Posts Tagged ‘Stretching’

June Tip of The Month: Self Massage for the Back (Part 2)

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Here are some techniques for relaxing and working the kinks out of your own back:

USING THE FLOOR

1. Lie on your back and pull your knees in: wrap your hands across the front of the knees, but be sure to keep your shoulders relaxed -no need to add extra tension in one place for the sake of relieving it in another. Take deep breaths and as you exhale, pull the knees in, and as you inhale allow them to gently move away from your chest. Repeat as many times as you like. Keeping the knees pulled in, rock them gently forwards and back, using the pressure into the floor to massage across the low and mid back; then rock from side to side, using the floor to massage across the hips and ribs.

2. Rocking side to side: using the same position as above, rock from side to side, using the floor to massage across the back and hips. Breath easily as you rock for thirty seconds to a minute, then rest with your feet flat on the floor, knees bent.

3. Rocking forwards and back: using the same position as above, but this time with your hands in the crease behind your knees, rock the knees in and out for thirty seconds to a minute, then rest with your feet flat on the floor, knees bent.

USING YOUR BREATH

4. In Child’s Pose: that is, kneeling with your butt on your heals and your head relaxed on the floor, arms either ahead of you or to the sides of the body, breath deeply into the back. Begin by consciously bringing the breath to the tops of the shoulds, feeling the shoulders and neck inflate with air as you breath in deeply and deflate and relax down as you exhale. After a few breaths, begin to send the breath further down between the shoulder blades, then to the low ribs, then to the low back, and finally all the way down to the buttocks. Finish off with a few breaths into the entire length of your back.

USING YOUR HANDS

5. Sacrum: With your feet flat on the floor, knees up, place your hands palms down under your buttocks and gently rock the knees from side to side. You can move the palms around and you can also try rocking with your knees up into the chest.

6. Low Back: Make fists with your hands and place them palms down under your low back, with the knuckles just outside the spine. Keep your feet flat on the floor, knees up, and just relax and breath deeply, moving the fists up or down as needed.

7. Mid-Back: Sit on the floor with your legs crossed, open wide, or soles of feet touching and relax your head down towards the floor. Make light fists with your hands and throw them over your back, pounding gently up and down along the sides of the spine

USING A TENNIS BALL

8. For Deep Pressure: Lie on your back and place a tennis ball under any point or area you feel tension. Relax, breath deeply, and allow the weight of your body to drop down into the ball. Shift slowly, by rolling on the ball or rolling to your side to move the ball away. You can use two tennis balls wrapped in a cloth or bound together with tape to roll symmetrically up and down the spine.

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Posted in Back Care, Chronic Pain, Massage, Mind Body Wellness, Self-Care, Stress, Tip of the Month, bodywork, self-massage | 2 Comments »

Tip of the Month: Techniques for Self Massage Part 1 – In a Chair

Friday, May 28th, 2010

The warm weather often brings with it more energy and desire to be more active: we spend more time outdoors, stay up later, hike in nature or around the city, dance more, bike more, etc. So it’s not unusual for our muscles to get fatigued and for our joints to cry out for attention, especially in these months when we are still transitioning into our full summer swing. There is nothing like a professional bodywork session for helping your body relax and rebalance, especially when dealing with injury or chronic pain, but there is a lot you can do for yourself to encourage release and relief at any given moment of the day.

More often than not it is when we finally get a moment to sit that we feel the strain, and many of us find ourselves at a desk for hours at a time, so here are some ideas for self-massage that you can do seated in a chair.

SELF MASSAGE, SEATED IN A CHAIR:

1.    For shoulders, neck and back: keep your feet flat on the floor and open your legs so there is a foot or more between your knees. Now let your upper body hang over your legs, with your head completely released to the floor. Breath deeply into your back. Then interlace your fingers and bring the hands to the back of your neck. Use the heels of the palms to gently squeeze up and down the neck, in a nutcracker fashion, then release the fingers and use the palms to slide down the neck, as if you were wiping water or lotion off your neck and down along the back of your skull towards the floor.

