Sebastian Brosche · 10 min · 1,230 words
Previously titled: 10 for 30 Cooldown Video 26 - Spine Back
Hey everyone, welcome back. Let's cool down the spine today. First of all, we'll start off just working on some breathing, whatever you've done today, whether it's work, training, lifting, whatever. This is a cool down class, so use this to do exactly that and just cool yourself down before you get on with your evening or go to bed, have your dinner, whatever.
Just make sure you really cool down and it's designed to make you feel really good after whatever you've been doing. Okay, so get on all fours, widen your knees slightly and sit yourself back, walk your hands forwards and just relax here, head down to the mat, start to slow your breath down. And use this class today as a bit of a, I don't want to say test because we'll all get competitive, but a bit of a guide as to how you've been doing throughout this program. And if you've done it 30 consecutive days or if you've done it over a few weeks, well done for getting to the last week.
Don't think of this as the end. I strongly suggest doing this again just to see how it feels a second time now that you know some of the movements that we do, some of the stretches in the classes, or you can kind of cherry pick out your favorite ones and do them after a tough session. Keep slowing your breath down. Okay, bring your weight up and just move your back slightly.
Just drop down, back up and now sit your weight down on your front. Bring your hands up above your head and draw your elbows under your shoulders here. Good, shoulders back, chest forwards and start to breathe here. Let everything start to open out and we don't want a crazy amount of activation, just lifting your belly slightly off the mat, bridging into the mat slightly just so you could feel everything opening out here.
And again if anything hurts, ease off. If you have just finished your jitsa as well, you can move your neck around a little bit and just stretch that off but whatever movements you do, just do them super slowly. It will just kind of give your body that chance to cool down, let your nervous system and everything know that we're not doing anything crazy like sparring or going mad right now. We're just cooling down.
If you've forgotten to pay attention to your breath, obviously come back to that. Okay, lay back down on your front, bring yourself up to all fours and now right foot steps outside the right hand, drop your hips down. Okay, if you've been going down to your elbows or staying on your hands, do whatever's comfortable and just breathe here. If you want a little more of a stretch or you feel like you can get a bit more of a stretch today, maybe reach your right hand back, point that towards the back foot and grab the outside of the back foot and let your chest open as well here.
So my hips are dropping, my chest is opening, I'm getting a nice stretch down the front. If this is too much for you and you feel like you're kind of activating too much and that's just not good for what you want, just ease off and go back to whatever you were doing before and just breathe. Just breathe. Could be a bit much on your wrist if it is, you can try knuckles, that's always an option.
Good, let's come out of that now. Same way, how have we got into it, whatever adaptation we went for today. Come back to all fours and then step the left foot outside the left hand comes back, open your chest out, grab the outside of the right foot and stretch here. Again, if you're on your elbows that's fine or your hands that's just as good.
And just start to see how you feel after the last few few sessions you've been doing in this programme and any progress or anything, just pick up on that and appreciate that. You've done quite a few classes of this programme now, even if you've picked up a few little things from poses that you didn't do before or you feel a bit better in poses that you didn't feel great in to begin with, that's a positive and that's a good thing to take from your training and your hard practice or hard work practising and just take that away and that's going to motivate you to keep going. Okay, let go of that, come back to all fours now and now just walk the hands away from you a little more and drop down to your elbows. Good and then let everything else drop down.
Remember we're creating a bit of a skate ramp or a ski ramp with our body here, hips above your knees and just breathe. You can either put your forehead on the mat or I like to put my chin on the mat sometimes and look towards my hands. And if you want a little more of a stretch today, bring your hands together in like a prayer position. Keep your breath going, just because you're focusing on something new doesn't mean you should stop focusing on that and now just pick your hands up towards the ceiling and start to bring your hands towards your neck.
You don't have to touch your neck, just start bringing them up and you'll feel your triceps stretch out here, your lats and it's just a bit more of a stretch. And see how that feels for you. You might have just made it to prayer position, a couple inches off the mat and that feels tight. That's fine, well done for trying but remember we're cooling down so you don't want to be pushing or driving into a stretch too much.
That's not going to help. Just really slow everything down here. Okay, start slowly bringing your hands back down to the mat if you lifted them up. Bring them out of that prayer position, try and get your forearms parallel again.
If they're parallel, keep them there. Just sink into that a little more now. Okay, and slowly ease off that and that will come back to all fours and then just sit your hips back onto your heels. Again, widen your knees if you need to and just relax into that turtle position.
See how that feels where you are. It's just always nice once we've done something a bit backbendy to do something like this where we're folding forwards a little bit just to counter that. And sit yourself up now to a cross leg position and now just move a little bit. So I'm just turning over to the left and fold yourself forwards, over to the right and back up.
Now we'll go to the right and I like to sigh or exhalation as I come down, inhale as I come up. Go the other side. And one more time to the right and back up. If you want to keep doing any of these stretches or keep circling, feel free.
Well done for sticking with this and I will see you in tomorrow's video.
This is the transcript. Become a member to watch the video.
Watch now →.avif)