Postnatal Essential Mobility

Hello, I'm Wendy, and I'm here to share with you today a quick flow routine that will help you gain mobility and reduce stress and tension. For this routine, you'll wanna have a full length foam roller. Let's get started. You'll go ahead and sit cross-legged, facing your foam roller, having it out in front of you. With your hands shoulder distance apart, just exhale, curl and roll through your spine as you roll the roller away and bring your thumbs up towards the ceiling.

Exhale, slide your shoulders down, curl, and roll all the way back up. Inhale, sit tall. Exhale, drop your chin. Curl and reach nice and wide with the thumbs up, and then slide your shoulders down. Curl and roll all the way back up.

Using your core to roll through the spine. Really articulate. Sliding the shoulders down, curling, stacking your spine right on top of your hips. One more time, exhale, curl. And roll and reach out wide.

And exhale, curl and roll back up. You're gonna go ahead and take that roller at an angle. Put your hands on the roller, just like we did. Slide those shoulders down, exhale, curl, and roll out. And really breathe into the right side of the ribs if your roller's off to the left.

Exhale, curl, and stack on up. Again, you're gonna exhale. Drop that chin. Keep your buns glued to the floor as you reach out through that right arm, but slide the shoulder down. Get a nice big breath into the sides of the ribs.

And exhale, curl, and roll right back up. Same thing on the other side, taking that roller at an angle, and your thumbs will be up towards the ceiling. Roll through the spine and reach. Inhale, exhale, curl, and stack up. And again, rolling through, reaching through the fingertips.

Maybe you can rotate your shoulders so your palms are up. And exhale, curl, and roll right back up. Now we have to do it the other way. We're gonna crisscross our legs so the other leg's on top and the first leg's underneath you, sitting up nice and tall. Exhale, curl, roll through and reach all the way.

Slide the shoulders down, curl, and roll right back up, stacking up. You should feel this stretch all the way through your spine. You might even feel it into your glutes, into your hips. And up. One more exhale, drop that chin. Keep your weight evenly distributed on your legs, reaching.

And exhale, curling all the way up. Take that roller off to the right side. Same thing, thumbs up towards the ceiling. Arms a little bit wider than shoulder distance. As you reach your palms up, you'll get a nice stretch through the side and the back of the ribs.

Curl and stack up nice and tall. One more time, curl and roll through. As you reach, you're breathing. Releasing any tension in your neck. And stacking up one more time on the other side.

Right in an angle, same thing, thumbs up, curl and reach. And exhale back up. Last one, rolling through. Reaching and breathing, and then roll all the way up. Sitting up nice and tall.

Go ahead and put the roller in front of you. Nice, easy twist. You'll bring your left hand down and your right arm on top of your thigh, and just do a nice little spine twist. Look back over your shoulder. Same thing, you're breathing.

You're sliding your shoulders down and you're trying not to sink to one side or the other. And then you'll come all the way back to center. Same thing on the other side, hold on with that left hand on your right knee, bring your right arm back, sitting up nice and tall. You can even look back over that shoulder. Try not to lift up on one side, but stay down, seated nice and strong.

And then all the way back to center. Inhale, scrunch those shoulders up and exhale down. Go ahead here and you're going to slowly come on over to your side. Again, using your core to come down. You wanna have the roller right about where your bra strap is, maybe a little bit higher with your hands behind your head and just come down so you have that support of the roller, your thumbs are right at the base of your skull, and just inhale, open up through your chest, and exhale, bring the elbows back.

So inhale is you open and exhale. Come on back. Inhale, open up through the chest. Stay here for a couple of breaths. Try not to pinch your shoulder blades together, but think more of opening through the sternum.

And then bring your elbows in. Bring your feet a little bit wider. You're gonna drop your knees over to the right side and just roll right underneath that armpit. You wanna get right where that serratus is and roll that area out if that feels okay, or just stay there and breathe. Again, sliding the shoulders down.

And then use that core to come back up. Same thing on the other side, legs are wide. Rolling, or just breathing. Use that core to pull yourself back up, and then you're going to lift your hips up and just roll the roller up and down your spine. So it's up to you how far you wanna roll that roller, but ideally you're trying to get it all the way down towards your low back.

