Hi, I'm Michelle and welcome to today's stretch. This is just a gentle 10 minute
free flowing stretch. So if you've got a spare 10 minutes and you'd like to have a stretch,
you're welcome to join with me today.
Let's get started where you are, just take your feet slightly apart, knees are bent, I'm gonna
start with the shoulder rolls. Breathing in, and breathing out, and down. And again, breath in,
shoulders coming forward up towards your ears, and breath out, and intention coming out of the
body and down. Take your fingers together, come sight on so you can see what I'm doing.
Reach out in front chin down towards your chest, and breath out, press away.
Come back in, breathing in, and breath out. Feel that stretch between your shoulder blades.
And once more, breathing in and breathing out stretch away,
and taking it down hands behind. This are my favorite stretches to start a class.
Always feel good to stretch out the neck and the shoulders pressing down.
Breathing in and breath out, press down. Lengthen through being the shoulders away from your ears.
Pushing the backs of the hands down towards the ground. And one more time breathing in
and breathing out. Press down, and now if you'd like to in that position, keeping the knees soft,
inward curve in the back as you come forward, and bring your hands away from your back head down,
and see how high you can lift your hands away from your back to start to stretch out your chest
really opening up through the chest there, and bring the arms back down towards the back.
Now stay in that bent forward position if you're able to
take the arms across, so I'm crossing my arms over, taking hold up behind the knees and just
gently drawing up through the middle back towards the ceiling. Keep your head down,
and let's release, and cross, and recross drawing up through the shoulders up through
the middle back. Lovely stretch between the shoulder blades here.
Breathing in breathing out and keep the knees bent. Now as you roll up slowly and uncool,
shoulders forward, up, back and round, and down. Alright, we're going to move down into
kneeling onto the ground so grab a cushion if you'd like to use one underneath your knees,
and I'll meet you down on the ground. So coming down onto the ground now, pillow underneath
your knees or towels. If your knees if they're a little bit uncomfortable kneeling, take your hands
underneath your shoulders, spread your fingers wide, my knees are part. Take a big breath in,
and round the shoulders forward stretch between the shoulder blades,
and breath out, and come just back down to flat try not to hyperextend through the back.
Once again, breathing in, lift up, round the shoulders forward,
and breath out coming back down. And once more lifting up really around the shoulders.
Stretch through that middle back, and breath out, and come down.
Now taking your right hand palm towards the ceiling reached through and across as far as you
can rotate. So he rotating through the back and stretching through the back of the right shoulder,
reach it through as far as you can comfortably you can bring your head down to the ground if
that feels comfortable as well, and coming back up at the same thing on the other side. Breathing
in, breath out, take the left arm through palm towards the ceiling. Stretch through
and let's come back up. Now take the same hand this time out to the side. If your shoulders sore,
bring it down and slide it down closer to your thigh if your shoulder isn't so you probably
ought to take it out at right angles, palms facing down this time. Now lower your shoulder
your left shoulder down towards the ground and look up over your other shoulder.
The stretch here is through the biceps through the front of the perhaps through the front of
that shoulder that left shoulder and turning away so you can see I'm really lowering that
shoulder down towards the ground and make a point of not bouncing the strip. So check it in
and down and hold it there. Relax the breath. Breathing in and breathing out
great can come back up. And let's repeat that on the other side so right arm coming out,
either down by your side or out at right angles. Reach out as far as you can. And
now take that right shoulder down towards the ground as well. Breathing in and breathing out.
Relax through the neck, relax the hold down if you need to. On small breath in on breath out.
Good and coming back up.
Now walk the hands back in towards your body and see if you can move your bottom
back towards your heels. So we're now starting to stretch into the bottom on the lower back. You
can just bend your forearms, bend your elbows and rest your head down there for a moment.
Taking a deep breath into the ribcage. So expanding through the back with your inbred
and the route slowly and one small breath in and breath out. Now you can stay here
if you need to rest. Otherwise, you can take your arms forward, spread your fingers wide lift up,
and now take your armpits down towards the ground. This is a sign stretch that for your muscles they
called your lats or your latissimus dorsi is a fancy name. And you'll notice that swimmers have
these big back muscles side of the back muscles, and that's what we're stretching out here.
Feel like a really nice stretch with the sides of the back breathing in,
breath out, and take your head down so that you're not straining through
the back of your neck. And once more breath in and breath out. And it's woke the hands back up.
All right, we're going to come onto the ground line on to our backs, so taking it right down,
coming down slowly right onto your back. And we'll take the arms out from the size of the body
and we'll just start with some rotation so let's rotate the knees across
as far as it feels comfortable for your lower back. Breathing in as the knees come up
and breath out as you roll the knees across. And remember you're working with your comfortable
range the whole way here, don't take the stretch into position that doesn't feel comfortable.
Breath out, see if you can lower the knees down a little bit further. So I'm lowering to the
left and I'm trying to keep the right shoulder down to really rotate through that lower back
and come back up. We'll go the other side breathing in and breathing out.
And let's come back up to center now take your right leg straight,
right hand to left knee. And now guide that left knee across your body and
rotate through remembering that rotation stretches are lovely for opening up joints.
But if you've had an acute disc injury or a recent disc injury, they're not the best
exercises or they're not appropriate exercises to be doing for the lower back. So avoid your
rotation exercises and your forward bending exercises if you have an acute back strain,
or if you have an acute disc back strain or disc back injury and coming back up and we're going to
repeat that on the other side. So we're taking the left leg straight, left hand to right knee,
hand on the outside of the thigh and roll across and keep the right shoulder down this time.
And again, stretching through the side of the back there opening up.
Breathing in and breathing out. And once more breath in and out
and bring that leg back to center. Now let's tilt the pelvis back was just gently flattening
out the lower back then and roll back through. And again one more time, so just gently pressing
the curve of the law back into the mat or into the into the carpet wherever you're lying,
and release. And now let's finish just taking the soles of the feet together to bring the knees
out. You could bring the hands inside the side if you'd like to if you want to add a little bit
of added pressure there. Or if it's too much to do both legs. Just take one leg at a time.
Again, doing whatever feels comfortable for your body. Breathing in and as you breath out,
see if you can take the legs further down towards the ground really opening up through the groin.
Now linked the fingers together reach up towards the ceiling, backs of the hands up
and bring it down. Take the palms up towards the ceiling. Big stretch, rolling the shoulders
off the ground if you can. And bring the arms back down, bring the knees together.
Take one knee towards the body, one thigh, upper thigh, bringing up both thigh together.
And now let's lower the feet slightly down to the ground one at a time,
keeping it safe for your back. Have a nice big full body stretch, love stretching your
whole body, stretch through your tummy underneath your arms down to your toes. Big breath in
and relax and let go. Fix your feet up and down a couple of times. One more time, big stretch out,
big breath in, and release everything and relax and let go. Bring your arms down by your sides
and on your tummy. Breath into your belly, flow deep breath in your belly rise with the in breath
and let the air fall away. And once more breathing in and let the air pull away
and bring the arms back down by the sides. Stay here for as long as you like now,
just enjoying that sense of having stretched.
Thanks so much for stretching with me today. Hope you have a great day. See you next time.