Full-Body Floor Stretch: 16-Min Tight Muscles & Flexibility

So I'm saying increase the relaxation in the whole body by one percent at a time. That's what I mean when I say relax. And now back to center, lift your hips a couple of times and then switching sides. Ease over to the second side.

The mistake we do when we switch from right to left side is assuming that the second side should be as flexible as the first side when you finish it. So you were a lot more flexible in the end of the last side than you are in the beginning of the first. So you kind of have to really mentally reset when you switch sides. You can't expect your body to continue where the first side left off.

So you have to accept that you were stiff and now you're flexible on one side and then you have to go back to square one and like okay I'm stiff again and you have to pay attention and do the same process you did on the first side again. Most people don't do that. They get distracted after the first side and the second side don't get as much attention. So you need to pay as much attention to side number two as side number one.

That's what I'm trying to say. And I usually stay a little bit longer on the second side to compensate for the lack of attention that you usually have on side number two. Coming back to the center lift your hips and lower them down a couple of times and then really drop them fast like this. You're tensing your butt, lifting your hips and then you're relaxing and dropping it.

One more. Nice. Grab behind the legs and start rocking and rolling up and down. So when I'm sitting up I'm lifting the chest, arching my back and then I'm rounding my lower back so that I can roll down slowly.

We're not in a hurry. We tend to do a couple of extra reps on each one more than you expect because I feel like the best effect is from the last couple of reps. Nice. Sit up with hands behind you, wide knees and then drop the knees down.

I always like to adjust my hands so that my shoulders get a nice position as well as the hips. So I structure my shoulders so that they feel intact and with integrity and then I try to even out the hips so that I feel both the shoulders and hips but also the spine. So I'm not in a compromised position. If someone was suddenly jumping on top of me I want there to be no injury.

So I'm training my body to be in a position where it's strong and has integrity. Switching sides. Adjusting the shoulders, adjusting the hips, adjusting the spine. There's a hundred things going on here and there is no point in thinking about them but you can sense the whole body at once even though there are a hundred details.

You can't think about all the details. You have to learn to step out of your mind and just notice. Becoming aware is what we're trying to do. That's the point.

That's the difference between stretching and yoga. The awareness and the presence in what you're doing. You can stretch and be on your mobile phone but you can't do yoga and be on your mobile phone. That doesn't work.

It's not yoga if you're watching TV. It's yoga if you're doing the movements and the positions and you're breathing and paying attention to what you're doing. That's it. No reason to over complicate it.

Nice old fours. I like to start on my knuckles. Start moving the spine from side to side. And then warming up the wrists as I'm warming up the neck.

And then tuck your toes, fingers backwards, stretching the palms and the sole of the foot and the toes. Sound effects actually for me personally they help. If I'm saying a sound that resonates with the sensation I have like... Then my body kind of knows.

I'm trying to communicate verbally with my body. And making these silly sounds also reminds me that the sounds are there because I'm forgetting to breathe. When I start making silly sounds I'm like oh yeah I'm not supposed to make sounds I'm supposed to breathe. But if I'm making a sound with the breath that's awesome.

Nice. Okay. Sit up on your knees. Shake your arms out.

And then lift the butt and drop them over to the floor so that the middle of your butt cheeks the thing right between your butt cheeks that you're using sometimes put that on top of one heel. And then side stretch like this. So you're trying to sit on your heel and then drop down. And the first one is never supposed to feel good.

Second side, switch side. The first one is never supposed to feel good or great. But now when you do it the second time when you do the first side again now it's not that bad. It's like 10-15% better.

And now you do the second side for the second time. And if you're impatient you stop here and you move on to something else. If you're like 15 you just want to do new stuff all the time. But if you're an old fart like me you really can value and appreciate more reps.

It's not about getting excited. It's about getting tranquil and giving yourself more chances to experience the armpit, the ribs, the side, lower back, the waist, the toes. There's so much going on that is hard in just a few reps to become aware and appreciate everything that's possible in a pose like this. And then doing all the talking I forgot to breathe.

Nice. Sit down on your butt. Cross your ankles. Find a seat where your lower back isn't in a permanently rounded position.

You want to try to move your butt back and use your back muscles to stretch your front. You're tilting your hips as far forward as you can. And if this is impossible you probably didn't place your legs correctly. So find a way to place your legs that allows your hips to roll forward.

If they look really weird it doesn't matter. We don't care about the knees downwards. We care about the spinal position and the hips. And in order for your hips to be able to roll forward you must make space for them.

If that means sitting like this or like this or however it means like if your knees are really high like this you need to get the legs out of the way. The legs are not important. Get the legs away and roll your hips forward. Because when your hips are forward the spine can be tall without using all the lower back muscles.

So if I'm sitting like this and I'm trying to straighten up then it's a strength exercise. And we need the hips roll forward in order for the spine to be tall. And when the spine is tall we can open the ribs. And when we open the ribs it's easier to breathe.

So we can't really sit and feel alive like this because we can't take deep breaths. We need the hips in place in order for the spine to be long so that we can breathe properly. And when we can breathe properly we can do stuff like twisting. We can't really twist down here.

It doesn't feel good at all. We're just twisting into our vertebrae. So you have to roll your hips forward in order to be able to breathe and twist. You can place your hands on your head, behind your head, thumbs in armpit, straight arms.

Doesn't matter. Keep rolling the hips forward, keep sitting tall. And then grab your knees and move your chest to knee and the other knee and back up into a circle. Chest knee knee up, chest knee knee up.

And add the neck. Nice. Change your legs so that you're switching whatever you were doing. Make it work again so that the hips can roll forward.

And then start rolling again. Nice. Stretch your legs out. Touch one knee or ankle or foot.

Switch to the second side. Back to center. Inhale. Go first side again.

And this time drop your head so that the weight of the head helps your back stretch. Switch sides. Inhale center. Exhale drop your head.

First side one more time. Drop the head or not but try to get your chest a bit closer to the knee. Go for 80% intensity. Just slight amount of pain, not too much pain.

And last side. And that's it. Thanks for watching.