you asked

My lower back tends to get really stiff from sitting, usually incorrectly, at work :0. Any recommendations on poses that I could easily do in my office to loosen the tension in my lower back? - Marianne

How do you protect your lower back? In some yoga classes my back is too tight and painful at the end of class to really relax in savasana. In Bikram I don’t really have that problem, maybe because you do a twist right before the final savasana? – Elaine

a yogi answers

First thing is to sit super upright on the edge of your seat and pull your chin back. It might seem weird at first, but you want to create the natural spinal curvature. There is an S-curve in your spine and neck, most back issues come from slouching. Don’t slouch and engage your abdomen, at least 15-30% ALL THE TIME!

- Ted, lululemon Malibu ambassador

Do you have any favourite final poses to help you relax in savasana?

Nicole from the recently opened Harvard Square showroom gives us a sneak peek into how their team took an empty space and turned it into a lively showroom! Above: the team in action.

Prior to us getting our space, they built a wall to make it even smaller than it already was. You can see the metal braces and sheetrock going up below:

That left us with 570 square feet to work with, including that low ceiling in the middle of the space.

Challenge: Turn this cold white room into a cozy lululemon showroom.

Cindy came in to help me on Monday, and we shopped like maniacs Monday and Tuesday. The space was left painted white and we recruited a guy from Home Depot to help us paint it ourselves.

The painting begins! Already things are starting to look better...

We all stayed up past 1am Tuesday night to get everything repainted bright, fun colors.

The creativity did not stop at the walls. Check out Harvard Square's unique desk!

We built our desk out of cinder blocks and wood. Our inspiration? The garden displays at Home Depot. It's so easy, and once you spruce it up with some baskets, flowers, organization, it really looks great.

The team's hard work is starting to pay off. The showroom is looking great!

Wednesday morning, we used another empty retail space in the building to start building our Ikea cubbies and Home Depot plumbing-inspired racks. We started bringing things in after lunch on Wednesday, got all our racks installed into the concrete walls, and things started looking like a real store!

Hooray! Harvard Square's makeover is complete!

We finished up everything on Friday evening (in time for dinner and some well deserved drinks), and opened on Saturday morning! It was a blast.

A complimentary yoga class at Harvard Square in the new space!

Working in such a small space and in such a small time frame really allowed us to get creative. We obviously took inspiration from the stores (pant cubbies, etc.), but really had to challenge ourselves to keep from using the same old rolling racks all over the place.

Come visit us soon!

Love,
Nicole

For more info on the Harvard Square showroom visit http://www.lululemon.com/cambridge/harvardsquareshowroom.

Want to learn more about showrooms? Read the "meet our lake oswego showroom manager" blog post.