Best Stretches After Sitting All Day

If you've been sitting on your butt, on the couch, or at the office all day long, then I have the perfect stretches for you. Hey there, I'm Coach Tyler with WeShape, and I'm making this video for all of you who are stuck sitting for your job all day long. In fact, you're probably sitting watching this video right now. And you see, when you're sitting all day long, and when you do that day after day, some pretty intense things can start happening to your body. Things like weakening of your legs and your glute muscles, weight gain, tight hips, a bad back, stiff shoulders and neck. I know this may sound strange, but lots of sitting is even a risk factor with things like anxiety and depression, and even heart disease. Now, I'm not trying to scare you with that list. And please know that there are many factors that contribute to you feeling worse in your body. However, one thing is for certain, sitting doesn't help. Now, that being said, even though sitting tightens up your hip flexors and often puts a lot of strain on your posture, upper back and neck, there are two stretches that you can do to really help loosen up your body and combat the negative effects of sitting so you can start feeling better again. So, let's dive into each of those stretches right now, and I'll show you how to do them properly so you can get the best results possible. Real quick, if you're enjoying this video, please give us a like and subscribe so you can check out our weekly video releases. Let's head on over to the next stretch. One of the best stretches I've ever found to combat the effects of sitting all day is a kneeling hip flexor stretch. And the reason why is because when we sit like this, our hip flexors, which run from our thighs up into our core, get really short. And so you have to stretch this muscle if you sit a lot in order to open the hips and loosen up the lower back at the same time. So, you're going to come into a kneeling position on a nice mat or soft surface. Really important to put a pillow or a rolled up towel under your back knee. You shouldn't experience any discomfort from just this kneeling position like this. And if you need to, you can do this next to a wall or a chair for support with your balance. But what you're going to do is start in a kneeling position, and the width of your stance is going to vary depending on how flexible you are. So, a good place to start is just where you have about a 90-degree bend in the front leg. Now, from there, you're going to take your hips, and I want you to make sure that they're turned forward like this. A really common mistake people make in the hip flexor stretch is they open their hips as they go down, and that starts to target more of the groin than the hip flexor. So, keep the hips nice and forward. Now, the next thing is this hip here and this hip here, you want to make sure they're the same height. So, if I'm real high on my left side and I'm real low on my left side, I want to think about dropping that left hip and getting myself into that square center. So, everything's forward, everything's balanced from side to side like this. From there, you're going to want to just relax as you let your hips sink towards your heel, and imagine that from this knee to your back knee is as long as possible. The more length you can imagine in your mind, the more your body will allow that length to happen. So, slowly creep that front foot forward, breathe, and relax as you go deeper. Now, if you find a spot where you get a good stretch through the front side of your hip, that's your hip flexor. In this position, you can try to squeeze your glutes, tighten up your legs a little bit, almost like you're trying to stand up from a lunge, and then relax all the muscles, and you'll find you can go a little bit deeper every time you do that. Now, hold this position anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds, and then slowly come out of that position and switch sides, and hold the hip flexor stretch on the other side. When you do this, especially if you do this three, four, five days a week, all of a sudden your hips are going to feel a lot looser, any lower back pain you might have might lessen or completely be eliminated, and you're going to feel a lot better in your body again. So, make sure to practice the kneeling hip flexor stretch. If you like these exercises and the detail we provide to help you move better and feel better, then I bet you'll really love the personalized at-home workouts that we send to our members over at WeShape. You can give your first one a shot for free by clicking the link below or going to WeShape.com. All you have to do is tell us your goals and current capabilities, and we'll create a free personalized follow-along workout just for you. One of my favorite stretches for loosening up both your hip flexors, your spine, improving your posture, and opening your chest is called the camel stretch. So, I'm going to show you how to do it right now, and I'll show you how to do it nice and safely so you can slowly work your way back into a more and more difficult position, okay? So, this is great for combating sitting all day, hours and hours of sitting, making those hip flexors tight, and making those shoulders round forward like this. We want to open everything up instead and really create a lot of flexibility in the chest and the shoulders, okay? So, you're going to start in a kneeling position, and make sure you're kneeling on something really soft. You should have no discomfort in your knees. From this position, you can start by just putting your hands on the tops of your glutes, with your fingertips pointing downward. You're going to squeeze your butt muscles, so when you tap on them, it should be nice and hard. You're going to look up at the sky and lift your chest toward the sky, and try to pull your shoulder blades back like this, okay? Hold this position, take a deep breath, and then you can try to like lean back and lift the chest a little bit more. Now, the big thing in this position is I don't want you to think about leaning backwards like this. What you want to think about is lifting your chest toward the sky, not bringing your shoulder blades toward the ground. Now, if this feels pretty easy for you, you can hold this position for about 30 seconds. You can start to walk your hands down your thighs. Maybe you have them on the backs of your thighs, and you can keep lifting and lifting a little bit more. Maybe you can get to the point where you start putting your hands down your ankles, or your calves like this, and you're squeezing your glutes, trying to drive your hips forward, and you lift your chest like this. And eventually, you might be able to grab your heels on both sides like this, and continue pressing your hips forward, lifting your chest, and letting your shoulders open backwards. Now, that's definitely a more advanced variation that requires a lot of flexibility, but it all starts with you practicing with your fingertips pointing downward, squeezing your glutes, and lifting your chest just like this. You can practice this exercise for 30 seconds to a minute, either three, four, five days a week, or if you really want to, you can do it every single day to help loosen up those hip flexors, improve your posture, open your chest and shoulders, because it's going to make you feel amazing in your body. Okay, now that you know these two awesome stretches that help balance your body from too much sitting, make sure you practice these at least three days a week, and let us know how you feel in the comments. Also, since sitting can cause back issues, if you're interested in learning how to do one of my favorite back exercises to strengthen your back and improve your posture, well, check this video out right here, and I'll show you how to do this exercise with perfect form. I'll see you there.