Back Body Program Day 5: 26-Min Lower Back & Hip Stretch

Lift your chest, squeeze the elbows. Exhale down and push back to dog. Straighten the right leg up. Roll the knee forward and place the foot between your hands.

Back and forth with the hips five times. You can keep the back knee on the floor or you can keep it floating in the air. Step forward, inhale halfway. Exhale fold.

Inhale all the way up. Interlace your fingers above your head and push the hands up and lower your shoulders. Lean back. So don't pull your shoulders up or down.

Just keep them where they are and lift your chest. Take a breath here. Inhale release and exhale fold. Inhale halfway up.

Step your left foot back. Lift your right arm for the twist and then circle your shoulders in big circles. And if you lower your hips, you can feel a pretty intense hamstring stretch here if you try to let your hips go towards your right foot. So do a couple of circles.

Then step back to dog. Roll forward to plank. Lower all the way down or stop halfway down. Inhale Cobra.

If you like up dog, take it back to down dog. Left leg up. Roll the knee forward, foot between the hands. Feel the left arm and shoulder in big circles and try to lower your hips towards your left heel.

Be organic, be dynamic. Don't be stiff and rigid. Try to loosen up your mind slightly. Step forward.

Inhale halfway. Inhale fold. Inhale all the way up and on the exhale dive down again. Inhale halfway.

Step back to plank. Both feet back. Lower down on the exhale. Inhale Cobra or up dog.

Exhale back to down dog. Stretch your right leg up and keep it straight. Walk your hands back towards your left foot. Grab the ankle with your left hand.

You can stay on the fingertips of the right hand. Bend your back knee and try to lower your head all the way down to the foot. Advanced option if you have long arms. Grab your foot with your left hand and push the foot into your hand so that you stretch the front of your hips as well as the back of the left thigh.

In an exhale three times. Release the foot. Walk all the way to a three legged dog. Hold the knee to your face and place the foot between your hands.

Warrior one. Open your arms up. Push the back leg straight. Lift all 10 toes.

Interlace your fingers behind your back. Push the hands down. Puff your chest up so it's super big. And then let's move into the humble warrior.

But today lift the back leg for a flying humble warrior. So head down arms up. Flex the back foot and point the toes down to the ground so you don't try to open the hips because that makes it too hard to balance. Toes down.

Stretch both legs. Head down. Look at your big toe. Hands down.

Put the foot on the back of your mat. Step back to a side plank. Right arm up. Three.

Two. Shoulders back. Head back. So you're almost leaning back and back bending.

One. And push up. Cobra or up dog. Elbows in.

Down dog. Left leg up. Keep the leg straight. Walk back towards your back foot.

Grab the ankle with the right hand. Stay on your fingertips on your left hand. Head down. If you want to grab your foot with the right hand, go ahead.

Three breaths. Walk all the way out to a three legged dog. Roll the knee forward and place the foot between your hands. Warrior one.

Lift all ten toes. Knee over ankle. Arms straight up. Straighten the back leg.

Interlace the fingers the weird way behind your back. Puff your chest up and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Take a breath. Humble warrior.

Head down. Arms up. Lean into your left foot. Balance.

Flex your back foot. Point the toes down. Square off your shoulders. Square off your hips.

So everything is parallel to the ground. Don't tense your neck. Step back. Hands down.

Left hand up. Side plank. Your right shoulder. Your bottom shoulder.

Pull it towards your butt so that your right neck becomes long. Spread all ten fingers. Spread all ten toes. Lift your hips and lean back slightly.

And plank. Inhale. Exhale. Lower.

Inhale. Stretch the back bend up. And back to down dog. Right leg up.

Inhale. Place the foot on the outside of your right hand. And push your hips up and down ten times. Up and down.

Up and down. So you're doing push ups with the hips. Your arms stay straight. Your hips are doing push ups.

Three more. Two. One. And the right leg up.

Switching sides. Same thing left leg up. Step the foot forward on the outside of your hand. Up and down ten times.

If your wrists can't take it on your knuckles or fingertips. All the way up. All the way down. And three.

And two. And one. And step back to three legged dog. Down dog.