2.    For sore hips, thighs and feet: sit up and cross your right heel over your left thigh, just above the knee. Let your back relax back down for a moment and breath into the hip stretch. As much as possible, aim to keep both sitz bones even on the chair. Now sit up again and place the outer edge of your right forearm on your right thigh (your thumb should point up). Lean into the thigh and as you do so roll the forearm so that the palm comes to face up. Continue rolling up and down the thigh with the forearm, using your weight to create the pressure and thinking of moving the flesh away from the crease of the hip. You can also use your elbow to get deeper pressure: place the forearm on the thigh and as you drop your weight bend the arm so that the elbow drops into the thigh. Finally, use both hands to massage the feet – try using the knuckles or tapping with a fist so that you don’t fatigue your fingers. Use the hands to pull the toes in, push them away, spread them apart. Now release the right leg, shake it out, and repeat with the left leg folder over the right.

3.    For shins, ankles and feet: sitting up straight with your shoes off, use the heel of your right foot to rub the point at the top of your inner left shin, just below the knee. Rub this point for a few moments, then continue down along the inner shin, making sure the heel is between the bone and the muscle and not on the bone. Spend a few more moments and the point between the inner ankle and heel. Now cross the heel over and use it to rub up and down the out shin a few time. From here, continue down the top of the foot and spend a few moments at the point between the big toe and the second toe. Repeat on the other side.

4.    For fatigue, headaches and stress: sitting up, use the fingers of both hands (except the thumbs) to tap along the breastbone, up and down a few times. The taps are quick and light. Then allow the hands to split and travel along their respective clavicle, tapping just below the bone. Continue around to the back of the shoulders, up the neck, up the back of the head, spending as much time as you like on the head and covering the entire scalp. Continue to the forehead, tapping more gently now that you are on the sensitive face. Tap the temples, the jaw, the cheeks, the chin. When you finish, relax the arms, close your eyes and breath deeply for at least three breaths.

5.    For aching shoulders: Make a light fist with both hands, keeping the thumb free. Throw the right fist over the left shoulder to create a light pounding sensation along the back of the shoulder, then throw the left fist over the right shoulder. Use the momentum of the throw rather than any muscular effort to pound on your shoulders. Alternate sides and continue for as long as you like.

6.    For a sore low back: use the same light fists from the above exercise to rub your low back in a circular motion. Then play with different placements of the fist and different strokes – try using the knuckles to rub up and down, for example. Rub briskly to create heat, and make sure you breath as you do this. Stop well before you fatigue your arms.

Did you enjoy this tip? Did all this talk of massage make you realize that you’re due for a more serious tune up? Mention this tip and get 20% off a bodywork session through the end of June. As always, feel free to email me with any questions or comments, and if you’d like to work on creating a repertoire of stretches and exercises that are specific to your needs I am available for private sessions at super reasonable prices.  XO Ophra

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Posted in Chronic Pain, Foot Care, Massage, Mind Body Wellness, Self-Care, Stress, Stretching, Tip of the Month, bodywork | No Comments »

Morning Stretches Part 2

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

This is the second part of the February newsletter tip about creating a short, sweet, and pleasurable routine of morning stretches. Part one includes not only some excellent morning stretches, but also crucial information and suggestions about stretching in general and how to go about making morning stretches part of your daily routine. As promised, this post offers up a few more ideas for gentle and effective stretches for waking up and releasing achy bones and muscles in the AM.

MORNING STRETCHES:

1. Rocking the knees: lie on your back with the feet flat on the floor at a comfortable distance from your sits bones (aka, the bony protrusions on the bottom of your butt ; ). Rock the knees from side to side, letting gravity do the work of dropping the knees, exhaling as the knees drop to one side and inhaling to float them back up to center. Then try letting one knee drop and the other follow. You can do this without coordinating the breath, as long as you are aware of breathing.

