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August 3, 2013

Kneeling side stretch: back pain relief

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A brief six-minute excerpt (two cameras) from a recent Melbourne Stretch Teacher Workshop.

Olivia ("Liv", "Miss O", "Charm"; "She of a thousand names") demonstrates and leads a 'follow along' version of this excellent lateral flexion stretch.

In addition to stretching the obliques, extending the arm adds a powerful latissimus dorsi stretch, and the rolling of the top shoulder forward while reaching the arm out becomes a strong quadratus lumborum stretch, in time. And if you let your head hang to the side as well, as she is demonstrating, the neck is stretched too.

Read transcription

Olivia Allnutt:

Okay. Now, the next one is a kneeling exercise so it's going to go down on both knees. So, if you need to double your mat over, if you need a little bit of extra padding, you can do that. We won't be there very long. We're going to do a kneeling version of a side bend. The very first one that Kit taught you on day one was a standing side bend, and then I taught you a version sitting in the chair.



Olivia Allnutt:

This kneeling one is my preferred, gentle warm-up type side bend. So I'm going to show it to you and see whether you like it or not. So just do it with me. I'm kneeling up on my knees, and roughly I've got knees hip width apart, but wider if you need more support. That's good. And my hips are above my knees. Now, do a little bit of a tail tuck because most people's spines don't like to bend to the side when there's some extension there, so the tail tuck will flatten the lumbar curve.



Olivia Allnutt:

And just like with the standing one, you've got a choice of supports. You could do a hand on the hip, bend to the side. The reason I like this one is that I find if I slide down the outside of my leg there, the calf is very handily there for me to lean on. Okay, but your level of flexibility or proportions might not lend itself. You could always have a block handy as well, but we don't have blocks and we're not going to get them.



Olivia Allnutt:

So let's just do either hip support or try sliding down and see whether you can just hold the calf. If you're holding the calf, you don't want to do it to the point where you're distorting the hip position. Okay? It's a side bend. So go into your initial side bend and just see how it feels. Try to have the hips and your shoulders pointing to the front so it's a strict side bend.



Olivia Allnutt:

And it's a supported side bend. So whichever support you chose, can you feel weight bearing down through that arm? It's not cosmetic. It's actually holding you in the side bend. Can you relax the neck? If you want to expose the side neck muscles, then you'd keep your nose pointing to your front. But as I said the other day, my neck doesn't like that. I tend to look at the floor. Can you breathe in this position? Breathe and relax.



Olivia Allnutt:

Now, if that's sufficiently intense for you today, you can just hold it there and continue to breathe. But if you want to add the other arm, take it through the front, nice and slowly. And it doesn't matter where it ends up. It can be at the front, can be pointing to the ceiling. The elbow can be bent, but wherever it ends up, you want to actively reach the arm out of the shoulder joint. So you're using trapezius to stretch the lats.



Olivia Allnutt:

Can you breathe comfortably everywhere that's under stretch, or you just working hard and holding a shape? Breathe and relax. Can you breathe into the arm pit on the uphill side? Can you breathe into the ribs? Can you breathe into the waist? Every time you breathe out, try and let a little bit more weight come onto the support arm and that just increases the side bend. Excellent. What's the dismount for a side bend?



Participant:

Bend toward the floor.



Olivia Allnutt:

Not that Marcio! Roll through the front, and in this one you can let the bum move back towards the heels if that feels comfortable. And up you come. Any reactions to that side bend? Do you feel comfortable? Feel supported?



Participant:

It's really nice.



Participant:

Really nice.



Olivia Allnutt:

I like it. I just find a lot of people find the standing one a bit unstable. They can't work out whether to be straight-kneed, et cetera, but they're all just variations on the same basic template. Okay? Let's do the other side. So come upright. In this one let's talk about the hips in this plane. Many people, they tend to move the hips out to the side when they bend to the side. That's good if you want to get more pull through the side of the leg here, but if you want a stronger waist sensation, don't let the hips move at all. Just bend to the side away from the waist. Okay?



Olivia Allnutt:

So just have a play with that. On the other side, don't let the hips move to the side at all. Just bend to the side from the waist. And notice this one is incremental; we're just bending from the waist while making sure we've got weight on the support arm. I see everyone's in a hurry. Relax the neck and make sure you can breathe. And for many people, this will be a sufficient stretch. They won't want to add the other arm. Okay?



Olivia Allnutt:

So you talk about that. Excellent. All right. If you want to add the other arm, off you go. We recommend the arm through the front to avoid any shoulder discomfort, and wherever the arm ends up, try to reach it off the body. Good. Keep going. Keep gauging your breathing. If you can't get the air in you're going too hard. If you can't relax as you breathe out, you're going too hard.



Olivia Allnutt:

Now on this side, wherever you feel the stretch most intensely – waist, ribs, armpit, wherever it is – five slow, deep breaths into that exact little bit of tissue. And every time you breathe out tell yourself that exact bit is going to relax a bit more. So direct your breathing into the bit that's tightest. Excellent. When you want to come out, slowly roll the top arm and shoulder to the front. Sit back on the heels if you need to. And then jump up onto your feet, bend the knees, and this is the washing machine, the recovery after side bends.


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