Muscle Stretches,

STRETCHES

1. Knee hugs-

lying on your back,
raise one leg at a time,
once you have both in hand, you can gently pull the knees to the chest,

this will create:-

focused flexion in the lumbar spine
some stretch to the gluteal muscles
gentle pulls and release will create a pump like action which is a great way to get the lumbar spine mobile in the morning.

2. Pectoral stretch-

The image shows a neutral stretch
One can have the hand a little higher, or lower.
Remember to keep the shoulder back and down
Keep the elbow soft
You should feel a stretch across the chest

3. Gluteus Maximus stretch -

Sat up, place the leg of the side you are stretching on the outside of the straightened non stretch leg
Pull the stretch side across the body.

Lying on your back, raise one leg, aim to gently pull the knee to the opposite shoulder.

4. Hip external rotation. This is a step back from the pigeon stretch for those that don't have enough hip extension in their trail leg. Use a lower box for those with limited range, and work your way up. You can bend your stabilising leg to lower yourself against the height of the box.

5. Gluteus minimus and medius, tensor fascia lata, ITB stretch.

Here you can use the foot of the non stretch leg to push the knee of the stretch leg down a little further to increase the stretch on the side of the thigh and up the leg.

6. Adductors- inner thigh stretch
Seated- get feet against each other, and leg the knee drop out. Do not force them down.

7. Hamstring stretch- we stretch the back of the upper thigh. The more flexible of us can use a box.
Please remember to keep the back straight and leg you are stretching straight. These are a big muscle group and can isolated by stretching one leg at a time.

8. Calf stretch- plant the foot, and lean in. The straight leg will stretch gastrocnemius, the superficial calf muscle. With the knee bent, gastrocnemius is taken out of the equation and we stretch soleus, the deeper of the two.

9. Quadriceps - holding the foot behind us, use a towel wrapped around if you are struggling for range. Try get knees next to each other and tense glutes to create some hip extension.

10. Abdominal stretch

The key is to try and drag the chest along the floor away from the pelvis as long as possible, before lifting off.
Avoid lifting the chest straight off the floor.

Incorporating traction before the lift should increase the stretch in the abdomen and reduce compression in the lower back.

11. Lower back stretch

Lie flat on your back.
Bring knees up with feet flat on the ground and let them drop to one side and then the other.

leave one leg straight, bring the other knee up and let it roll to the side of the straight leg and then swap for the other side.

12. Hip flexor stretch

Avoid an overly long lunge
Before moving forwards make sure your contract your glutes to create hip extension.
You should feel a slight pull in the front of the hip of the knee your kneeling on.
Then slowly edge forwards from the hips.

13. Latissimus Dorsi stretch

Crawling the hands over to one side will increase the stretch. Return to neutral before getting up.

14. Latissimus Dorsi stretch

As in 13, instead of crawling the hands to the side you and move your hips to the side to increase the stretch.

15. Upper back stretch.
Nice and simple, interlock fingers, let the shoulders round and push the arms away to feel a stretch over the upper back.

16. Rear Deltoid stretch-
Not many people feel this stretch as we natural have a good range of movement and a lot of us have protracted shoulders.

17. Tricep stretch- in this image we are stretching the muscles on the back of the upper arm. We can use the right arm to gently pull the left elbow across to increase the stretch.

18. Posterior neck stretch. - Here we can stretch one side at a time using a combination of movements. To stretch the rear right, we effectively look at the left shoe. We bring the left ear slightly to left shoulder and gentle rotate the head to the left. Then look down to your shoe. The combination of levers avoid stressing any joints but still creates an effective muscular stretch.

Rehabilitative Exercises

A) Shallow lunge- eccentric loading of Vastus Medialis as we move forward and concentric loading as we push backwards.

C) Posterior chain stretch. - Here we are looking to stretch more than one muscle group. By angling the feet and tucking the chin to chest, we draw into bodies posterior chain of fascia. One may find they can to their hands to the floor but things become a little harder once the head gets tucked in.

B) Vastus Medialis- leg extension.
Here we target the final 15 degrees of extension targeting vastus medialis.