Sebastian Brosche · 10 min · 1,072 words
Previously titled: Video 6 - Neck
Hi guys and welcome back to the 10 in 10. I was planning this class and I wrote down several good neck exercises but then I thought about it and I think simplicity usually takes the cake every time. So instead of doing 3, 4, 5 different exercises we're going to limit ourselves to one exercise in these 10 minutes. Make sure your belt is round like this.
You need something like an open circle like this. Lay down on your back and take your belt around your right foot and the belt has to be long enough for you to be able to tuck it under your head like this. Just like if you're wearing a cap exactly on the same place where the cap stops above your ear. Just like putting on a hat that's where you want the belt.
Your left foot can be in the ground or you can stretch it out and we're going to start with our straight legs. So if you cannot get your legs straight it's because your belt is too short. So it's essential for this class that you have a belt that is long enough. If not you can connect two belts or you can improvise and use a belt and a towel.
Just make sure that you can keep your legs straight here. So if we do it like this it's just a hamstring stretch. Like we can use the weight of our head to stretch the back of our knee and our hamstrings. But today we're going to do things differently.
We're going to do the same exercise but just by bending the right knee and taking 5% of the power in the right leg to push away. It's suddenly not a hamstring stretch anymore but we have turned it into a neck stretch. I can sometimes if the leg is really tired like it is for me now after a tough sparring then you can support your leg with your right hand as well. But the trick here is to be heavy to let your upper back fall down so your right leg is working the opposite direction of the back of your neck.
So you're not using your neck muscles to pull your head down but you're rather trying to just release down to the ground while your right leg is stretching your neck. If you're new then movement is usually easier. If you stretch the leg out and you bend it a few times then it's easier for your muscles to adapt to these new sensations. Just go slower than you think.
When you go fast then your muscles will feel like they have to be alert. When you go slow you can get your muscles to trust that you actually have a safe plan to go about what you're doing. Speed is usually stopping the results we're looking for. If you get tired from bending the leg and pushing away then you can just relax your head and stretch the hamstring out for a couple of seconds and then you continue.
Because we have connected our neck to our hamstrings that is usually really difficult to do. By just moving our legs slightly we get a neck stretch and by just moving our head slightly we get a nice hamstring stretch. Let's start making this interesting by going over to the side. So let your right leg fall over to the left stretching the right side of your neck.
Could of course support your leg here with your left hand so you don't get too much of a stretch. You want to be somewhere between 40 and 60% here. So 10% is not enough and 80% is too hard. Try to find this perfectly balanced middle.
Going over to the other side, right foot towards the right, stretching the left side of your neck. Don't go above 60%. If you don't feel anything then just push a bit more with the leg. Go back to center and take a couple of more minutes to freestyle.
Try bending the knee, maybe putting both legs. Slowly moving the head from side to side and moving your hips from side to side. You can even try pulling your whole upper body up from the floor just with the power of your leg. Good now switch legs.
So left foot, right leg down. This is just so that we don't get uneven on both sides. Now we can relax the right leg and we can stretch the left leg. You can try stretching your arms overhead.
That creates a different feeling in your armpits. By bending your knee try stretching your leg straight. Left foot over to the right. Drop your ear to your shoulder.
Left leg towards the left. Stretch your right neck again. Don't go over 60%. Try to keep your body up when you feel that things are starting to get too intense.
Coming back to the center. If you were at 40 then go up to 60%. Bend the knee more. You can freestyle and try both legs at the same time.
Try lifting your shoulder blades off of the floor. The reason we waited with this high intensity is so that we know that there is no risk for injury. If you did this for 6, 7, 8 minutes and you push on a little bit past 60% you're going to be perfectly okay because you've already established a good breath and you would have felt warning flags way before we came here. If you had a bulging disc in your neck then that's really good that you would have known by the 4 minute mark if something was wrong.
Since you've been here for a while now you can probably push up to 70%. Now release the belt and lay down in Savasana. Just relax your neck and your legs. Can you feel this awesome sensation in your neck?
Can you feel like you're 2 inches taller? Now let's sit up. Can you feel the length of your neck now when you're sitting? It's like someone gave us a massage from the traps all the way up to the top of our neck.
It feels so much easier to move your head around after this one simple exercise. Thank you guys for joining me today. See you again tomorrow for the next class. Us!
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