2.Spine Stretch: sit down on the floor or a mat with your feet a comfortable distance ahead of you, soles of the feet touching (give yourself at least a foot and a half between the heels and the pubic bone). Bring your awareness to your sits bones and feel them rooting into the floor. Allow the weight of your head to begin to drop down towards the feet, as low as it can go keeping the sits bones rooted to the floor. Breath deeply. Once you’ve relaxed in center, continue by twisting gently to face one knee, then the other, all the while keeping the sits bones evenly rooted into the floor.

3. Cat/Cow: on all fours, with your wrists directly below your shoulders and your knees below your hips, take a moment to locate the top of your spine at the roof of the mouth and the bottom of the spine at the tailbone. Then, on an inhale, think of stretching the two ends of the spine away from one another and up towards the ceiling, creating a long, supported arch in your back – make sure not to over-arch into the low back or the neck. On an exhale, stretch to the two ends of the spine away from one another and then down towards the floor, creating a deeply rounded back. Repeat this movement, arching on the inhale, rounding on the exhale.

Did you enjoy this tip? There’s more! All the past tips are the Force and Flow Blog, so you can always refer to them when looking for something good to do for yourself. And if you have a friend whom you think would benefit from these tips, forward them the link to this blog or tell them to join the mailing list for tips, special offers and more by emailing ophra(at)forceandflow(dot)com. As always, feel free to email me with any questions or comments. And if you’d like to work on creating a repertoire of stretches that are specific to your needs, mention this tip to receive $10 off a private session.

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Tip of the Month: Morning Stretches

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

(Originally included in the Force and Flow newsletter, 2/5/10)

GETTING UP IN THE MORNING CAN BE HARD, I know : ) Especially when your body is still exhausted from the previous day and is about to get thrown out into the cold for another day of running around. Once we get going, it’s hard to stop, and without a chance to shake off the previous day’s tensions, we often end up carrying them with us into the next. No wonder we get increasingly tired and achy! There’s nothing like sleep for resetting the body and mind, but usually our NYC lives don’t allow us extra hours of sleep to account for the season (never mind the emotional weather patterns moving through us!) Taking a moment before the rush to gently stretch is another way of resetting, a chance to tune in with the body and help ease it into the day ahead.

A WORD ABOUT STRETCHING: There are many ways to stretch. But first thing in the morning, I tend to avoid deep, long static stretches, which are best saved for when the body is warm and energized. My morning stretches focus on loosening the joints, making space between the bones, waking up the breath and getting the circulation going. They are a way of gently tuning in with the body and asking it “what’s going on today? what needs a little attention and TLC?” The stretches below are simply suggestions – there are as many possibilities as there are people out there, so find what works best for you. As long as you are aware of breathing and keeping the joints soft, you will only be doing yourself a service.

A WORD ABOUT ROUTINE: I know, just the thought of having one more thing to do every day can be hard to bear. Sometimes even the thought of how great you will feel after isn’t enough to motivate you to do it. So here are two suggestions for fitting a little bit of stretching in every day.
1. Only commit to as much stretching as is feasible for you. You probably wouldn’t leave the house without brushing your teeth, and you probably take at least 60 seconds to do that, so another 60 seconds to stretch is not unreasonable. If you can spare three minutes, then take three minutes, and if it’s a morning where you have a lot of time and the stretching is feeling good, just keep going until you have to stop.
2. Brushing your teeth is probably automatic at this point, and ideally a few moments of stretching will soon be too. Work those sixty seconds of stretch in to your morning routine by repeating them at the same point every day: i.e. right after brushing your teeth, or right before, maybe first thing when you roll out of bed. Do this every day for five days in a row and likely on the sixth it will happen on it’s own.

MORNING STRETCHES:

1. Rolling the joints: standing up, roll through all the joints of the body gently, almost with the quality of still being asleep. Work in the range in which the movement is smooth and lubricated and avoid big snaps and cracks. Start with the head: three (or more) rolls to one direction, then three to the other. Repeat this with the shoulders, elbows, wrists, ribs, hips, knees and ankles. Stretch your arms above your head, yawn, shake the whole body out and repeat if you so please.

