6 Stretches To Do First Thing In The Morning, According To Experts

These days, many of us are sitting more and going out less than usual (rightfully and responsibly), so it’s no surprise that we’re feeling stiffer and less flexible.Whether it’s sitting at a desk, on the couch or at the kitchen table, sitting all day can have serious consequences for our health.

People are sitting in all sorts of strange positions simply because they have to adapt to these new work from home scenarios.We see a lot of injuries due to posture that we rarely saw before.

Starting the day with some stretching exercises is an ideal way to relieve stress and alleviate the aches and pains caused by a sedentary lifestyle that many people are familiar with.

Continuous stretching has many benefits, including improved athletic performance, faster recovery, stress relief and pain relief.When you reach a certain level of flexibility, you’re prone to all sorts of musculoskeletal problems – problems you might not even think of as being related to stretching, such as cramps, neuralgia, and spasms.

Below, experts share the best stretches to do in the morning after your alarm goes off:

Start your day with an open-book stretch.

Sprague advises her patients to start their day with an open-roll stretch, which opens the spine and the front of the shoulders while increasing spinal mobility.This is especially helpful before hunching over to type, text, or sit at work all day.

In order to perform this stretch, you need to lie on your side – you can do this in bed – and bend your knees so that they are at about a 90-degree angle.

Then, you place your arms straight on the bed, open your upper arms and twist your upper body away from your lower arms while looking at your hands.This is basically a twist of the upper spine.You hold this position for a few seconds and then return to neutral.

Open book stretches should be repeated on the left and right sides of the body.

Straighten your arms and raise them above your head.

Kelly Roberts Lane, owner of Fix It Physical Therapy in Minnesota, says stretching helps keep the body flexible, especially after prolonged periods of being still or lying down, when our tissues become tight.She recommends a simple stretch in the morning, usually at the end of a high-intensity kinetic cycling class or high-intensity interval training.

Reach your arms above your head and lift your head.Then, roll your spine down one vertebrae until it touches your toes or as close to them as possible.Let your head drop.Straighten one knee, then the other to stretch the hamstrings more deeply.

It is important to hold this position for a few moments before rolling back up and repeating three times.

Try a seated stretch that can be effective in relieving back pain.

The two most important areas to focus on in the morning due to poor sleeping positions are the back and neck, Brannigan said.

“Sleeping on your side can easily lead to a tilted spine if you don’t use the right pillow – and sleeping face down puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the lumbar spine because it compresses the lower back.

For back pain relief, Brannigan recommends Stretch*d’s Twist & Dipp*r stretch, a seated movement in which you place your hands behind your head, twist your torso in one direction as far as you can, and then lower your elbows toward your knees.This stretch should be held for two seconds and repeated 10 times on each side.

This stretch targets the psoas square, a deep abdominal muscle that often causes back pain.

Stretch your neck after a night’s sleep.

One of Brannigan’s favorite morning stretches is the “maybe,” a simple stretch that focuses on the neck.

To do this, place your arms over your head and place your hands over your ears.Then, gently push your head toward your bent elbow, hold the stretch for two seconds, and return to neutral.Repeat this movement 10 times on each side.

Complete the back quad stretch.

You may remember this stretch from gym class when you were a kid.Sprague likes to do a variation of this stretch at the beginning of the day.

You’ll want to bend your knees, for example, crossing your left ankle over your right knee and grabbing the back of your right knee.

Once you’re in position, push your left knee with your left elbow so that your body is in a figure four.This move stretches the pyriformis muscle in the calf, which Sprague says is tight in many people who sit all day.

This figure-four stretch directly releases tension throughout the lower back and gluteal muscles.

Stretch out on the edge of the bed.

When stretching your body after a night’s rest, a variation of the figure-of-four stretch is crucial.Roberts Lane suggests a quick stretch, which is another variation of an effective exercise.

As you sit on the edge of the bed, place one heel on the other knee.You can lean forward or put a little pressure on your knee for a deeper stretch.Repeat this on the other side.

This movement helps to open and stretch the hips.For added exercise, you may choose to rotate your ankles as you perform this stretch.You may even want to repeat it several times throughout the day.

It’s a good idea to get up from your desk every hour or two and do a few stretches to keep your tissues flexible.

Roberts Lane emphasizes the importance of daily stretching exercises, especially considering that many people are sitting more than they were a year ago.Regular stretching doesn’t require a huge time commitment – just five minutes – but the results make a big difference.