Holiday Mat Stretches

Candice part too. For those of you who didn't see part one, these workouts, these Christmas oriented Santa Hat workouts are um, in honor of candy, who is away in India. Dubai. Yeah. Far Away. Okay. So we're going to do just a quick little segment working with a little bit of balance and then we'll do some stretching. So what I want us to do is take the roller and just bring it to the outside of your left foot. Kind of not right next to your body, but out about as far as your arm can reach without having your shoulder go forward. Take the other arm out to the side, and then slide the right leg back.

Now here you might find that since you're on the diagonal, you can maybe even bring the roller a little further forward. You'll decide. So what I want you to do now is start to lift the right leg up. This is candy's favorite exercise. We edit, send the roller out on the diagonal. Okay, so we tilted on its side. Yup. And then we just, everything comes back, but we're never straight again.

We're always on the diagonal line pretty straight. If you can, a little softening might feel better. So if you want to keep your knee a little softer, your standing leg, that's, that's good. You definitely don't want to lock the knee. So a, a soft knee is better than a locked knee, but if you can keep your leg straight and supported, well that's good too. And then we reach back down and we'll just do that one more time. So we reach out.

Hurry Cha, uh, stay Ben in the leg that you're standing on. Reach the back like further away from you and straight in just three bend and straighten to bend. [inaudible] straight. And now stand up. Bend your back leg, reach it forward, stretch it out in front of you and bend. Stretch it out in front of you.

Now you don't have to use that roller if you don't want to. That's your prerogative. One more. Now we ha Deb dropped that uh, right hip a little that way. Yeah. And now bend the leg you're standing on and straighten and bend holding that opposite arm out into the air. And the last one and straighten and step down.

That arm gets almost as tired as saline mind does anything. I agree, I agree. It's a bit easier with something to hang on to. Okay, so you remember that you want the roller on a bit of a diagonal and where you want it is up to you. So you make your choice. Take the opposite leg back behind you and then other, I'm out to your side. You're good, Jim. I'll just bring mine forward. Okay, so now you're good. You're good. I'm happy. So we take the leg, let me start reaching it out. As it reaches out, we send the roller on a bit of a diagonal, like a roller coaster ride. Not really. And then stand back up. Not nearly as exciting, but almost maybe. And then reach up with that back leg. Take the roller for the left.

Chosen the right arm or reaching, but the right shoulder is held back and back. We just did three. So remember that when we get into that low position, this is where we're going to stay. Okay? And now we're going to bend pretty deeply. Pretty deeply and straighten as you bend your standing layer. I want you to take your back leg and stretch it away from you and straighten and last one and straight in. And now start to bring your body up, right, bringing the neon in front of you.

Go ahead. And now we just straighten the leg. The arm can stay out to the side and bend and straighten. Same thing on that side. Deb dropped the left side of the pelvis a little more still there. And last one, hold there. Oh No, we bent it. Good. We just hold there and now I just end here. I want you to feel easy.

I don't want you to feel like you're bearing down on your foot. I want you to try to feel that you're lifting up out of your foot and that knee is just moving peacefully. Yes. And then lifting up and stepping down. Okay. And now here, picking up the roller, just gonna roll down towards the floor with it. Put it onto the mat, bend your knees and come down onto your knees.

I think I'll stay down here for this. Oh, we're going to roll out our it band. Sky's. Isn't that sound fun? So here's how that goes. What we're going to do, I'll say this way, you guys can face this way or the other way. It's up to you. We're going to sit right on the hit, right in the muscular area of the hip, below the crest of the pelvis and above the side of the femur. So in between those two bony landmarks. Now what I want you to do there is let's all come down into our elbow, think about good shoulder support, and then we're just gonna rock backwards.

So bring the back pelvis back and then rock forwards. So giving ourselves a little self massage if you will, and back and back again. Yup. And now using your arms and your legs as it makes sense to you. I'm going to go backwards a little bit.

We're going to lift up over that hump of the the femur bone and then we're just going to start to roll ourselves down along the roller. And you want it play with the idea of how much are you trying to lift off the roller and can you not, can you just let your body drop into the roller and go slow. And if you find any really sticky places, hang out for a minute. All a second. All right, couple seconds. In addition to what we're already thinking about being light on the roller, you can play around with rolling towards the front of the leg. That's going to generally be more sensitive for most of us and where we need this more.

Or you can play around with rolling towards the back of the leg and that may be where you are more sensitive and need this more so right to the edge of that thigh bone right before the knee. And then we come back using the arms and the leg. I just pull, kind of pull with my foot, walk it along the mat are pushed with my arms as not really a perfect way to do that. That's it. [inaudible] and then just reach all the way down onto that knee and ease your way off the roller. That's cool. Okay. And we'll switch sides.

So if you just take your roller off to the other side and then sit on it. Okay. Right now, for the first one, we were on our elbows and we were just right between those two bony landmarks, side of the thigh, bone at the side of the thigh and the hip crest. And we just rocked backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. Yes. And let's do that once more. It's like the best Christmas present you could possibly give yourself.

Don't you think, guys? Yes. Okay. Now we're going to get over that m greater trocanter. That's just the name. And then we roll down the side of the sigh. And again, remember the more you try to lift off and use your arms, the the less benefit that this will have for you. So just again, try to be nice and easy. Sometimes that easiness is, um, not just a physical thing, but a mental thing. I'm just moving, right? Just nice and easy. And again, you can play around with the front of the leg or the back of the leg.