2.Child’s pose/kneeling: sit back on your heels and relax the upper body forward over the knees, reaching the arms ahead or allowing them to rest to the side of the body. Keep the toes together but spread the knees apart so that the belly can relax down easily. Breath deeply, using your breath to open up the back of the body – with every inhale, expand into the spaces between the ribs, the shoulders, the neck, the low back. After a few breaths, come up on all fours on an inhale, bringing the wrists right below the shoulders, and circle around the wrists, a few times to either direction. Push back to child’s pose on an exhale, and now repeat the movement from child’s pose to all fours, inhaling to come up and exhaling to push back. Repeat the wrists circles, if you like, take an extra moment to breath in child’s pose if that feels good, for those who know it, you can throw in a gentle cat cow on all fours.

3. Lay on your back and pull the knees in to your belly, placing your hands on your knees. Pull the knees in and out gently a few times, making sure to keep the breath moving, then begin to circling the knees- both knees circle out (away from center and one another) on an inhale, and back in on an exhale. Reverse.

4. Lay on your back with the knees bent and feet on the floor. Rock the knees gently from side to side, allowing gravity to do the work of dropping the knees down. You can try exhaling to drop the knees to one side and inhaling as they return to center – this is just a suggestion, as long as you’re conscious of breathing, do what feels best. If you feel comfortable, allow the head to join in and roll from side to side – play with rolling the head to the same direction as the knees, and opposite them. And for extra credit, roll the arms in and out simultaneously.

MORE STRETCHES IN THE NEXT NEWSLETTER… Meanwhile, feel free to email me with any questions or comments. And if you’d like to work on creating a repertoire of stretches that are specific to your needs, mention this tip to receive $10 off a private session.
XO Ophra

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Posted in Mind Body Wellness, Self-Care, Stress, Stretching, Tip of the Month | 4 Comments »

Tip of the Month: Getting More Out of Your Stretching (10/09)

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

(Originally included in the Force and Flow newsletter, 10/25/09)

This month’s tip is a quick and easy way to focus your intention while stretching in order to gain more length, alignment and strength. The “secret”, so to speak, is to visualize how you are stretching your bones as opposed to thinking about stretching the muscles.

For example, an excellent way to stretch your hamstrings and lower back (your entire spine, in fact) is to sit with your feet flat against a wall, legs extended, and relax your head and torso towards the legs. Breath deeply and as you exhale, think of stretching your heels towards the wall while extending your sits bones down into the floor and away from the heels. Visualize the length of the shin bone from ankle to knee and the length of the femur from knee to hip socket; feel how the femur can traction away from the hip socket as the heel stretches into the wall. This is a good stretch to hang out in for anywhere from 2-5 minutes, and you can flip this same position into a different plane of movement by coming on to your feet and allowing gravity to assist in stretching the spine, skull, and ribs towards the floor, even as the heels continue to lengthen down and the sit bones to reach up and away from the heels.

Consider that the function of the bones is to bear weight, whereas the function of the muscles is to move and support the bones. So if you focus on stretching your bones, the correlating muscles will necessarily respond, and your ability to carry your own weight in an elongated position will increase. If you stretch your muscles without any consideration of how the elongation is affecting your bones you may find some temporary relief from tension, but you’re likely to be missing out on the greater benefit of the stretch.

Feel free to email me with any questions you might have, or come by to the Open House this Wedensday eve and have your questions answered in person. If you enjoyed this tip and would like more stretches and hints on how to make them work better for you, I am available for private sessions at super affordable rates. You might also consider experiencing having your bones, muscles and joints opened and elongated while you rest on your back in a Thai Bodywork session : )

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Posted in Mind Body Wellness, Self-Care, Stretching, Tip of the Month | 1 Comment »