Number Five Might Be the Very Best

 

Following on yesterday’s how-to-stretch post, here are my five favorite stretches:

 

1.     IT band stretch.  All of us who sit a lot need to stretch our IT bands.  To do it, we lie on our backs (yay!) and then extend one leg up toward the ceiling, possibly with a strap around our foot (less yay!).  This is only the first part.  Our hamstrings are now stretching, which is good, but not what we came for.  Now we take that leg across the midline of our bodies, allowing the pelvis to follow.  The outside edge of our leg from the hip to the knee will probably scream, so we need to go slowly and gently.

2.     Quad stretch.  There are a couple of ways to do this stretch, but I’m going to focus on the one where we get to lie down.  This time we lie on our side.  We bend the top knee as if we were trying to kick ourselves in the butt with our heel and grab that foot with our hand.  The front of the thigh will stretch.  This stretch is improved by keeping both knees next to each other.  Extra flexible people may need to press their hips forward and/or push the foot hard into the hand holding it.

3.     QL stretch.  For this one, we sit up with our legs spread out wide and our spines nice and straight to begin.  We want to lift our ribcage up off our pelvis and then bend to the side, reaching toward our toes.  That’s just the start:  the inner thighs and possibly the intercostals and obliques at the side of the ribcage we are stretching away from may feel the effects, but it’s the next part we’re aiming for.  Now we want to round our upper body toward our foot as if we were trying to put our belly on our thigh.  I grab my foot with my same-side hand and put my other hand on my thigh.  At the same time, we press the hip we are stretching away from into the ground.  This stretches the QL (quadratus lumborum), which is a deep back muscle in the lower back, one that gets tense and sore when we sit a lot.

4.     Chest stretch.  Again, there are several ways to do this one, but the fun one is to stand in a doorway with forearms against the doorframe.  Then we lean forward, opening the chest and feeling a lovely stretch across the whole thing.

5.     Neck stretch.  This is a stretch that can be done seated or standing, but it’s pretty useful when we’re stuck at our desks, so I’ll focus on that one.  We begin sitting up nice and straight.  For many of us, this may mean sitting at the edge of our chair, feet flat on the floor.  We tilt our head to one side, pulling the head toward the shoulder with the arm we’re tilting toward.  The other hand reaches down toward the ground; the energy out that hand makes a difference to the stretch.  After we hold a while, we can turn our head toward our bicep (the Kaepernick variation!), still pulling the head down with our hand.

 

What are yours?