BEGINNER FLEXIBILITY ROUTINE (Stretches for the Inflexible)

Hey guys, welcome back today, we're going to do a stretching

routine

and today's stretching

routine

focuses on

flexibility

and gaining

flexibility

. I have received many requests from you to do more stretching routines and more stretching routines specifically focused on flexibility. and flexibility for

beginner

s, so this routine will be perfect for those of you who are

beginner

s and really want to get more flexibility. It will also be great for those who just want to do a really good stretch, as I mentioned before in my other stretching videos I think stretching is super important and very beneficial for the human body.

I think stretching is something we neglect a lot of times, so taking a few minutes out of your day to stretch will really benefit you. so you have a lot more mobility and prevent injuries you will just feel a lot better overall for those of you who don't know I danced from a very young age until I was 18 most of my life and that included I stretched a lot so I stretched from a very young age until I was 18 almost every day for an hour a day, so I'm as flexible as I am now, but I'm not as flexible as I used to be because Most people now neglect stretching, but this routine It's kind of a combination of different exercises that I used when I was dancing to gain flexibility mainly in my hamstrings and hips, and that's what this routine will mainly focus on today.

It's hip and hamstring flexibility, which is where a lot of people are super tight and that's where a lot of people could really use more flexibility, so that's what we're going to focus on today, so make sure you can see your screen. You can follow me and make sure you have some space around you and a soft surface, like an exercise mat or yoga mat, underneath you. So first let's start by doing a little upper body exercise. Stretching and then we'll get right into the hips and hamstrings, so we'll spread our feet a little bit more than shoulder width apart, do some nice deep bends and some shoulder rolls to really warm up. lift your body, loosen it a little more, three nicer big circles, the last one and now we're going to roll the neck, nice big circles, let your head get nice and heavy, we'll do three in one direction and then we'll switch to the other side, at the end, on the other side, now grab the side of your head, pull lightly, don't put too much pressure on it, but pull to one side, allow the shoulder to feel nice and heavy so you can really feel that stretch and the other side side, very good, bring your arms back and forth a few times.

Here you're just going to stretch your arms a little bit, so just cross one arm, keep your shoulder down and hold here and the other arm, that shoulder down, all right, bring the other arm behind you above your Pull your head slightly and feel that stretch in your triceps and other arm. These are very basic

stretches

, but a lot of people don't do them every day and it's very important to stretch your upper body, your neck, you hold a lot of tension in your shoulders and neck, especially if you have a job or a lifestyle. life with a lot of stress.

These are just basic

stretches

, but it's very important to feel good and relax at the top. Okay, roll a few more shoulders and make a big bend in your body. knees turn big shoulders and go down hands touch the floor or as far as you can if your hands don't touch the floor in this position grab your arms like this and feel nice and heavy on top we're just going to hold here for a few seconds , a big bend in the knees, drop your butt as low as you can, hold it here for a few seconds and step back.

I want you to move your hips from side to side, almost as if you were doing a dance move. You're pushing your hips from one side to the other side, the last two to the right to the left and hold the center. Now you're going to turn to one leg and keep your toes facing forward and hold one side back to center and the other leg. Return to the center, make a nice deep curve, and slowly roll upwards. Now let's put our feet together, not quite together. There is a slight gap between your feet and you want to stick your butt out and keep your back flat during this. exercise, we're just going down and we're going to touch your toes or as far as you can if you can't touch the ground or your toes, I want you to go as far as you can while keeping your back nice and flat.

If you're rounding your back, it's a lot easier to just drop here, but you're not going to get that full extension and hamstrings, so tuck those boots back in, keep a nice flat back and hold as much as you can, we're just going to hold here. . bend your knees slightly and straighten them, put those booties back now I want you to pop one of your heels so one at a time you put all that weight on one leg and the other leg and switch and switch and switch one more. little bend, stretch, go a little lower than you were before, hold, hold, hold, okay, big bend in the knees and twist up, now we're going to head to the floor and we're going to put our legs in a little bit. butterfly position this is something that they teach very young children in dance from the beginning, so I want you to put your feet together, hold on to the ankles and I want you in this position to sit here, but I want you to lift your feet up. and hold on a little.

