Gentle Stretching for Seniors, Beginner Exercisers

Hey there, April of Yes2Next here with my mom Aiko. Hi. Today we're going to talk about stretching. Now stretching is really important for your overall fitness and health. One, it can increase your flexibility, so just making it easier for you to do daily activities. Two, can help increase circulation within your body, so getting more blood to your muscles, which can help reduce soreness and help with recovery time. And it can also help improve your posture, so if you're more flexible, you're able to stand upright more easily. And lastly, it can just make you feel good. It can help reduce stress, the breathing is very calming, and can just calm your mind. So I stretch every day. I stretch in the morning, I stretch before and after I work out, and also before I go to sleep. It really makes me feel good. How about you, mom? When you're stretching, how does it make you feel? Well, I start the day, usually to get started, I'll stretch in the morning. And after I work out, I usually stretch. It just makes you feel good, get your body warmed up. All right. So today's gentle stretching session can be done any time of day. And you can do it in conjunction with the Yes to Next warm-up video, or with any of our videos. And you can do this one either seated or standing. If you are standing, you may want to have a chair handy just in case for stability in some cases. And you can also do it either with or without shoes. I'm going to do mine and bear in socks. And you know, if you need more, I have shoes. Yeah, if you need more stability for your feet, feel free to lace up and put your shoes on. All right. So we're just going to start with some easy, gentle inhales and exhales. All right. So here we go. And we're going to inhale up and exhale down. Nice. Inhale up and exhale down. Very nice. Very slow movements. Inhale up and exhale down. And one more. Inhale up and exhale down. Very nice. Okay. We're going to our head with some head tilts going this way. Okay, so we're going to tilt it this way to our right here. Hey, and breathe and come back to center and tilt the other way and breathe. Feel nice stretch in your neck and come up. All right. And now we're going to look that way to our right. Look, feel nice stretch, breathe and center. And this way, look to our left and center. Great. And then we're going to look up and center and look down and center. Stretch out those neck muscles. Very nice. All right. So we're going to go into some shoulder rolls. You know those, right? I'm just going to roll it back. Okay. Let's roll it back for four. Here we go. One in real slow motion to open up that shoulder and breathe three and four. Let's reverse it forward. Here we go. One. Good. And breathe two, three, and four. Okay. So next progression is, is where it's just going to do some big arm circles, but we're going to alternate it. Okay. So we're going to start with this arm. We're just going to do a big circle to the back. It's one and we're going to alternate it. Big circle to the back. Okay. Let's do four on each side. So here we go. This is four and breathe. Open up that shoulder. Good. Three. Yes. And three. Breathe. This is two. Okay. And you just go to whatever height is comfortable for you. Okay. But make sure you breathe. And one more. And one. Very nice. Take a breath. Very nice. Okay. Our next move, we're going to, if you're standing, feet hip distance apart, and we're just going to swing our arms like this side to side. Okay. Swing side to side. Just make it really relaxed. I just want you to just feel like your arms are just like noodles. Okay. Noodles. Yeah. Right. So we're, we're doing some rotational movement here. Warming up our spine, warming up our abs. Let's do eight more from here. So eight. Good. Seven. Breathe. Six. Five. More. Three. Good. Two. And one. Very nice. Okay. All right. So our next move, we're just going to work our arms and our shoulders here. So we're going to bring our arms up center. We're going to lace our fingers. So we're going to inhale. We're going to exhale, pushing it down. Then we're going to inhale. Bring those arms up and hold. Breathe and come down. Okay. There we go. So we're going to do four of these. So bring your arms up. Lace your fingers. Exhale. Push down and inhale. Come up and hold and come down. Nice. Okay. Two more times. Bring that up. Lace your fingers. Press down. Press, press, press down. Inhale up and exhale down. And let's do one more of those. Okay. So bring it up. Interlace your fingers. Press down. Exhale. Inhale up and hold. Feel that stretch. Uh-huh. And come down. Very nice. Yes. It opens things up. Okay. And from here, we're going to go into a nice, easy side stretch. So let's go this way. Okay. So this arm up and stretch. Yes. I hear you. Okay. And come down. I want you to stretch. You want to stretch too. Watch your two shoelaces. Okay. And stretch on the other side. Ah, breathe. Very nice. Okay. Let's do it one more time. Okay. So this side and stretch. Feel this nice stretch on your side and