Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo. I've got my two assistants with me today. This is Molly
and this is Bailey. And they wanted to come do a cameo appearance for our hamstring stretches
because they know how important it is to do hamstring stretches. Your hamstrings are connected
to your knees, they're connected to your hips, they affect your back, so what we're gonna
do is we;re gonna show you a whole bunch of different ways to stretch your hamstrings.
But the good thing is you can pick one or two that you like the best. Bailey likes one,
but Molly doesn't like that one so she picks another one. So you can take a look at all
of these exercises, pick the one that you like the best and just stick with that one.
So let's get started with the exercises! Let's start off with the hamstring stretches, the
first one I'm gonna have you do is lie down on your back. Make sure you get a pillow so
you're comfortable. You want to be comfortable while you're doing these stretches. Alright,
so you're gonna lie down on your back. The first one we're gonna do is the active assistive
hamstring stretch. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna bring our knee up to a 90 degree
angle. And so you're just gonna grab your leg underneath your thigh here and just kind
of rest it there. So you're at that 90 degree angle, and you're gonna slowly start bringing
your leg straight up and you're gonna be stretching that hamstring. Once you start feeling that
stretch, I'm gonna have you hold it there. Now if you can't go all the way up, that's
ok. Your knee might be bent a little bit, and that's fine. You just wanna go to where
there's tension, but not so much pain that you can't hold it for 30 seconds. Now if you
get to the top and you're getting a pretty good stretch, but you feel like you need a
little bit more,you can pull your toes down towards you and that's gonna activate those
calf muscles as well as those hamstrings. Now if you're shaking a little bit, then go
ahead and relax the knee just a little bit. But you're still gonna get that stretch. You
want to hold your stretch for 30 seconds and do it 3 times each. And that's an active assistive
stretch. Now sometime people have a really hard time with this because you're actually
moving the leg yourself, so if this one's really hard to do, what I'm gonna have you
do... We're gonna go ahead and grab our belt or dog leash whatever you have handy, and
you're gonna put the belt just at the ball of your foot. Not on your toes, not way back
on your arch, but on the ball of your foot there. And what you're gonna do is you're
gonna straighten out your leg. Now this one you want your knee to always bee straight.
If it starts bending, then bring your leg back down a little bit. And what you're gonna
do is you're gonna start pulling your leg up until you feel that hamstring stretch.
Now again, if your knee starts bending like that, bring it back down. The key is to keep
your knee straight. That's gonna stretch those hamstrings. So you're gonna pull up, and same
kind of thing, you can pull down with your toes. Pull those toes towards you, and that
will give you that extra stretch with your calf as well. And so you're gonna hold it
for 30 seconds. Do it three times each. And then you're gonna bring it back down. And
now I'm gonna show you a stretch while you're sitting up. So you can do this on the ground
and you can pull your heel up to your side right here. What you;re gonna do is you're
going to bend over, but you don't want to curl your back like this. A lot of people
try to grab their toes. Grabbing the toes isn't going to be stretching the hamstring.
So if I'm curled over with my back like this, I'm not really stretching my hamstrings cause
my hamstrings are connected to my pelvis. So what I want to do is I wanna keep my back
straight. And that's gonna protect your back. You don't want to hurt your back when you're
doing hamstring stretches. And you want to bend at your hips. So me bending right here
is actually stretching my hamstring more that if I'm all the way down this way. So again,
you want to hold it for 30 seconds, doing it 3 times each. Now I'm gonna show you some
standing and sitting on the couch exercises. So let's head on over there. Now I'm gonna
show you some exercises you can do on the couch, or you can do on your bed before you
get up in the morning. So it's very similar to the one where you were on the ground except
you can bring your foot up and now just let you opposite leg hang off to the side. So
that might be a little more comfortable for people if they have a little bit of hip issues
because they're not pulling their leg up, they're just letting it hang off the ground.
But same kind of concept where you want to keep your leg straight. That knee needs to
be in a pushed out position. It needs to be straight, it doesn't need to be bent. And
you're gonna, at your hips, lean forward keeping that back straight and just getting a good
stretch through your hamstrings. Remember, if you're curling over trying to touch your
toes, that's not gonna get that stretch. You wanna keep your back straight and move at
your hips. 3 times, for 30 seconds. The next exercise I'm gonna show you is a standing
one. So if you're walking around, they feel kind of tight, you can just stop and stretch
them out really quick. So the standing exercise, if you're walking along and you feel like
you need to stretch it out or if you want to stand up and stretch, all you need is just
a surface that's a little higher. You can use your coffee table if it's there. If you
have a step, you can do it on the step. You can even do it on the ground if you need to,
but we're gonna prop it up here on the coffee table. So basically it's the same kind of
concept that we've showed you with all the other hamstring stretches. You don't want
to curl your back and try to touch your toes. That's gonna give you a little stretch, but
it's not gonna be a good stretch. So what you want to do you want to keep your back
straight and really bend at your hips. So even right there, I'm getting a pretty good
stretch in my hamstring. Now if you're really flexible, remember you can pull those toes
towards you, and that's gonna make those calves stretch as well, and it's gonna stretch the
whole back of your leg. So you wanna keep your body forward. You don't wanna reach over
and try to bend. You want to keep your hips pointed forward and you want to bend at those
hips, get that stretch. Hold it there for 30 seconds, 3 times each. Alright, well there
you have it. Those are your hamstrings stretches. If you like those stretches, please click
our like button and leave us a comment. And if you'd like to see more exercise videos
or some educational videos, please check out my website at AskDoctorJo.com. Remember be
safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.