One more round. Right leg up. Roll the knee forward. This time slide your right foot 45 degrees forward and out to the side.

So a splits and then pull it back. Split it forward. If you need a towel or something under your right foot. Take a t-shirt or a towel or something that's close.

And just try to use the power of your arms to resist. And then just split your leg 45 degrees out to the side. Two more. And step back to three legged dog.

Inhale. Exhale switching sides. Inhale other leg up. Left leg up.

Exhale step the foot forward. So you're sliding the foot out to the side and slightly forward a few times. Up and down. Same push ups with the hips.

But now the foot is sliding and turning this into a hamstring and front of the hip stretch at the same time. Two more. You are much more flexible than you think you are. Left leg up.

Inhale. And exhale down. Roll all the way forward down to your belly. Grab your feet with your hands.

If this is inaccessible interlace your fingers behind your back. Squeeze the shoulders together. Take five breaths either pushing your hands into your feet or interlacing the fingers. Get back up to all fours.

And place your head down into the ground. And then roll from side to side slowly. Classic wrestlers warm up. But this is one of my favorites to roll to the forehead and then roll as far back on the neck as I can.

Roll forward. Roll to the forehead on the inhale. On the exhale lean the body weight into the back of your neck. Inhale prepare.

And exhale back on the neck. Inhale lean back. Exhale forward. Inhale back.

Exhale forward. Two more. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Get all the way back up to seated. Sit with your feet flat.

Butt to the heels. Lean back and squeeze your butt so you are stretching the front. Because we have been focusing a lot on the back side of the body. It's nice to balance that out with some quad stretching.

Sit down on your butt. Right leg straight, left foot turn it in. Like we said before any variation that fits the left knee. Today try to go deep.

So turn towards the right foot. Right toes point up. Inhale lift. Exhale walk as far forward as you can.

And now today try to pull your forehead towards your knee. Seven. Six. Go deep.

Five. Four. Three. Go deeper.

Two. One. And all the way up. Good job.

Switching sides. Right and left leg straight. Right leg wherever you want. Lift the chest.

Start straight always. Inhale. Exhale walk forward as long as far as you can. And drop your head towards your knee.

Seven. Six. Go deeper. Five.

Four. Even deeper. Three. Two.

One. And all the way up. Two variations of this one. Straddle your legs.

Walk forward. If this is stupid in your opinion. Do the same pose with the legs up the wall like this. This is more inner thighs but as we learned earlier the inner thighs and the back of the thighs are very much connected.

So you work them more or less at the same time in this pose. So spread them. Lift. Walk forward until you cannot walk forward anymore.

One minute ten breaths. Two more. One more. Two more.

One more. Two more. And sit back up. Roll back to upside down guard.

And today try to squeeze your knees around your ears unless you have neck problems. If you do, place something under your lower back so that you can just go halfway up. But today try to actually squeeze yourself into a tiny ball. You can even walk your feet back and try to get your hips over your face.

Intense upper back and neck stretching. Squeeze your knees into your face. And breathe. And roll all the way down.

Sit back up into another forward fold. This time feet together, knees out, chest forward so your belly is touching your feet in theory. So you're moving forward, head forward, look forward. One of the things that makes my job very difficult is that if your spine are very much rounded, then you prefer rounding.

If your spine is very much stiff, you prefer being straight. And always doing what our body prefers to does not create balance. So my job is to be here to tell you what you don't want to hear. If you're very round, you should sometimes, maybe half of the time, try to straighten up.

If you're straight, you should at least half of the time try to round and do the opposite of what feels natural. So finding that balance is very hard. It takes a lot of patience and dedication and practice. But I believe it's the best we can do for our game and for our mind.

Take three more here. Cross your ankles. That's it for this week. Back body week is finished.

Do not expect magic to happen in a short period of time. You should run through this program at least four times, a full month of this, before you maybe start feeling that the hamstrings are actually feeling better on a permanent basis. You cannot just do something like this and expect it to be quick. If I had a program that would work that way, I would charge a million dollars for it.

The reason that most people don't do this is because it takes time, dedication and patience. Thank you guys for joining me. Do rerun this program a few times and also try out the other programs on this website. Us.