Holiday de-stress stretches | 30 second static holds for seniors, beginners | No twisting

Hey there, April of Yes2Next here with my mom, Aiko. Hi. This week is Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. We give thanks to you. Thank you so much for spending time with us. We really appreciate it. And just generally, we're thankful for friends, family, and just being fit, okay? So kind of think about that during the sessions about things that you're grateful for, thankful for. Okay, all right. So stretching is very important to loosen up your muscles, prevent injury, and also for flexibility and relaxation. Okay, and we thought we'd do a short stretching session this week, knowing that things could get a little crazy for some of us during the holidays, and you may need a opportunity just to kind of get away from it all. So here is our gift to you this week. So if you need it, just go to a quiet corner, close the door, and join us. All right, so you don't need any equipment for this stretching session. My mom is going to be doing it seated. Yep. You might wanna have some water handy. And stretching, you should do stretching three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes if you can. If you can't do it that long, that's okay. You can even stretch every day. It's all about just doing it, okay? And regarding stretch holds, how long you should hold the stretch, you can hold the stretch from anywhere from 10 seconds to three minutes. And, you know, yeah, that's a long time. That's a long time. Yeah. Now, research has shown that 30 seconds is an optimal time to hold a static stretch, okay? That's one that we're just kind of holding something like this, okay? But, you know, a lot of us can't hold that long. That's right. And that's okay. That's right. You should, you know, listen to your body. It's most important if you're coming out of a stretch and you're feeling pain, and that means that probably that's a little bit too long for you, okay? So you need to just, like, dial it back and just build up your stretch hold times gradually. Yeah, 10 seconds is just as good. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you can try out, we're gonna go, we're gonna do 30 second holds on the static stretches today, but just do what you can. And, you know, we have stretching videos that have shorter stretch times as well. Again, all very good to do, okay? All right, very good. Any questions? Nope, all right. Let's get stretching. That's right. Oh, yes, one more thing is before stretching, you should definitely warm up, have your muscles warmed up to prevent injury. And so you can do this session after a workout or, you know, after you just warm up, okay? All right, so take a quick pause here and we'll get started on the other side. Let's start by doing some arm circles. If you're seated, you're just gonna do the arm piece. If you're standing, I'm gonna be shifting my weight, okay? So here, let's start going to the right. Oops, sorry, right, yes. And left, good. Right and left. Two more each side. Right and left. Breathe, one more. Right and left. And let's reverse that for each side, okay? So four, four. Good, breathe. Three and three, nice. Two, two, and one more set. One and one, very nice. Take a breath. Good work. Doing some dynamic stretching, meaning movement, okay? Just to get our muscles warmed up here. Okay, this time we're gonna move our hands forward. So palms back and back. So it looks like this. Forward and back. Watch this, see? Forward and back. So forward and back, opening up the shoulder, okay? And back, give me two more. And back, and one more. And back. Ooh, we're coming into contact, how nice, okay? All right, breathe, take a breath. Good work. Let's do a side reach to the right. Okay, just going up. Just side, no twisting. Just to the side, feel that side. Open up, arms, good, and down. And reach, and down. Reach, down, give me one more. Reach, down, one more. And reach, and down. Very nice, everybody. Okay, our next one, we're gonna warm up our lower body. So if you're seated, you're cool. If you're standing, you can hold onto your mom or a chair or something like that. And we're just gonna open up our hips. And down, so stepping it out. So step it out, and in. Might remind you of our lime dance move that we just did last week. Okay, very nice. That was four, wasn't it? Okay, other side, here we go. To the left, open, good. And two, breathe, everybody. This is three, good. And four, and relax, and breathe. Okay, you can sit back in your chair a little bit. And if you're standing, you might wanna hold on your mom or your chair, because we're gonna do some point and flex with the feet. Okay, so point and flex, going for four. This is two, good. This is three, yep. Four, very nice, circles, one direction. We're going to the right here. Three, four, to the left. One, two, three, four. Very nice, good. I even felt that on my standing leg. Okay, other foot, okay? Point and flex, point and flex, point and flex, nice circles. Good. You may feel good if you didn't have your shoes on. Oh, you can do this rest without shoes. And reverse. And if you're not holding on to anything, it's really a balance move. I'm really feeling my balance challenged here. And relax. Very nice, everybody. Nice warmup. Okay, so we're going into these 30 second holds on each stretch, okay? And again, if you can't make it to 30 seconds, you start to feel pain, stop, okay? And you can build up slowly over time. All right, so here we go. Okay, let's tilt our heads to the right. Okay, very nice. Keep going, breathe. And just kind of like breathe into it. Yes, and relax. Should feel pretty good, really. Just 30 seconds is a long time. Yeah, it is a long time. And breathe. Okay, we're going to bring it to center and go to the other side. Ooh, that feels nice though. Okay, tilting it over. Nice stretch in your neck. Side muscles, very good. And you know, we're sitting at a desk a lot. You know, these kinds of stretches are great to do to loosen that neck area up. Yeah. Okay. Next move, we're going to actually look to the right. And look to your right now, okay? To your right, hold, breathe. Take a breath, okay? Don't forget to breathe. Oh yeah, you got to keep breathing. That's the whole point, yeah. No point in stretching if you ain't breathing. Have to get air to your muscles, okay? Very