HOW: Begin in a standing position with one foot on top of an elevated surface. Keep your knee straight and your foot relaxed pointed mostly down. Pretend you have a tail, try to tuck your tail behind you causing your hips to tilt forward making the stretch harder. Use both hands to reach to the inside of the leg, towards your foot, and to the outside of your leg. Return to the starting position after each rep. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in your hamstring muscles. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your back upright, don’t slouch. Don’t bend your knee.

HOW: Start in a quadruped position with your hands and knees on the ground. Slowly rotate to one side by bringing your arm under your body and through to the other side. To increase the stretch, you can “crawl your fingers” and exhale at the end of the stretch. Then reverse the rotation and rotate the other direction, exhaling at the top. You can use your eyes to increase the stretch

 

FEEL: You should feel a nice and gentle stretch in the middle region of your back when you perform this exercise.

 

COMPENSATION: Make sure to keep your hips on top of your knees, or even sink your hips back more towards your ankles. Do not let your hips come forward like in a modified plank position

HOW: Get set-up in a 90/90 position, you can use a yoga block or something else under your front hip to get into the correct position (follow video for tips and details). Once set-up, keep your thighs, knees, and feet flat against the ground, lift your chest up to make your torso long. Holding this position, with the opposite arm of your front leg, reach around your front hip and rotate your upper body towards that side, return to starting position and repeat.

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in the back of your hip and your butt on the front thigh. You may feel a stretch inside your thigh and groin on the back leg. You will also feel a stretch in your low back on the sides.

 

COMPENSATION: See video for tips and details, the most important thing is having a long torso and relatively straight back as best as you can, however towards the end of the rotation it is ok to bend. Do not hold your breath.

HOW: Get set-up with your hands supported on a wall with your elbows straight and a band around the top of your feet. While standing tall with a slight lean forward, lift one leg up driving your knee forward until your thigh is parallel to the ground. Hold this position, slowly lower down and repeat on the other side.

 

FEEL: You will feel your hip flexor muscles working on the side that you lifted the leg. You will also feel your core muscles working and your opposite hip muscles working to maintain balance and single limb stance stability.

 

COMPENSATION: Do not round or arch your back when you lift/lower your leg. Try to isolate hip movement during the exercise. See video for tips 

HOW: While standing, loop a band around the base of your neck and underneath your shoes against the ground. Hold the bands while you keep your chest up and squeeze your shoulder blades back. Engage your core and get a soft bend in your hip and knees. Push your butt back as far as you can bending at the waist. Push through the ground and return to the starting position. 

 

FEEL: You should feel your glutes, hamstrings, and low back working. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your back flat through the bending. Keep a slight bend in your knees, don’t fully straighten them.

HOW: Get set-up flat on your back with your feet supported on an elevated surface with the knees bent at approx. 90 degrees. While maintaining a flat low back, push into the elevated surface to bridge up and lift your hips off the ground. Your body should create a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. While holding this position, alternative marching your knees towards your chest.

 

FEEL: You will feel the muscles behind your thigh, knee, hip, and butt muscles working hard with this exercise. You may also feel your core, hip flexors, and back muscles working too.

 

COMPENSATION: Limit excessive arching or rounding of your back, keep your hips level with the ground. Do not let your hips drop or rotate. 

HOW: Begin with your mid back against an elevated surface. This variation has a band strapped around the your hips to add resistance. Elevate one knee up towards the ceiling, then drive your opposite heel into the floor as you thrust your hips towards the ceiling. Slowly lower yourself back to starting position and repeat.

 

FEEL: You will feel the muscles of the hip, specifically the gluteals/buttock working with this exercise.

 

COMPENSATION: Avoid arching the lower back as you thrust yourself up, the motion is designed to be primarily at the hips.

HOW: Start by lying on your back. You will be performing an exercise very similar to an abdominal crunch. However in this exercise, imaging you are curl up one vertebrae at a time. Starting first at the top of your head, slowly lift your head away from the matt by tucking your chin. Keeping your chin tucked, slowly lift your lower neck and then upper back of the ground. Try to curl up one segment as a time and as high as you are able to go.

 

FEEL: You should feel all the muscles in your core and in your neck working to control the motion.

 

COMPENSATION: The motion should be very controlled, moving one vertebrae and then another working from top down. Do not rush the movement!