Prep Poses for Standing Splits Using a Wall

There are some great prep poses for doing standing splits against a wall.  Here's a sequence to warm up the hips, strengthen the legs, and fire up the arm muscles.

1. Downward Dog
2. Draw right knee into chest
3. Inhale to extend back into 3-legged dog
4. Shift forward to 3-legged plank
5. Shift back to 3-legged dog
6. Inhale to lift onto the ball of your *left* foot, while keep *right* leg in the air
7. Exhale to lower left heel, keeping right leg in the air
8. Shift forward to 3-legged plank
9. Keep repeating 4-8, 4-5x
10. Bring right foot in between the hands
11. Keeping hands on block or floor, bend and straighten right leg, moving torso with it
12. High lunge
13. Warrior III
14. Standing splits
15. Vinyasa
16. Repeat from 1-15

Other great prep poses for Standing splits against the wall: Pyramid pose (parsvottanasana), Splits (Hanumasana), "Humble warrior" (hands interlaced behind back, folding over front leg), and standing forward fold (uttanasana).

To get into Standing Splits against the wall, I follow these steps:

1. Downward Dog with heels to wall
2. Exhale right knee into chest
3. Pretend you're poking a hole in the ceiling as you extend right leg to sky
4. Take top of foot ("laces side") to the wall
5. Walk hands as close as you can to your foot
6. Breathe deeply into those hip flexors!