the quads, abdominals, and knee joints, elongates the spine, builds shoulder strength…the list goes on.

Sit with your legs straight out in front of you, engage the abdominals as you lift through the sides of your ribs, lengthening through your spine and stretching through your shoulders.

Flex at the hips and fold the torso over your legs as you reach for your feet, try not to compromise the lengthening action of the spine as you reach for your feet. If your hamstrings are tight go for the shins rather than the toes. push down through your heels, keeping them on the ground to prevent hyperextending your knees.

If you give any of these poses a go and find them useful please do tag me on social media - Instagram @mission_108 / Facebook Mission-sophiecampbell or email me Sophie@mission.co.com. It brings me so much joy when I see them.

Happy Warm Down!

Sophie .x.

9 Yoga Poses to Incorporate Into Your Post-Walk Warm Down