I know this sounds funny and sit up so you're sitting on those bones. You're not sitting with your butt tucked under you like that. I want you to sit on your butt. Kind of a stick that sticks out that will really help you gain flexibility in your hips because if you're sitting like this it's a lot easier for your hips to be open, but you don't really feel the stretch in your hips, so sit down. with your boots back, nice and tall, back flat, just hold it here for a few seconds, press those knees as hard as you can into the floor without using your hands, hold it there and now I want you to use your hands to lightly press the knees down.

You don't need to apply a lot of pressure here, just enough until you feel a stretch. Now you will feel it, maybe in your groin, in your hips, possibly in your buttocks, just take a deep breath and hold here and let go, sit nice and tall. and I want you to bend as much as you can, first we're going to hold with a flat back again keeping those booties sticking out the same with a flat back like we're in that pipe position and you're going to bend as much as you can with a flat back and just stay here if you want to put your hands on the floor, that's totally fine and now I want you to bring your nose as far as you can to your toes and you can round your back. time just get as far to the ground as you can, okay, sit down, we'll stay seated and extend one leg so that one leg is facing your body and the other is straight and our hips are facing the ground.

Go forward we're going to bring that leg as far as we can to the side of your right arm so that my right leg is extended and my right arm is touching my left leg so that the leg that is facing me and We're going to stretch our left arm and reach as far as possible. as far as we can keeping our body nice and straight so you really feel that stretch in the side and try to grab the toe or the shin or as far as you can. You can lower your leg and let's hold it here, reach a little further, really feel that stretch in the side, try to keep your eyes looking up at the ceiling, that will help you keep your body in a good straight line and come.

Back to center, now we're going to shift our hips from facing forward to facing our legs, we're going to square our hips to that leg so we're going forward and bend our leg to reach as far as possible. down as far as you can hands on your shin hands on your thigh as far towards you as you can keep your back flat and hold it here if you can reach your toes I want you to grab your foot make sure your foot is flexed and you're going to pull your toes towards you, that's going to increase the stretch in your hamstring and also a little bit in your calf, and you're also going to push yourself forward a little bit more, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold and goes up again. center now we're going to switch and do the other side so again we're going to put our left arm now on our right leg and we're going to extend our right arm out to the side grabbing those toes or as far as you.

So you can come a little bit closer to your leg and come back up with your hips facing the leg and we're going to move forward, pull the leg walking down if you can grab the toes, pull the toes towards the foot is flexed, pull yourself. a little bit closer to your leg, hold, hold, hold, come back to center, so now we're going to extend both legs out to the sides as much as you can. This will vary for everyone, so it's a good core position if this stretch is already done. enough for you I want to reach forward I want you to be able to reach forward in this stretch so if this is too much and you already feel it, okay, you can hold on here or if it's more comfortable for you and you're able to stretch a a little easier, bend your knees a little and bring your feet together a little more so you can stretch forward and that will help you stretch your hips a little better so you feel better. comfortable for you, but we're going to hold the center position, hold the center position and we're going to lock our hands forward as much as we can and just hold here, walk down a little bit more, hold for a few more seconds. and walk back up, shake your leg a little bit now we're going to lie down, so you're going to bring both knees closer to your chest, bring them as close as you can and hold them here for a few moments. seconds, move from side to side and we are going to extend one leg and bring the other as close as we can to the chest, hold it now we are going to extend the leg, so lift it up, I want you to keep your knee as straight as possible throughout this exercise, so some people may find it a little easier if you're a little less flexible in the hamstring area to grab the hamstring and pull in or you can also get a towel or a resistance band. or something like that and wrap it around your foot to help anchor it and pull your foot in so you can keep that knee nice and straight towards you.

If you're more flexible, you can obviously grab a little lower on the leg, but I want you to keep your hips nice and square. Don't raise your hips as you bring your leg closer to make it easier. You really want to focus on fully stretching your hamstring in this position and bending your knee. Stretch it up one more time. bring it a little closer this time and hold it for a few more seconds and bend it inwards now bring your knee to the side of your body and put your arm around it or whatever you can bring it as close as you can, almost however you want.

