Transcription:

In this session, for equipment, you will need a chair, a support, something for padding up your knee because one exercise will be kneeling, and a strap.

We will be doing two spinal movements, bending to the side, and then twisting, and we'll do a super-duper combination, front thigh, front hip stretch, and then a little lower back stretch to finish off with.

So first exercise is a standing side bend. Follow along with me. Stand with the feet about hip width apart. Knees a little bit bent, and tuck your tail; that flattens the lower back. Your hand will be supporting you on your hip. Take a breath in, lift the chest, lengthen the spine. And as you breathe out, bend towards the hand on the hip. That hand is not cosmetic, it's supporting you in the side bend. So make sure you can feel weight through that arm. Relax the head and neck as far into the stretch as you can. Breathe comfortably. Probably you're feeling the stretch mainly in the waist to begin with, so breathe into that part. Imagine there was a wall behind you; would both of your hips and both of your shoulders, and possibly even the back of your skull, be on the wall. Breathe and relax. If that is sufficiently intense, hold it there.

But if you'd like to explore a slightly stronger position, try it with me. Slowly bring this arm across the front of the body. Doesn't matter where it ends up. You only take it as far as is comfortable for you. For me here today, that has moved the stretch up into the ribs, and that's quite strong enough for me today.

Can you breathe into the side of the body that's being stretched? Let's try for three more breaths in and out here. If you can't breathe, you've gone too far. So back it off a little bit, make sure you can breathe, and relax a little bit more each time you breathe out. One more breath.

And to come out of the position, take a breath in and hold the breath as you slowly roll the top arm and shoulder through the front. Probably want to bend the knees a little bit more, hands on the thighs, and press yourself up, and wriggle around.

Let's try the other side. Hand on the hip. As you breathe in, lift the chest, nice long spine. As you breathe out, bend towards the hand on the hip. Do you feel weight through that arm? It's supporting you in the side bend. Can you relax the head and neck as much as possible? I'm comfortable with the nose pointing to the front, but if you're not, by all means, turn and look a little bit more at the floor. You need to be able to relax. Focus your breathing initially into the waist area. Those same alignment guides. If you had a wall behind you, would your hips, your shoulders, and possibly the back of your skull be against the wall? How does this side feel compared to your first side?

If this position is sufficiently intense for you, stay here, keep breathing comfortably. But as we did on the first side, if you want to, have a play with taking the arm through the front, doesn't matter where it ends up. More important that you can continue to breathe and relax in this position. Deep breaths into the side that's under stretch. Every time you breathe out, let yourself take more weight on that support arm on the hip. Literally breathing yourself into the stretch. Let's try for two more breaths in and out. One more breath. And to come out, take a breath in and hold it as you slowly roll the top arm and shoulder through the front, bend the knees, bring the hands to the thighs, and press yourself upright with your arms.

And the little recovery movement after a side bend, bend the knees and just a gentle swinging. Just gentle, no great force involved. Very relieving to do this after the side-bending movements.

Okay, now we're going to go down on the floor. So jump down onto your bottom, my favorite word. Feet flat on the floor. It really is up to you how far away from your body you have your feet. I feel comfortable feet flat on the floor, like this. And you can follow along with me.

Take a breath in, sit up as tall as you can. And one arm, reach it around behind you, maybe six or so inches away from your hips. Bend the elbow and lean some weight onto that hand. And then we need to position this shoulder in the following way. Lift it up, draw it back, and pull it down. That's setting us up so all of this is open, ahead of the twisting movement. You've got a few things you can do with this other hand. You could put it here and use it to twist you around. For my proportions, that gives me very good leverage. Other people find coming to the outside of that arm. Have a play with those. Every time you breathe in, you're lifting the chest up towards the ceiling to lengthen the spine. And each time you breathe out, you're mainly using the arm on the leg to twist around, but you can also be pulling the other shoulder around.

Can you breathe in that position? It's quite awkward in twists. Breathe into the chest, breathe into the ribs, breathe into everywhere in the torso that you possibly can. Let's do two more breaths, remembering we always go further into a stretch on the out breath.

And to come out, just slowly twist yourself back to the centrr, and we'll do the second side together. So reach around, put the hand on the floor, maybe six inches back from the hips. Bend that elbow, you're leaning on that hand, and we do the same shoulder positioning. So lift the shoulder up, pull it back and down. Other arm, you can have a play with the different hand positions. Every breath in, make an effort to lift the chest and straighten the back. And as you breathe out, mainly the hand on the leg there's doing the work of twisting you, but you can also be drawing the other shoulder around. Up to you how much you involve the neck turn. Breathe comfortably. Do a little wriggle and check that you've got weight on both sides of your bottom.

