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This hamstring stretch uses a yoga strap, however you can use a towel,
a scarf, a belt,
anything you have that will give you enough resistance
to help you stretch your hamstrings which can be pretty tight.
So you want to get into good posture as we talk about in every exercise with the
Hauber Method series of videos,
and then take your strap
and put it over the ball of your, in this case, left foot
so we'll be stretching the left hamstring,
and you can see there sometimes the foot can be slippery,
uh... once you get the strap in place in your left foot
then you will extend and flex
the right
leg and foot, so that right leg is very active, and that serves as your base.
Now you'll notice my left leg is fairly straight
uh... my hamstrings are pretty flexible
if your hamstrings are very tight
your knee is not going to be straight as straight as mine, and that's absolutely fine.
uh... Wherever you can get to the point that your knee is fairly straight,
whatever angle your leg is at,
that's where you should start this stretch.
So you go ahead and you put your strap in place at the ball if your foot,
flex both feet, contract the quadriceps on both legs, especially that base
leg so that you feel secure,
contract your abdomen, again, getting into good posture from the back of your
neck all the way to your deep core, like I talk about in the Hauber Method
series
and then
wherever your stretching leg ends up at an angle,
with your knee as straight as it can be,
that's where you begin your stretch.
So you'll notice,
I'm holding on with my hands, with both hands, one on either side of the strap
and I'm actively pulling down with bent elbows, meaning I'm using my biceps to pull
against the pull of the hamstrings.
Now as you'll see I just touched my lower back to make sure that I still
have a lumbar curve. And again the Hauber Method series of
videos goes over what that lumbar curve means, and
how you keep it to safely stretch
and do your exercises.
Now I'm gonna go had an angle the stretch to the outside, meaning I'm
gonna start stretching the inner thigh
and the hamstrings that connect more along the inner thigh.
So I'm taking my left hand and then guiding my left foot out to the side,
once again keeping as much weight as possible
in my right hip and
leg. So notice how my right leg is still very active.
In this case as well,
you will let go of the strap with your right arm, and put
a lot of weight and energy and just let your right shoulder relax down into
your mat.
It's very important when you're stretching and you have the weight of your left leg
pulling over to the left
that you've got enough of your body weight on the right side of your body
to anchor you on the right.
Once again we want to keep the transversus or that deep
core
contracted
so that your spine is protected, you're preserving that neutral curve of the
lumbar spine, and you're very supported as you stretch. And of course you're
breathing, aren't you?
Now as you see, I lift the left leg up again, and this time I switch hands,
and I'm gonna rotate around the hip joint.
Now you'll notice right away I don't turn all the way over onto the right side of
my right hip. Rather, I'm just trying here to get a deep stretch on the outside
of the left hip joint
rather than
falling over onto the right side and trying to get a stretch
up into my back
and the upper part of the hip. And you'll see I do that in a second here.
But what I really want you to work on here is
staying fairly straight down on both sides of the glutes
as you get a nice pull along the far outside of that left hip.
So once again
my right leg stays very strong
and contracted, my foot is still flexed,
and notice here I turned to the left so I'm looking to the left, emphasizing
in this case the downward push of my left shoulder,
as my left foot now gets pulled across to the right.
So always trying to keep some equilibrium between the sides even
though you're
moving the weight of one of your legs around.
And now you'll see I'm starting to rotate farther onto that right hip
introducing more of a spinal twist. So once again, by not to rotating on to
that right hip like I did before,
you're gonna emphasize the stretch
specifically
in the outer glutes, OK.
Now when you rotate all the way over onto the right side, that's when you
introduced the spinal twist,
and if you have SI joint problems--and if you don't know what the
SI joint is, then you probably don't have these problems--
but if you do have SI joint issues, do not do spinal twists, OK, they introduce a
little too much flexibility that you don't need.
And again just breathe here,
you really should hold these stretches
uh... best would be three minutes in each of these directions so you went
straight up first
and then out to the left
and then out to the right with your left leg. And now you'll notice I end once again
with the leg straight-up, OK, so continuing to stretch
just straight up in the direction that the hamstrings attach.
Now when you release the strap you'll notice that left like feels about three
inches longer than the right so let's go ahead and do the right leg
and get some and some equality back in the hip joint.
So once again, strong solid left leg, very active, foot is flexed, and the right leg, same
thing, you'll notice again I check my lumbar curve to make sure I still have that
neutral curve in the lower back.
Abs are contracted, chest is lifting up in through,
biceps are doing the pulling here, right, so the shoulder blades are retracted,
again it talk a lot about that
in the Hauber Method videos,
and then bending the elbows to use the biceps to pull against the strength of
the hamstring.
And you'll notice on this side
I go ahead and I do the, uh...
the rotation to the left first,
so I released the strap with the right arm, anchor my right shoulder,
continue to anchor both
hips
even as that right leg comes across to the left, and you can see here
howl little I am rotating onto that left hip.
It's a lot easier to see at this angle.
Always pushing through the heel. That's gonna be really important
as you continue the stretch. Now this side I recorded much much more
briefly
as I was running out of time before I was starting class,
so I just switch very quickly
from the outside of the hip stretch to the inside, and there you can see
I check my left hip to make sure I still have weight
down in that left side to counteract, in this case,
the weight of the right leg coming up out and across to the right.
So even as I am kicking my heels away
and enjoying the resistance of that hamstring against the pull
of my right arm, I'm keeping a lot of weight and energy on the left side of my
body to stabilize myself
and of course I'm always breathing.
Don't forget to breathe.
Once again I would do each of these sides three minutes.
[And wave to your friends as they walk by the door.]
When you finish three minutes on each side
you want to go ahead and unstrap,
release the stretching leg,
and literally just relax.
You've done a great job.