You wanna roll the entire rib cage out and coordinate that with your breath. So with each breath, just releasing any tension or stress, getting into that connective tissue, lubricating your joints with your breath. A couple more breaths. You can stay low with your hips, or you can bring 'em a little bit higher. Last one, and then you'll come all the way down.

Shake out your hips. You'll roll off to the side and come up, and now we're gonna take the roller and put it lengthwise. So you wanna have it lengthwise. You'll get up on the roller. So you'll use your core again to get up onto the roller.

And you wanna scoot down towards the end of the roller. Again, you can use your hand to support your core manually. As you come down, kind of walk down off to the side. And you'll come down so your whole spine is on the roller. With your arms out to the side.

So take a couple of breaths, inhale and exhale. See if you can inhale, reach those arms back behind you, and then exhale down. Inhale as you reach and exhale up. Inhale nice and wide, open through the chest. Palms go towards the floor.

Inhale, palms up towards the ceiling, reach your arms back. One more time, and down. Go ahead and reverse the direction. So inhale, reach back. You may have one arm that has a little better range of motion than the other.

That's okay. You can just move however feels comfortable for you. Opening through the chest. Trying to keep your spine connected to the roller, so you're not arching your back, but you're keeping that connection with your ribs as your arms come all the way down to your side. Just inhale and exhale.

Draw that belly in, do a little pelvic curl. Your chin's towards your chest. You might need a little teeny washcloth underneath your head. If you're feeling like it's hard for you to be on the roller, put something under your head so you can just drop your chin down and be a little bit more aligned. Take that pelvic curl and see if you can really articulate.

Use that core and just slowly bridge all the way up. Inhale, reach out through the fronts of the knees, and exhale, roll on down. Really scoop out that belly and take your pubic bone up towards the ceiling. So exhale pubic bone to belly button, curling all the way up as you hollow out that belly, like someone's taking a big ice cream scoop right out your belly. Walk those fingers down towards your feet, and exhale, roll on down.

And again, drawing the belly in, rolling all the way up. Imagine dragging your heels towards your shoulders as you walk your fingers towards the wall in front of you. And exhale, roll all the way back down. Shake out the hips a little bit. Keep those hips bolted down.

Find that neutral pelvis, and exhale, draw the belly in. And just float a leg up. Try not to grip with your arms, but try and use that core to stabilize. Again, the ribs are down, the pubic bone's drawing up towards the ribs. Keep your leg right there.

And then see if you can exhale. Tap it down and inhale up. And exhale, tap. And inhale up. Chin towards your chest.

Using that core now. Generate a little bit of heat. Two more breaths. Last one. Shake out that leg.

Adjust yourself as needed. And then go ahead and bring the other leg up. Find that core, engage that pelvic floor, and exhale, tap your toe. And inhale up, and exhale, tap. And inhale.

Try and stay as stable as you can. With each breath, releasing that tension. Last one, and down. Go ahead, one more bridge. Exhale, curl, and bridge on up.

Inhale nice and tall and long, reaching out through the knees, pressing through the heels, and exhale, roll all the way down. Palms up towards the ceiling. Go ahead and take your head and let it just kind of slide off the roller. As you reach out through the opposite arm, try and keep it on the floor. Maybe you can start to reach the thumbs back behind you towards the wall behind you and get a good stretch across your shoulder and into your neck.

Letting the weight of your head add to that stretch. Inhale and just gently sliding the arm up like a little snow angel, and down. Bringing your head back, other side. Same thing, so let that head just come off of the roller. Just the head, keep the rest of your spine where it is.

Reach out through the opposite arm and inhale, sliding it up. You should feel a good stretch across the shoulder, down the arm, into the neck. Last one. And then go ahead, come back up. You're gonna slowly come off of that roller.

You roll off of the roller, off to the side, bringing your right leg out in front and your left knee up. Just roll over off to the side here. Take a big breath, inhaling and exhaling a nice crossover stretch. Maybe you can use this arm to really draw that leg towards the floor, or just stay right there. And then again, exhale, draw at the belly in and down.

Other side, leg comes up, roll on over. Palms up towards the ceiling to help open up through the chest even a little bit more. Lengthening the hip away from the ribs. Breathing away any tightness that you're feeling in your joints, or in your muscles. Exhale, draw that belly in.

And roll off to the side. Use those arms to come up to a seated position. You'll inhale, scrunch your shoulders up towards your ears and big exhale. Slide your shoulders down. Thanks for joining me.