And in your own time, let's try for four more deep breaths in and out. Can you breathe into the top of the chest? Can you breathe into the ribs at the sides? Can you breathe into your belly and let that go soft each time you breathe out? One more breath. And to come out, just slump a little bit as you slowly turn back towards the legs, and a brief partial return in the first direction makes everything feel happy.

Good. Okay. Now, we've got our super-duper thigh hip stretch. I'll be kneeling on one knee so here's where I need my padding, so I place the rolled-up mat in this way. And I'm going to put my knee a little bit further back on the mat than we've done in earlier lunge exercises. For the first side, we'll all do chair and strap, play with that, and on the other side, we'll see what we find. So stabilize on the chair, padding up the knee, step this foot forward. And I'm going to put the strap there in anticipation. First thing we do is explore the lunge movement to see how deep we can lunge. So bend over and then move the hips down and forward, just like lunges we've done before. Feel how low you're able to go in the lunge. And also, if in your lunge, you find that this ankle is trapped behind the knee, then creep it forward a little bit, and then we're not going to move the foot or that knee at all, as we do the part two.

So now, push the hips back and you can bring the body a little bit upright, grab your strap, and you're going to reach around and capture your ankle with the strap. Then you're going to bring the heel into the buttock a little bit, but don't be too ambitious about that, and you'll see why in a moment. Come to an elbow support on your chair and then see how far you can go back into the lunge you just practiced a moment ago, and you might be surprised that that movement is not available to you now that that back leg is folded. No problem. This is why we do this exercise.

So breathe and relax, focus mainly on moving into the lunge, not the pulling the heel into the buttock. Okay? Of course, if you're looser, you can do both, but try to go back to the lunge depth that you had when you weren't bending the back knee as you are now. Can you breathe in this position? You might be finding that every cell in your body is saying, "Please let me stop." If that's really true, back it off a little bit and focus on your breathing. Breathe deeply. Every time you breathe out, relax; not necessarily move further, but relax. Learning how to relax into the positions is key. Two more breaths. Can you relax your belly? To come out of the position, you can let go of the strap, lower the leg down, take a breath in and press the hips back out of the lunge. Great work.

Let's do the second side. On the second side, I'm not going to use the chair or the strap. You could, of course, but I want to show you a slightly more intense version. I'll still need my knee padding, but I'm going to use a block instead. So follow along with me. Knee bit back towards the back of the mat there. Step the foot forward. I'm not using that chair. And just like we did on the first side, first thing is to see how deep a lunge we can do on this second side. So I've got my support on the hand on the block there, knee is padded. As I come into the lunge, more and more of the front thigh comes onto this mat; that's very comforting, allows me to relax. And check the front foot position, you don't want the heel trapped behind the knee.

Now, as we go into the part two, we don't want to move the knee or that foot. Rather push the hips back, reach around, and this time I don't have a strap ao I'm holding the ankle or the front of the foot with the hand. I'm pulling the heel into the buttock a little bit, but don't be too ambitious about that, you know from the first side. And breathing, moving slowly, can you get back into your first lunge position? Breathe and relax there. Let the head hang forward, relax, breathe into the front of the body. Breathe into the belly. Keep checking in with your breathing; if there's no relaxing happening each time you breathe out, then you're just holding, not really stretching. Much better off to back it off a fraction, breathe and relax, and each time you breathe out, just the relaxing takes you deeper into the stretch. Three more breaths in and out. Two more breaths. One more breath.

To come out, you can let go of the back leg. An alternative way to come out is to press the hips back, and that slackens the stretch a lot, and then lower the foot down to the floor. Good. I really felt the heat in that movement. And that's normal in a big stretch like this, for your body temperature to go up.

Okay, let us do our little round-out to finish off with. Don't need any equipment but the floor. Legs are out to the front like this. Heels down. My knees are very bent. I don't want this to be a hamstring stretch. I want it to be a spinal rounding. So my knees are very bent. I'm going to reach through and hold like this. Or you could hold like that; most people prefer this hold. And I'm just going to let the head come forward. And I'm picturing an even curve through the spine. Breathe into the back of the body, breathe into the lower back, breathe into the part that your waistband crosses, breathe into the middle back. Round the spine. Two more breaths here. One more breath. And to come out of the position, take a breath in and hold it, move the hands next to your knees, take a breath in and press yourself upright.

That's the end of this session. Don't be at all surprised if you feel some things in this part of your body in the next couple of days and also around here, because we did the side bending and the twisting. I'll see you next time.

Program 6: Side bend, rotation, hip flexor plus quad, spine flexion

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