Hi it's Elissa Weinzimmer and it's time for another How to Warm Up Video
how to warm up
in today's video we're gonna be talking about the classic exercise which
is the roll down and roll up you guys I come from a theatre background and I
can't even tell you how many times I've done this exercise in my life you may be
familiar with it but let's talk through it because it's a fabulous way to warm
up your body and yes indeed this exercise falls under the body category
which if you go to the whole How To Warm Up series and watch the intro video
you'll understand how to put together a bunch of different exercises in this
series to create your own full warm-up ok so let's try it now before I actually
demonstrate this exercise to you it would be helpful to know a couple things
about your spine so the very top vertebra of your spine which is the
atlas vertebra is in the middle of your skull I can't quite gesture to it
because I have a skull but it's up here and then of course the bottom of your
spine is down at your tailbone and in between those two spots your spine has
four curves in your neck the curve goes this way in the upper back the curve
goes this way in the lower lumbar spine the curve goes the same way as your neck
and down at the bottom the curve goes the same way as your thoracic spine or
the middle of your spine so something that we sometimes misunderstand is we
say things like stand up straight when in fact we can never stand up straight
so to speak because our spine has curves and it's meant to have them so as we do
this roll down on this roll up you may find that different places feel
different and that has to do with each vertebra in your back and there are 24
of them feel different as you move through so start by allowing the
vertebra in your neck to unstack one at a time there are seven in there slowly
imagining each one unstacking from the next until you get to the place where
just your head is hanging this is you've now done your cervical spine now we're
going to move into the thoracic vertebra which is
the upper back there are 12 of them imagine them unstacking you might need
to bring a little bit of a gentle bend into your knees right now so that your
legs stay underneath you as you unstack all of the vertebra of your thoracic
spine this is also the part where your arms might want to tense or engage in
some way I try to keep letting your arms and your head especially hang really
free now I'm getting down about into the lower lumbar vertebra so there's gonna
be more movement down to the bottom and through those five vertebra and finally
I'm letting my sacrum go and I'm hanging all the way down once you've gotten here
the trick is to roll up from bottom to top so I'm not gonna lift my head to
start I'm actually gonna start down at the sacrum and the tailbone and tuck
that under and start to roll up stacking each vertebra back one on the next
keeping my legs underneath me rolling up one vertebra at a time to the best of my
ability of course until I'm up all but cervical spine and then finally rolling
up through the cervical spine through the neck now if you have a friend to
help you with this exercise one really cool thing that can help you understand
whether your unstacking each vertebra on top of the next is for them to just walk
their fingers down your back as you roll down and then back up as you roll up so
if that's possible and available to you a really nice way to make sure that
you're moving through every single one of those vertebra but otherwise just
practice this on your own it's a fabulous way to find your energy back in
your body and warm it up enjoy and let me know if you have any questions
how to warm up