From my experience, the friend of the leg, that's usually the most, what's the word? Tight. Sensitive. Overworked. Real pain points as Jim. All right, I think we've got one more to go. Here. It is.

So yeah, it really kind of hurts, but I promise you that it will do you good. And then we can just all the way down to the ground. Yup. And then am I going to lie down? All right. Let me say that differently. We're going to turn around, I think I'm just going to stick it out right here on the floor next to you Jim. Um, turn around, put your pelvis, put the roller right behind your pelvis so that when we get up over the top of the roller, what we want is the base of the spine.

Okay. The base of the spine, the sacral area to be right over the top of the roller. You can bend your knees to get there. It's probably easier. And then lower your body down onto the ground. Okay. So picking up one leg at a time here and then just adjust yourself so that you're right on that big base of the spine, knees together here. And we're just gonna shift over, say towards the right, just shifts hold onto your roller to keep it still underneath you.

And then again, you only, you might experience a place of sensitivity and that's normal. So go with it and center, I'm going to be other way. Breathe and then go the other way. Marina, maybe a little bit more towards your rib cage on your back. So lift the roller higher up. Yup, exactly. And now take your right ankle when you're done doing both sides, take your right ankle and put it over your left knee. Yeah.

And then we'll do the same thing we just did. So we'll let the legs drift over to the left, say and you'll get a stretch and you might get into a little bit of sensitivity. And now you can also here push the left thighbone into the right ankle and pull the legs a little closer to you. And that will change the stretch some and then come back to center. And now let the right knee, no, no, no, stay there.

Stay with the same ankle crossed and then reach over to the opposite side of the pelvis. So the, there's a valuable stretch in both directions in my opinion. And then we'll, we'll find center and then we'll switch. So now we've got left ankle on top of right knee and we're going to go off to the right first we just started, you just little massage, the lower portion of your spine here. And then here again, if you're deciding you want more of a stretch while you're here resting on your right hip, you could possibly pull the right five owner a little closer to you. And then we return to center and then we'll go the other way and come back to center. So now take that left knee, reach for it with your arms, pull the knee in towards your body.

You got it. And stretch the right leg forward, reach it well away from you, and then start to lower it towards the floor. And that should enable us, most of us to find a pretty good stretch. Does anyone not feeling a stretch here? Yup. Right there. It should be right in the front of the hip. Now if you take the left knee and bring it out towards your left ribs a little bit, that stretch might change for you.

Okay? Yep. So the right leg stays straight. It just hangs towards the floor. If you relax into it, instead of thinking about pushing the leg away from you, that's probably going to give you a bigger stretch. And then we're going to just gently start to bend that knee, guide it back and warrants, reach for it and hold onto your right leg. Now as you hug your right knee in towards your body, your left leg is going to reach out in space and we reach out for us and pull up on the abs just for support.

And then we let that leg just reach away and then opening, opening the right leg out to the side. Just breathe into that stretch. And then when you're ready to come back, just gently start to pull that leg back and you gotta be careful with that. And then once you've done that, just start to roll the roller gently away from you, gently away. And if you go real slow, you'll give yourself a little massage again through that area of your spine, inch by inch, and then allow the back to just settle into the floor and reach the feet across the roller and set them down. Just take a minute and let your back feel good. I don't know, I don't have many moments where my back feels as good as my left.

I'll tell you that. Okay. And then it's rule for aside. Help ourselves up and we'll finish by sitting on the roller at the end. And now you can either you have two choices, you can challenge yourself and try to roll yourself down or you can just use your arms to get yourself down. I'm going to stand up for this one so you guys can see what I'm talking about to just make your way onto your roller, okay? Yup.

Make sure your head's all the way on just a comfortable position with your feet is fine. Okay. Now I want us to just take our arms straight up over our shoulders, Kay, and then pretty narrow through the upper arms. And then we're going to take the arms overhead, reaching past the ears and feel here that as your arms go up, your ribcage stays pretty heavy on the roller. Then start to bend the elbows. Now go slow here because this is what I want you to think about as the elbows come to about a goalpost position. You're good. I'm just going to help you. You're going to turn your elbows up there and you reach out and that'll give you a good stretch to the chest.

And then just continue to stretch in your arms, reaching your arms back towards your [inaudible] size. And then once you get all the way to straight on, slip their arms over and start to reach up. Yup. So Rachel, way back, keeping a nice, nice positioning in the Scapula. Meaning, don't lift your arms so high that you can't keep your shoulders down, bend your elbows and as you bend your elbows, you're doing just fine. Bend your elbows and as you've been your elbows, you're good. Actually you want to just biased towards that elbow, Zap, hands back. And then in addition to that, create a little bit of like out and feeling nice and then just really enjoy that stretch to the front of the chest. Most of us are a way to tie it in the front of our chest and then let's do that a couple more times all the way up overhead and just let this be kind of easy and floating now bending the arms and now you know what to do. So just explore. Where does that feel good to you? Where do you feel like you need more? I just, if I'm going to be Fussy, we can make this arm match that I'm in.

Then you're good there. And then find the place where you feel the best stretch and just be there. Let your arms rest out, perhaps on the ground and yeah, and just be there for a minute. And as you're there, just allow yourself to breathe into that stretch and open. And then when you're ready, just gently bring your arms back to your sides. And then when you're ready, roll off your roller onto your back.

Don't get up right away. Once you roll onto your back, just push the roller out from underneath. You. Lie On your back and settle in. You can keep your leg straight and keep your legs bent. It's totally up to you. And that's it for today. You can now have a nap. Good.