HOW: Place your hands against the wall at about shoulder height. Hinge at your hips and bring your body forward, this will be a body on arm movement which will increase the amount of shoulder elevation you are working into. Bring your chest as close to the floor as you feel comfortable. Be gentle and move within your comfort. Change the width of your arms for comfort.

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in the shoulders or the mid-back region.

 

COMPENSATIONS: Make sure you aren’t leading into the wall much, this should be more of a stretch than a strengthening exercise. Keep your feet under your hips to ensure this.

HOW: Begin standing with one foot flat in front of you and the other behind you with your toes pushing into the ground. Maintain that position as you put both arms straight up overhead. From here, Bend to the side as you keep your arms overhead. Alternate bending your torso from side to side. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in your side and back. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your hips and feet facing forward as you bend to each side. Keep your arms overhead the whole time.

HOW: Begin standing with one foot flat in front of you and the other behind you with your toes pushing into the ground. Maintain that position as you put both arms straight out in front of you at chest height. From here, rotate your upper half to one side and return to the starting position. Alternate to each side for the prescribed amount of reps. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in your mid back. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your hips and feet facing forward as you bend to each side. Keep your arms up in front of you the whole time.

WHY:  This exercise will help you to learn low back and pelvic body awareness. Learning body awareness in these regions is important when trying to manage pain now and in the future. This exercise also promotes motion in this region and can help with stiffness and spasms.

 

HOW:  Get set-up laying flat on your back with your knees bent and feet supported on the ground. Place your hands on your hip bones to help with learning body awareness. Now perform a posterior pelvic tilt followed by anterior pelvic tilt.

 

COMPENSATION:  Do not overarch your lower back, after you perform the posterior pelvic tilt let your low back naturally move into an anterior pelvic tilt by relaxing your muscles. The movement should come just from your stomach and hip muscles, not your low back!

HOW: Begin by lying face-up with one arm around the opposite knee. Pull your knee over towards the arm that is pulling it, while keeping your chest facing the ceiling. The more you bring your knee towards your chest and the closer towards the floor you pull your leg, the deeper the stretch. Slowly return back to the starting position and repeat.

 

FEEL: You will feel a stretch on the outer hip region and potentially up towards your lower and middle back.

 

COMPENSATION: Avoid allowing your body  to rotate as you perform this motion, allow most of the motion here to come from your hip.

HOW: While laying face up on the floor cross one leg over and across the other. The closer you bring your foot to your butt on the leg that is on the floor the further you will stretch your opposite hip. If this is not enough of a stretch, you can thread the needle by elevating your leg that was on the floor and hugging your shin bone in towards your chest. If the crossed leg is slipping you can hold onto it with your opposite hand.

 

FEEL: You will feel a deep stretch in the back hip on the leg that is crossing. The closer you hug your legs in the stronger the stretch. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your arms slightly out from your side to achieve the 30 degrees of abduction, don’t have them right at your side.

HOW: Begin in the quadruped position. Your hands on the ground underneath your shoulders and your knees on the ground under your hips. Starting with a flat back, create a hump in your back as much as you can by pretending you have a tail and you’re tucking that tail in between your legs. Continue that hump in your mid and upper back while looking down with your neck. From here, reverse it and pretend like you are sticking your tail out as you arch your low, mid, and upper back while you attempt to look up. 

 

FEEL: You should feel the muscles in your lower, middle, upper back working/stretching as you push away from the ground creating the hump in your back and arching it. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your elbows straight, don’t bend them as you arch your back. Don’t rock back and forth with your hips.

HOW: Begin on your hands and knees in a tabletop position with your knees spread as far as comfortable. Rock back until you feel adequate stretching of your groin.

 

FEEL: You will feel a stretch in the groin/adductor region.

 

COMPENSATION: Make sure to keep your back flat, avoid rounding the back as you rock back.

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