You're bringing your knee to your armpit and you're just going to keep it here. You may feel a little stretch in your hips. I also want you to think about that leg that is extended. Think about your toe reaching that wall and lengthening. that leg as much as possible now cross that knee over the body like this and keep it here. This is a really nice release for the back and come back to center now I'm going to do everything we did with that leg with the other leg. so that the knee reaches the chest, hold, straighten the bottom leg and extend the leg up, keep the hips nice and square and bend the knee and stretch it up one more time, bring it a little closer to you, bend it in and take it to the Side, okay, here we're going to stay on our backs and now we're going to stretch our glutes, so you're going to break one leg over the other, you're going to cross it, grab underneath and pull in. keeping that knee pressed so you can, if you feel the stretch here, you can hold it here or if you want to increase the stretch, just put that hand on that knee and give it a little bit of pressure just to keep that knee nice and align the leg a little bit. closer to you and switch legs, keep those hips nice and square and bring them a little bit closer to you right now we're going to get into a lunge position, so our knees are right over your toes and you.

You're really going to put all that weight on your hip flexor, lift your arms up and sit into this lunge so you can really feel that stretch in your hip flexor. You can also put your hands on your knees if that's a little easier for you. and now from this position we're going to drop this supporting leg into a pigeon pose, so I want you to keep this leg at a 90 degree angle so that you're sitting right on top of that hip so you're really sitting. the glute stretch, if your foot is too close to the body, you won't really feel that glute stretch, you need to keep thisleg at a full 90 degree angle and then allow yourself to sit in this pigeon pose and Now you can drop your hands on the mat, you can allow your leg to come a little bit closer to you now and we're going to stay here as long as you can. on the map and slowly go back up. we're going to switch legs now, so opposite leg in that lunge sitting on the hip flexor, arms come up or arms up to the knee, whichever you prefer, really allow yourself to sink into this position, really feel that stretch in the hip flexor, good and in.

The pigeon poses so the leg and we have a 90 degree angle sitting right on top of that glute and arms and head towards the mat. You can bring your foot a little bit closer to the body now and just hold here, one of our last ones. The exercises that we are now going to do are something I call frog position, it's almost like that butterfly series that we were doing at the beginning of the exercise. stretching routine but flipped over and you're face down so this is something we used to do in ballet class for a really nice hip stretch, so what you want to do is maintain that same almost butterfly position, but you're reversing it.

So I don't know if you can really see what my lights are like, but you can have your toes touching or you can have your legs apart. Hopefully you can see what I'm doing, oh my God, and the goal is to lift your hips. as flat as you can on the ground now this is very easy if you go forward so as you can see my hips are on the ground but my feet are up and I don't feel any stretch in my hips right now but if I try to press my feet against the floor, so this is where I really feel the stretch in my hips.

I'm sitting right above my hips and where my legs are not too far forward and not too far back either, just somewhere to the right. in the middle where you really feel the stretch and we're just going to hold here you can do this on your hands if that's easier or if you have some yoga blocks for balance it would be really helpful here too but this is really a stretch very good for hip flexibility, so you can either have your legs stick out a little bit like this so your legs are at a 90 degree angle or bring your feet all the way in towards you, whatever feels most comfortable for you, but the goal.

It's really sitting in that hip stretch, so if you're comfortable here and you're really enjoying the stretch, you can hold this a little bit longer, but slowly work your way up by pulling your body forward and then extending your legs like So for don't hurt yourself and just go up and stretch your back well and push back to child's pose and go up slowly so from here you can also practice your splits if you are able to do the splits or They are practicing the splits, they could do it right now, but Other than that, it's a pretty basic stretching routine for beginners that you can incorporate into your daily routine or a couple of times a week.

It's really going to help you gain flexibility in those hamstrings and hips, especially if you really focus and do those exercises correctly, you know, keeping your back nice and flat, really squaring those hips so you really feel that hamstring stretch. I know it's not the most comfortable position to be in. but once you start to gain flexibility you will feel much better and those exercises and stretches will be much easier, so I hope you enjoyed this stretching routine. If you did, let me know by checking out this video. Give it a thumbs up and let me know if you'd like to see more stretching routines in the comments below.

Would you like to see stretching routines more focused on certain parts of the body? Let me know in the comments because I really enjoy doing these stretching routines. and it also reminds me to stretch, so yeah, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you're new here, make sure you're subscribed and have post notifications turned on so you don't miss another video from me. I will see you very soon bye