center. And one more. And stretch. Okay. Very nice. Okay. All right. Our next move, we're going to, one arm's going to be up and down. So it's going to look like this. We're going to bring our arms to center just like that again. And we're going to press one hand down and we're going to press the other arm up. I want you to really press down and up. Okay. And breathe. Hold it here. Breathe. Two more breaths. Inhale. Inhale. And exhale. Okay. Bring back back to center. Now we're going to do the other arm. Okay. So press it down and press up. Okay. Press, press, press. And hold. Three breaths. That's one. Two. Inhale. One more. And three. Very nice. Okay. Very good. All right. Okay. So our next move, we're going to start to focus on the lower body now. So you're going to do some hip circles. So I want you to put your hands behind your back, your lower back, some support. Okay. And all we're going to do, slight bend in the knees, we're going to do some hip circles. Move those hips in a circle. Okay. All right. That's right. Okay. And if you're seated, you can do that. You keep going, Mom. You can keep doing that. Just do it in a circle. Just move in a circle like that. Okay. Just keep moving. Nice. Nice. All right. Okay. So let's reverse it to the other direction. Okay. Here we go. Going this way. Nice, big circles. Open up those hips. Real gentle and slow. Okay. Gentle and slow. Very nice. Okay. Oh, I felt a little click in there. Feel a little click? All right. Okay. And rest. Okay. So our next move, we're just going to do some hamstring stretches. Okay. So we've done these before. We have our, putting our leg out straight. Okay. Toe up. Other leg bent and reaching for that toe. Feel a nice stretch in that back of that leg. Yeah. You don't have to touch your toe. And again, you can do this while you're seated as well. I feel it. Uh-huh. Very nice. Okay. Let's do the other side. Here we go. So other foot up, toe up, and reach for that toe. Very nice. And breathe. Breathe. Very good. Okay. And come back. Okay. Good job. All right. So our next move is just, it's a forward fold. So I want, if you're standing, feet, hips distance apart, slight bend in those knees. And I want you to put your hands on your thighs. Okay. Okay. I want you to follow your hands all the way down your legs as far as you can. And just, just hang there. Be like a ragdoll. Move your hands around much like that. Okay. Same. Yeah. Good. And then come up very slowly. One vertebra at a time. And up. And you want to stretch with us. Are you critiquing our performance? Now I'm going to do it while you're, while you're seated too. Okay. So let's do this again. You do it standing mom. Okay. So if you're seated, hands on your thighs and just follow your hands down your legs and just roll down and just hang out there. You should feel nice stretch in your lower back perhaps. Yeah. Your legs. Your legs. Yeah. Okay. So come up slowly. One vertebra at a time. Very slowly. Very slowly. And up. Okay. Very nice. Okay. Okay. So our next move, he's very vocal today. This is, you know, we've done these heel raises, right? Heel raises, but we're going to incorporate our arms. Okay. So we're going to go raise the heels and bring those arms back. Okay. Back and raise the heels. Yep. Just like that. Breathe. Okay. Breathe. Okay. Let's do four more like this. Okay. Four, three, two, and one. Take a breath because we're going to do that same thing, but we're doing a little bit faster. Okay. All right. Here we go. Cause this is our home stretch of the stretching. Okay. So here we go. Let's do it faster. So one, good. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Good. And rest. Take a breath. All right. So our last move we're going to do are, um, some ankle, some ankle work. So if you're standing, you may want to have the chair handy for this one. So let's start with this leg. Okay. So we're going to lift our leg up, bend knee. We're just going to point and flex our toe. Point and flex. Yep. Working that ankle. Also give your calf some love too. Okay. And one more. And let's do some circles this direction. Okay. Or you pick your direction. It doesn't matter. I'm glad you said that. Four, three, two, and one. And let's go this direction. Four, three, two, and one. Very nice. Okay. Let's switch legs. If you're standing, just weight shift. Slight bend in that knee. Okay. Yep. And then we're going to point and flex. Point and flex. Good. Point and flex. Two more. Flex, point and flex. Okay. We're gonna do those circles. One direction. One, good. For five, three, four, and five. Let's go the opposite direction. Here we go. One, five, four, three, two, and one. And rest. Okay. All right. Very nice. How you feel, mom? Very good. I think I grew two inches. Good. I feel like much more open. Yes. All right. Well, thank you for doing this gentle stretching session with us. We hope that you feel more flexible too. So thank you for joining us. We look forward to seeing you in a future workout. And in the meantime, keep moving, breathing, and stretching. See you soon.