- Child’s Pose Stretch: Connect your knees to the floor, spread wide, and sit back on your feet. Reach forward with both hands to stretch your hands as far as you comfortably can. Feel the stretch in your upper and lower back as you keep a neutral neck and keep hands extended for 30 seconds.
2. Hip Crossover Stretch: Sit on a chair. Cross your one ankle over the opposite knee, keeping the leg parallel to the floor, keeping the ankle squared near the bend of the knee. Keeping core tight, lean slightly over at the hips and feel the stretch in the right hip and glute of the crossed leg. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch legs.
3. Hamstring Stretch: Lay on the floor. Wrap a strap, towel, or shirt over the bottom of one foot. Keeping the opposite leg flat or bent, slowly extend the leg with the wrap upward. Feel the hamstring stretch and slowly continue to extend until nearly straight, or as far as you can go without pain. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds, then switch legs.
4. Side Stretch: Stand with feet flat on the floor. Reach both arms up, keeping neck neutral and long. Grab one hand with the other and and pull your body toward the side of the hand that is grabbing, keeping feet grounded until you feel a nice stretch down the opposite side of the body.
5. Behind-the-Back Neck Stretch: Stand or sit up straight. Clasp right hand over the left wrist behind your back. Slowly pull the clasped arm straight, keep shoulders down to feel a deep stretch in neck and shoulders. Slowly lower right ear toward shoulder and back up for more of a neck stretch. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch sides.
Conclusion: If you aren’t used to stretching on the regular, it can be tough to find consistency, but creating a habit to build easy stretches into your day will do great things for your spine health. Save this post and refer back each day until you have it memorized.
