I Lost It at the Club!

Stretch of the Week

Latissimus Dorsi Stretch

Piriformis Stretch

The Piriformis is a small but important muscle in your hip/buttocks region that is involved in externally rotating your leg (rotating your leg away from the midline of your body so feet are pointed out to side). This muscle often gets weak and tight due to constant sitting and inactivity. To stretch this area, lie on your back with your legs extended on the floor. Slowly bend one knee and bring it towards your upper body. Take your opposite side hand and place it on the outside of your knee and slowly pull your knee across the midline of your body and up slightly towards the opposite shoulder. You should feel this stretch in your buttocks and out hip region.

Hamstring Stretch

When we sit a lot, one of the areas that can get tight is our hamstrings, or the back of the thigh. When seated, these muscles are in a shortened position and may remain that way for a long time.

Once we stand up, these tight muscles can pull on our pelvis and place strain on our lower back. Similarly, this tugging on the pelvis puts our glute muscles (your backside) in an inefficient position, preventing us from using these big, strong muscles to their fullest potential. The videos we have for this week show two hamstring stretches, one standing and one on the floor. The stretches should be done twice for both legs and held for 20-30 seconds.

Hip Flexor Stretch

This week, we continue to stretch those muscles that get tight when we sit.

Along with your chest/pecs, your hip flexors are the poster child for tight muscles due to sitting. These muscles are located in the front of your upper thigh/hip area and are used to lift your leg and swing it forward when walking and running. In a sitting position, these muscles are shortened all day long so we need to counteract that by stretching them out.

Chest Stretch

Our first stretch involves the muscles of our chest (pectorals) and front of the shoulders (anterior deltoids).

Stand upright with very good posture and your arms extended straight in front of you, palms facing each other. Slowly pull your arms away from the center of your body as if preparing to give a great, big hug. Keep going until you feel a good stretch in your chest muscles but do NOT allow your shoulders/arms/palms to rotate downward.

Stop and hold that position for 20-30 seconds. It is important that you use the muscles of your upper back and rear shoulders to pull your arms back. Do NOT have someone else pull your arms back or place you arms on either side of a doorway and lean in to create this stretch.

When doing the stretch unaided, the contraction and squeezing of the muscles of your back will cause a reflexive response in the muscles of your chest and help them relax into the stretch. On the other hand, when someone, or something, pulls your arms back for you, the muscles of your chest sense they are under strain and may actually tense up to protect themselves, rather than relaxing into a nice, deep stretch.

An active stretch in which you use only your muscles to create the stretch will stretch the muscles of your chest and activate or strengthen the muscles of your upper back at the same time.