Hey guys, I hope you are all doing well! Today I want to show you my stretch routine. It helps to loosen up in the morning and before exercise. With just ten minutes it is easy to implement into your day, let’s go!
Hands to the floor:We start by standing up, keeping our legs straight, bend over the upper body and touching our toes. If you can’t reach your toes yet, it is not a big deal, you will get to it. The important thing is to keep your legs straight. If you want, you can stretch out your body a few times in between.
Walking Sun Salutation: Now we put our hands to the floor, walking forward with them, the legs stay where they are. Again, try to keep them as straight as possible. When we arrived in the yoga „downdog“ position (some sort of push up position, but with straightened arms and back), we do the „updog“: Pushing through, straighten our arms and back again, opening our chest, greeting the sun. Then we go back do the updog and walk back.
Groin and butt strech: We start on our knees and do a big step forwards with our left leg. Then we sit deep into it. You should feel the stretch now in your right groin, it’s very liberating. Remember, while doing this, to activate your abs to protect your lower back. When we are finished with one leg, we do the other.
Side leg stretch: We stay with the legs. So we stand up again, bend one leg and lean to the side, keeping one leg straight. Try to keep your upper body straight and activate your middle, that’s very important. When we are done, we do the other one.
Frog position: It looks like the tailor seat, but it is not. Instead of crossing our legs, we put our soles together, creating a pressure and therefore a strech in the groin.
Leg extension stretch: We stay seated, stretch our legs to the front and bend over. It is quite similar to the very first exercise, just now we are seated.
Harmstrings stretch: To make it even more intense and specific we concentrate now on one leg at a time. For that we angle one leg tight to the body, while stretching the other one, leaning over it in the process.
Core rotation stretch: Now it is getting a bit more complicated. When we start with the right side, the left leg is stretched out, while we pull the right one close to our chest, crossing it over the left leg. Now we rotate our upper body to the right side creating a pressure in pushing our left arm against the outside of our right leg. See? It’s easy! 😀
Neck stretch: We stay seated, legs stretched out, upper body straight. Now we lay our hands at the back of your head, pulling it down gently.
Neck stretch sides: The same we do with each side, using only one hand in the process.
Leg extension stretch: Now we stand up again (feeling better already?). While keeping our body straight we angle one leg to the back, grabbing the ankle and pulling it gently. Try to stay straight, it should stretch your upper leg muscles.
Back stretch: Okay, this one may seem a little odd. We sit again and start the motion of a backwards roll. But we don’t actually roll through it. Rather we keep laying on our upper back, our toes touching the floor above our head.
Harmstring Stretch Left: Now an easier exercise again. One leg forward, the other one back, leaning over the stretched front leg.
Shoulder Rotation: This one is very good to loosen up the back. We rotate our shoulders forwards, then backwards, arms on the side.
Body rotation: To finish it up, we rotate our body to each side. Be careful here and only to what feels right to you. After that we are done!
That’s a great way to start the day! I hope you liked this little different approach to a routine and check out all my other workouts, tutorials and vlogs on my YouTube Channel @fabianxarnold.
See you soon, guys, take care!
