10-Minute Total Body Stretch

Hi, I'm Leah Zahner. I'm one of your GHU TV trainers, and I'm here to lead you through a 10-minute total body stretch. You can use this completely on its own at any point in your day, get your body stretched and energized for whatever's coming next or you can tack this on to the end of one of your GHU TV workouts, maybe at the end of a run if you're a runner, wherever you'd like to use it to add in some stretching for your body. It's so important to stretch and it's one of the first things that we skip when we're short on time. So here's a quick 10-minute total body stretch for you. First thing you're gonna do is you're gonna plant your feet flat on the floor, right away start to feel your body press down into the floor, then you can start to stretch through your upper body. You're gently, very gently gonna take your hand rested on top of your head. No pulling at all, just drop your ear towards your shoulder. See I'm only using the pressure of just one of my fingers. All that's doing is reminding me to relax these muscles right here. We're gonna hold this stretch for about 30 seconds. It takes about that long for your body to recognize that you're sending the signal to your muscles to stretch and release their tension. Once you do that, you'll get to stretch a little bit further. Now I'm gonna add a little extra stretch. My arm that's reaching down, I'm going to imagine there's a table next to me and I'm gonna press down on that table. Adding a little bit more of a stretch you should feel this from behind your temple all the way down through your shoulder. Take one more breath here, on your exhale you're gently gonna switch sides. Release that fingertip pressure, arm comes down, and you're gonna reach up and just rest that fingertip right on your temple. Let your ear drop to your shoulder. Again, you're not pulling your ear to your shoulder. You're letting it drop, just guiding it with that little tiny bit of pressure. Once you feel that stretch come into this side of your neck, into your shoulder, you can start to press this other arm down. That's adding more length to your muscles. Adding more stretch, gently just allowing that stretch to get deeper with every exhale. Hanging on to this for just a few more seconds, checking and make sure your feet are planted. Gonna take one more inhale, and on the exhale release that press on your lower arm. Lift your ear away from your shoulder. Return all the way back to your standing position before starting your next stretch. Go ahead and take your right arm. You're gonna make a 90-degree bend in your elbow, then you're going to pull your arm across your body. So that pull across, you're avoiding your joint. You're pulling above elbow, keeping that 90-degree bend where you want to feel this. A lot of times we'll just do this. You wanna actively keep that 90-degree bend so that you can feel the muscles in your upper back lengthening, stretching, you're breathing through, still matching your breathing think inhale, stand up taller, exhale, pull a little bit deeper into the stretch. Now some of you might be much further than me, some of you might just have your arm right in front of your face, your goal is just to find your deepest stretch. So go ahead and release that exactly the same way as you started and then go into your second side. 90 degrees first, grab above the elbow joint and gently start to pull across your body. Avoid lifting or lowering your arm as you pull, keeping it nice and parallel with the floor, arms still at 90 degrees, and once you start to feel that stretch in your upper body you can hold. Then focus on that inhale, exhale, pull a little bit further, inhale and exhale. Gently start to bring that arm forward and lower down to your sides. Now doubly makes sure you're angered for this. You wanna keep your weight even in both feet, reach your right arm up and then drop your hand to reach behind you for your shoulder blades. This is the start of your stretch. You're gonna reach your other hand up to grab your elbow. Now from here, it's like a chain. You wanna start by just pulling your elbow towards the midline of your body until you can't anymore. Then you start to turn that into a side stretch. You're trying to feel a lengthening from your tricep all the way down the outer part of your torso. Maybe all the way into your hip. Now you stay where you are, I'm gonna show you what happens if you don't anchor both feet evenly, you'll start to lean to one side. You want to stay anchored and even so you're maximizing that stretch for your upper body. As you inhale, think about getting taller, and as you exhale, think about folding just a little bit further. Take one more big inhale, and on the exhale come all the way back up to standing before you release your elbow, you're gonna switch sides and do exactly the same thing. Reach for your shoulder blades first, grab a hold of your elbow, pull your elbow towards your midline. You'll feel that stretch in your tricep to start, then start to side bend, once again make sure you feel equal weight in both feet, inhale your spine is lengthening, exhale, get a little deeper into your side bend, once again from your tricep all the way down the side of your torso, you wanna feel lengthening and stretching. Use this time to pay attention to the signals your body's giving you, what feels really good, what feels like you need to spend a little bit more time stretching, take one more inhale, and on the exhale, you can come