Fast Fitness - Hip Stretch and Spine Stability Training When Stretching Legs
Friday, January 16, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
When you raise one leg to stretch when standing:
- Keep your standing leg straight. Don't bend at the knee and hip, as pictured.
- Don't round your back or let your pelvis and hip round under you, as pictured.
- Stand straight. Relaxed. Don't force or strain. Breathe.
When stretching, remember function. Why practice a position that is rounded, tight, and detrimental to how you move in real life when you lift your legs. It would look silly and unhealthy to stand up that way. Why stretch that way?
Get functional stretch by lengthening your body enough to be able to straighten out. That is the purpose of the stretch.
Use the new length and your brain to stand straight. Transfer the positioning to real life when you are standing and lift one leg to take stairs, kick, dance, play sports, climb over things, and other life activities. Standing without being so tight that you round your body forward, or just round from habit, is healthier, better looking, burns more calories, and stops many sources of chronic aches and pains.
Send me your photos of fixing this stretch. Doing is the best learning. I will post the photos in a reader success story.
See how to retrain this same stretch lying down:
See photos of fixing this same stretch for kicking and stairs:
Related posts:
- Improve Stretch and Strength With Better Kicking
- What Does Stretching Do?
- Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
- Better Achilles Tendon Stretch
- Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
- Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?
- The Cause of Disc and Back Pain
- Better Exercise on the Stairs
- Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels below posts, and links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
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Labels: balance, fast fitness, fix pain, hip, hip stretch, leg stretch, lower back, posture, stretch, upper back
2 Comments:
At Saturday, January 17, 2009 2:20:00 AM, adarrel said…
I like what you are teaching in this article. I'm in the philadelphia area as well and I'm a personal trainer who definitely believes in functional training but I admit I haven't paid as much attention to function stretching. We should definitely connect.
At Friday, March 13, 2009 5:40:00 PM, Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Adarrel, good work. Come for a workshop some time, info on www.DrBookspan.com/classes. Send in your photo and stories of ways you use Fitness Fixer and I can feature your successes.
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