Guiding Question For This Week:
Will starting with simple beginner hamstring stretches help me build a foundation for the rest of my stretching journey and help me work towards my end goal of becoming more flexible and being able to touch my toes?
This Week’s Focus
For this week my focus and goal was on improving hamstring flexibility and lower body. I thought that this would be a great place to start in my stretching journey!
What I did
This week I started with beginner friendly stretches, I held these stretches for 30-45 seconds and repeated twice on each side. I aimed to do these stretches and this routine for 10-15 minutes per day:
- Standing hamstring stretch: Stand with feet hip width apart, hinge at hips, reach for toes.
- Seated forward fold: Sit with legs out, hinge forward as far as comfortable, reach for toes or lay hands comfortably on legs.
- Low lunge: Put one foot forward into lunge position, lower hips until your leg is at 90 degrees, rest back knee on the floor. Repeat on Both sides
- Cat-Cow Pose: On hands and knees, alternate between rounding and arching back.
Reflection
When I did these stretches for the first time this week my hamstrings felt very tight. With my standing hamstring stretch I was not able to touch my toes without bending my legs significantly, my back was also very arched which should be avoided. During my seated forward fold I wasn’t able to put my hands father than my knees and once again my back was very arched. These stretches did get a bit easier throughout the week but I hope in the future I will be able to do these stretches with a straight back aswell as be able to touch my toes comfortably.
Resources I used
With being a beginner the following this website was very helplpful in giving step by step instructions and visuals on how to do each stretch properly without injury as I didn’t know how to do most just by the name.
Next Week’s Plan
For next week I plan on focusing on hip flexibility with more targeted stretches towards that area.