Hamstring Strap Series
Resting on your back take a strap, a towel, a necktie or a belt, around the ball of the right foot and extend that leg long down the mat, you might feel the lower leg stretch here. The left knee is bent to help spine stay neutral as we begin. Try not to accumulate too much tension in your hands from holding the strap during the series. Now inhale with a soft right knee, bring the leg straight up the mid line until you feel a decent hamstring stretch. Don't need to force it here, let this open up slowly.
Your knee is at least a tiny bit bent, but at the same time you're reaching up through the right heel. Now inhale, lift the head up into a little crunch, just stabilize as you exhale, lower the left leg down to the floor. Coming to another exhalation, we'll bring the head back to the mat, checking that the nose is higher than the chin, nice in neutral back position.
Let's move to an outer hamstring stretch. Sliding the leg over to the left just a little, so that the toes might be over the bellybutton or even over the left hip. If your fingers aren't liking holding the strap, try wrapping it around your wrist. You'll feel this riding up the outer edge of the back of the leg, maybe into the IT band a little.
Now we'll shift to an inner hamstring stretch, it's not too far over to the right, slide the toes maybe just off of the right side of the body or over the right side of your mat. Then you may need to tighten your grip on the strap, sliding the leg a little bit higher up to the right side of the body. Please note that this is different than the inner thigh stretch we will go to later. Instead it's running up the inseam of your pants, slightly higher up the back of the thigh.
We'll shift back to neutral. With the left hand to the hip, exhale lower the right leg off the right side of the body. Don't let the left hip come flying up off the floor here. You can activate down the left leg, heel down, toes up to help hold you stable. We will inhale slowly, come up, strap moves into the left hand, and we exhale across all the way over. Now here you will roll to the outer left hip and the outer side of the left foot. You can work this as a hip stretch or also as a twist, keeping the right shoulder down in the direction of the floor.
If your hips are tight, first, you address the hip stretch. Then in time you work the right shoulder down on the floor. Inhale up through center, exhale, bend the knee, bring the right foot back to the floor.
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