back to stand up, releasing your arms to your sides and getting ready to roll down to your mat. You're gonna take a full 10 counts to roll down starting with your head. So one, drop your chin to your chest. Two, start to let your shoulders follow. Three, you start to hinge forward, your arms are heavy. Four, start to feel that rounding in your spine. Five, you should start to feel like you're reaching closer to your toes. Six, maybe you're starting to add a little bit of a bend in your knees to let yourself hinge further. Seven, bring those knuckles towards the floor bending your knees as much as you need to. Eight, deeper bending your knees. Nine, sink all the way down. 10, lower your hips down towards the floor to have a seat. So taking all of those counts to find yourself a spot on the floor and bringing yourself to a seated butterfly position. Now, my hips aren't as open as some of yours. Some of you will be already knees flat to the floor, some of you might be up a little bit higher than where I am but your goal in this stretch is to open through your hips and your groin, by pressing the soles of your feet together and avoid pulling your toes, right? That's just gonna put pressure on your ankles and your knees instead, lightly grasp if you're wearing shoes, your laces, if not your ankles and just let your elbows create a little light pressure and then this time every inhale you're lifting your chest. Every exhale, you're hinging forward, keeping your back flat. Now, I'm feeling an incredible amount of stretch just like this. Some of you will be much, much further than me but your goal is to keep your back flat, chest lifted, and every exhale you get a little bit deeper. So we're gonna take about another two inhale here, and then on that exhale, you're gonna lift up first. Once you're sitting up tall, you can bring your knees together and you're gonna extend your legs out in front of you. You wanna feel the entire backside of your leg on the floor and then you're gonna reach your arms up to create length in your spine, point your toes and then start to hinge forward. You're gonna hinge as far forward as you can with a flat back. Once you're there, then you can relax your arms and drop your head. Every inhale you're lengthening your spine and every exhale you're folding closer to your legs. Eventually trying to get your forearms to the floor. Eventually trying to walk those hands out reaching further and further. Every inhale is a lengthen, every exhale is deeper into your stretch. You're gonna take one more deep breath in, one more exhale completely round your spine and begin to roll yourself back up. Once you're sitting up tall, you're gonna turn this into a seated spinal stretch. Take one leg, cross it up and over. So I've got my left leg crossed. I'm gonna reach my right arm, my opposite arm up to the ceiling and reach across my leg. That's gonna create length in my spine so that I can use this opposition to press myself into a seated spine stretch. I'm gonna feel intense release through my spine the further that I can twist and I'm using that opposition with my arm on my leg. Inhale, my spine gets taller, exhale, I twist a little bit further, and then inhale and come back through to switch sides. Once you switch those legs, create that length in your spine. Your opposite arm reaches up, cross your arm over and twist. Now I'm facing away from you. So I'm gonna turn and talk to you through the rest of this stretch. You really wanna focus on your breathing, you really wanna focus on making everything slow and controlled. This kind of stretching is so important to avoid bouncing. Matching with your breathing is what's going to do that for you. So take one final inhale, and then on your exhale, you can come right back to the center, extend your legs forward, and we've got one more really good stretch to do but you've got to lay back onto your mat for this. So go ahead and flatten your spine, bring your feet flat to the floor, and then cross your ankle over your thigh. Once you've done that, you have a few choices. You can take your hand, place it on your outer thigh, and start to press your knee open just a little bit wider. If this is feeling really good, you can stay here and work on your breathing or begin to tuck your knees in closer by grabbing behind your supporting thigh and bringing your legs in close to your body. This should create a great stretch for the outer part of your hip. Keep your spine flat down to the floor or your mat and make sure that you're just directing your breathing to those muscles that you're stretching. Getting ready for your second side, take your last inhale on this side, on the exhale you're going back exactly the way you came, foot down, switch your cross, open your knee, and then you have that option. Deepen the stretch by reaching behind your thigh pulling your legs towards you. Every inhale you think about that lengthening in your spine, opening your knee, every exhale you're pulling your knees a little bit closer to your body, and you've got one more breath. That is your inhale and your exhale. Come out the way you came, foot down, uncross your legs, think about grabbing lately behind your thighs to roll yourself up to have a seat again. You can do this as many times as you like, utilize these stretches at the ends of your workout, beginning of your day, anything that you need to get some stretching into your daily routine. It's been great stretching with you. I'll see you soon. Have a good one.