Fitness Tip of the Week #11 Stretch When you Wake!

Hello all and welcome back to fitness tip of the week! Hopefully you have been keeping up on the tips each week and have tried to incorporate them into your daily routines. Each tip is aimed to be something hat is easy to do and will just be another way to enhance your overall level of fitness.

The tip I want to give you this week is something that many of you may do to some degree or another, but this tip will help give it a little more structure. Start to make it a habit to do some quick stretches and movements when you wake up in the morning. If any of you have a cat or dog, watch them the next time they wake up from a nap. What do they do? They stretch out their legs, shoulders, back, pretty much everything. It’s simple, yet effective.

I love how good it feels to crawl out of bed and get out all the kinks that may have come from yesterday’s workout, or just from being in a relatively inactive state for several hours. In fact, one of the best moves you can do is actually named after the way cats and dogs stretch, hence ‘cats and dogs.’ (you may know this move as the yoga move called the cat and cow.) It loads pressure into both the hips and shoulders, promotes good flexion and extension of the spine, and helps reengage the muscles of the hips.

Here’s a quick list of 5 moves you should do when you get out of bed:

Kneeling Good Morning Stretch 10x

Extended Lateral 30 seconds each side

Cats and Dogs 10x

Kneeling Groin 30 seconds each side

Downward Dog 30 seconds

Hopefully doing these five quick stretches will help you wake up and get your morning off to a good start. Check back next Tuesday for another useful tip!

If you are looking or a little more complete program to do in the mornings and evenings check out the AM/PM Program in the Store.

Loren