Unless you’re very mindful, within just a few minutes of sitting at your desk, your pelvis begins to tuck under, your spine then collapses and your head juts forward.

This creates a whole lot of tension.

Even with good alignment, your hips joints are still flexed. Prolonged sitting shortens your hips flexors and hamstrings. These muscles then adapt to be short and eventually get stuck there.

Good news though…

…with a little stretching and some body awareness, this is pretty easy to correct.

Just visit the ‘Daily Life’ category of the blog page where I have many videos about how to enjoy a great seated posture. (See links at bottom of page).

 

bow pose

 

It’s Time to Extend Your Hip Joints

The easy way to take your hips out of flexion is to stand up and take a walk. Standing brings your hips to a neutral position and walking is a mix of flexion and extension.

Now, let’s take this one stage further with a great double quadricep stretch (also a classic yoga posture called ‘bow pose’)

As with any exercise or stretch, movement becomes far more manageable if you ease into it. Perfecting a dynamic exercise can take years and not just a few repetitions. I am personally still working on lots of moves!

It is also important to allow yourself alternatives and go easy on yourself in your not there yet.

Remember, fitness is measured in many ways. With the Restore Your Body Programme you are looking to strike a balance of:

Cardio fitness
Strength &
Suppleness

Yoga moves tend to combine 2 of these factors, strength and suppleness. In a recent video we looked at how to get into ‘stretch pose’. You can review that here. In fact this video and the one below go really well together as a mini series.

With so much time spent seated, it is inevitable that your body will at some point become flexed. The exercise below helps to counter all that flexion.

 

 

A few reasons do this stretch regularly:

  • It’s a great postural corrector
  • It stretches your pecs
  • It stretches your abs
  • It stretches your biceps
  • It stretches your hip flexors
  • Energetically a heart opening exercise
  • The preparation required to get into ‘bow pose’ strengthens glutes and low back muscles.

Try it out today

Take care

Thanks Danny

 

Related Links

Stretch Pose
Flowing Yoga Series
Seated Posture 1
Seated Posture 2
Seated posture 3

 

 

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