nice. I'm just going to look at my stopwatch here. Ooh, okay, we got another five seconds here. No cheating, okay. All right, I can cheat, okay. And come out of it, very nice. Okay, other side. I cheated. You cheated? Yeah. Well, it's kind of hard. It's hard to look at a timer and not be looking the other way. Breathe. You can need a timer all around you here. I know, I need one of those virtual timers that, you know, they have those glasses where you can have it on your face. Breathe, everybody. I want everyone to just relax. Okay, very nice. Okay, and relax. Okay, nice. Take a breath here for a minute, okay? Good work, take a breath, take a breath. And we're going to go into, we're going to look up and down for 30 seconds each, okay? All right. How are you going to see your timer? That's good, I'm going to count. Okay. Breathe, everyone. Okay. This is a long time. Looking up at the ceiling. I think that's 30. I think so. I think this certainly felt like 30. Okay, and now look down for 30. And here, just breathe and relax. You can close your eyes. Okay, just relax, breathe. Think peaceful thoughts. Yeah, it's a long time. What you're grateful for. I think that's 30. I'm going to give you three more seconds. And, okay, come on up. Okay, heads up. Very nice, okay. Relax, take a breath, okay. Okay, now we're going to do our arms, okay? So we're just going to bring our arms back. Looks like this, right? Good, okay. And if you can clasp your hands together, even better. Okay. Yeah, just do this. Yeah, just do that, right. But make sure your posture is very good, okay? So you don't want to be, your head slouching, okay? No slouching. You want to head up, shoulders back and down. Give me another 10 seconds here, okay? Yeah, just hold it, breathe. You're looking good. Five more seconds. Ah, just relax. And come out of that. Ooh, very nice, I felt that one. Okay, so our next one is going to be just arms clasped together. Okay, take a breath. We're just going to bring them over our heads, okay? So it's going to be just like this. Okay, good. So I want you to have good posture here, okay? Good, you should really feel this stretch in your lats, your arms. You feel that? Okay, give me another. Breathe. And five more seconds here. Breathe and relax. Ooh, that was nice. Okay, all right. Our next move is that arm across the chest. So if you have arms in a T, and let's bring that arm across the chest, hold. And so you notice our arms are straight here, right? You should really feel this stretch across the top of your arm here. Okay, you feel that? Yeah, oh yeah. Breathe. Even my short arms feel it. Very nice, okay. And come out of that. Okay, relax. Let's do the other side. There you go. Breathe. Good work. One side typically is tighter than the other, like my left side here is tighter. Okay. Yeah, how about you? Are they about the same? I really haven't noticed, but I will pay attention next time. Yeah, and breathe. Give me another few more seconds here, everybody. Breathe. And come on out. Very nice. Ooh, very good. Okay, take a breath, take a breath. We're gonna go into that side stretch that we did in our warmup. Just going up. Arm over the head. You can look up. Breathe. Ah, you should feel this nice stretch inside of your body. Arms. Oh, breathe. Take a breath. Nice, got another 10 seconds. Ooh, 10 seconds. Breathe. And relax. Very nice, okay. Now we have to do the other side. That's really nice for the shoulder too. Here we go. Going to the left. Okay, good work. Breathe. Close your eyes during these stretches. And just breathe. Relax into the stretch. Really feel your body open up. And just a few more seconds. You're looking good. And good. And relax, very nice. Okay, very good. Okay, now we're gonna do that hamstring stretch that we know so well. Okay, so sit at the edge of your chair or stand with that one foot straight out, leg straight, toe up to the ceiling, and reach. This is a very nice one to hold. For 30 seconds, everybody. Breathe. Take a breath. Don't fall asleep. That's at the end. And breathe. Almost there. Very nice. More seconds. And relax. Very good, okay. Other side. Okay, reach. If you're standing, you're actually working that standing leg. Just an added bonus. Just breathe. And during these stretches, I don't want you to bounce. So no bouncing, okay? You really hold it, and as you get more comfortable into the stretch, you can actually probably get into it a little bit more. That's the whole key here. Get your muscles used to being in a stretched out position. And breathe and relax. Very nice, okay? Okay. Our next move, we're just gonna do a forward fold, okay? What that looks like is hands on the thighs. Okay, and we're just gonna follow our hands down our legs, okay? And we're just gonna hang down there, okay? Just down there, just hang. If you're standing, you probably feel this in your lower back, which may feel pretty good, okay? And breathe. You can do whatever you want with your hands. Breathe. Very nice. Another 20 seconds here. I'm just gonna sink into it. Really kinda let my, stretch out my lower back. Breathe. Okay, a few more seconds. Nice, and slowly, slowly come up. Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. Follow your hands up. Don't want you to get dizzy. Okay, very nice. Okay, so to close out this gentle stretching session, we're just gonna do some gentle rainbow arms up and down, just like that, okay? Just like big circles. Alternate. And breathe, okay? So inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Relax, inhale and exhale. I'm gonna do a few more of those so you can relax. No stress here, okay? No stress. And relax. We just do two more on each side, okay? So that's one, breathe. Good, and one more. Give thanks to this gentle session and stretching your body. Very nice work. You should feel grateful for finishing that session and just getting relaxed, so thank you. We are relaxed. Yeah, so thank you for joining us. Our friends in the U.S., we wish you a peaceful and relaxing Thanksgiving with your family and friends. And for everyone outside the U.S., we're so grateful to spend time with you. So thank you so much for joining us. If you like this video, give a like, share a comment, and subscribe to our channel. We look forward to seeing you in a future video, and in the meantime, keep moving and stretching. See you soon.