Hey guys, what’s going on? Coach Joe here, Coach little here of CrossFit mass. I just wanted to talk about a bit of hip and back tightness. So we get a ton of people in here, probably everyone that walks in here; at some point, they will say that their back hurts or their back feels a little tight. And why is that happening?
So the first thing I think of is what this person is doing for work. Many people are sitting for an extended period of time throughout the day, whether at their desk or a table; when we’re eating, we’re sitting, and we’re driving, we’re sitting. So let’s think about what the seated position is doing. So when I’m sitting down, my hamstrings are in a short position, and my hip flexors are in a short position. So if I spend a ton of time in this position, which, as kids, we spend our whole life in the position when we’re developing hips, they’re going to get super tight, glutes also going to get super tight as well as hamstrings. So if we think about what happens when these things get tight, think that your hips are constantly trying to pull you into that seated position and your hamstrings. Then your back will try to pick up the slack, pulling us back into this upright position, which will result in some pain.
So I just want to show you guys a couple of stretches that you can do every day, at home, at the gym, and the office. Wherever you are, they’re pretty accessible anywhere.
So the first one will be for our hip flexor right, so the front of our hip. So we’re going to set up a bench, and it’s actually called a coach stretch. So we can do it with the coach, the bench, and the chair, anything that is about knee height or a little below. I’m going to set up the mat on the ground just because I don’t want to have my knee resting on this hard ground. So how I’m going to set this up is I want to reach my foot back and kind of hook my toe on the edge of the bench there. And then I’m just going to drop my knee down on the mat or the ground. So now I’m going to kind of have a 90-degree angle here. I want to make sure that I keep my knee right over my heel, so I don’t want to be too close to the edge of my heel; I feel like it’s tough to balance. As you can see, you want to have a nice firm foot on the ground.
And then, for some of us, even just coming in an upright position from here, we will feel that stretch right away. If you don’t, think about them; maybe squeezing our butt, which will try to extend those hips fully, and you should feel that stretch right away. If you’re still not feeling it, inch your butt forward and drive your hips forward. Now we’re going to feel that stretch nice and good there.
If we want to regress this a little bit because this position is just too much for us. If our hips are too tight, we can simply move this forward a little bit, eliminate the elevated surface, and now I’m just in a half-kneeling position, and again, I can squeeze my butt and extend my hips or drive my hips further forward so it can feel a nice stretch on the front. And we can spend anywhere from a minute to two minutes; each side can stretch multiple times a day, and it can help out a lot.
And the next what we’re going to do is called a finger four stretch. So for this demo, I’m going to use a bench, but we kind of want you to find something that’s a little more solid to put your foot up against. So what we want to do is we’re going to lay on the ground here, and I want to have one foot up against my object dependent. I want to make sure that my knee is right over my head to start and then what I’m going to do is I’m going to bring this foot up, and I’m going to bring my foot on my knee. Now I have a nice, forward-looking number there, and what I’m going to do is I can push on my knee here, which will get a nice stretch of my hip or get on a solid surface; I can push off my toe here. So the mixture of both of those, we’re going to feel a nice stretch in the outside of our cap on that on that pier for this. And again, I’m gonna hold this anywhere from one to two minutes on each side. We can even sit down and create that same figure four stretch if that’s too much. And this is super easy because you can do it anytime you’re sitting. And then again, I can push down on this knee, feel that stretch a little more, or I can press on my toe, which will open up my hip, even just a little more.
Okay, last but not least, spending more time at the bottom of a squat. Okay, so we want to have our feet right under our shoulders or slightly outside, and then I’m just going to come all the way down to the bottom of my slot. The goal would be to spend a cumulative of 10 minutes a day in this position over time. So if you have trouble doing that, getting low in that small position, we can find a solid object again. The bench might not be the most all, but find anything at home that you can just kind of grab on to and anchor yourself. This allows you to sit back further on those heels and really get deep down in that stretch.
All right, so three stretches you can do anywhere, anytime, every day. It can really help alleviate those lower back pains. Try it out.
