This Weeks Focus:

For this week I chose to do spinal flexibility as it is something that I have struggled with. I have been working on my hamstrings and hips, so this week I thought that spine flexibility and back mobility ties into most stretches so by improving it will help with future stretches and build off of ones I have already done. My goal is to make my back feel looser and reduce stiffness.

What I Did:

This week I did the following stretches for about 10 minutes. I found that instead of doing the stretching routine once I decided to switch it up and do it multiple times until I reached 10 minutes. I liked this idea better. Although I was getting more flexible by doing the routine once I thought it would speed up the process by doing it longer. The stretches that I did were:

  • Cat-Cow Pose: On hands and knees, alternating between arching and rounding the back.
  • Seated Spinal Twist: Sitting on the ground with one leg bent over the other and twisting gently.
  • Cobra Pose: Lying on your stomach, lifting chest up, can have arms bent or straight.
  • Thread the Needle: On all fours put one arm underneath the other and rest your shoulder and head on the ground, gently twist.
  • Seated Forward Fold: Sit with Legs extended, hinge forward as much as you can.
  • Low Lunge: From your knees step one foot forward, gently lay other leg on the ground and sink hips down.

Reflection on my Learning:

My back has always been very stiff, I have noticed it during my previous stretches that require a straight back or to lean forward and many people can get low to the ground but I cannot. So I thought for this week I would look up spinal stretches. At the beginning of the week my back felt tight, doing the stretches my back was very arched and I couldn’t really lean forward without arching. Doing these stretches thread the needle became one of my favourite stretches, it felt very relaxing. You may notice that I added one stretch from week one as well as week two because I thought it would be a good idea to still stretch those areas inserted of doing them once and never revisiting. That way those areas can stay flexible.

Resources I Used:

I chose this YouTube video because I thought it was a great spine/back stretching guide. As a beginner to most of the stretches I have done so far, having a video to look at while doing the stretches has been great. It helps me make sure my hands and legs are in the right places as well as making sure I am doing the stretch properly so I do not injure myself. Although my routine and this video are both 10 minutes long, I didn’t follow this routine exactly. I took inspiration for a lot of the stretches like cat-cow, thread the needle, cobra (she calls it sphinx), and the seated spinal twist. I took yoga in high school so some of these stretches I am familiar with such as thread the needle. I really enjoy this pose so when I saw it in this video I was excited, with that though I didn’t particularly like how she did hers so I did what I was comfortable with. Instead of threading the needle and immediately coming back up over and over, I threaded the needle and laid there twisting my spine for about 30 second on each side. I felt a lot more stretch doing it this way.

Next Weeks Plan:

Next week I plan to focus on shoulder, neck, and wrist mobility. I thought that because each of these areas are pretty small I could combine them all into one week. I have noticed some tension in my neck and shoulders as well as my wrists. Every once and awhile I get wrist pain and I have noticed the past two days it is staring up again so I thought it would be a great opportunity to do some wrist stretches. My goal is to hopefully reduce my wrist pain and get the tension out of my shoulders and neck as they are a bit stiff.