Practice: Seated Stretch

Jenna Zaffino  

Hi, everyone. I'm Jenna. Welcome to your chair stretch class. We're going to be here moving through various stretches that really address our joint mobility and kind of wake us up, or perhaps give you some relaxation so you can end the day mindfully. Let's begin by finding our comfort, whether you're in a sturdy chair that can provide you with support, maybe you're sitting at the edge of your couch or on your bed, just be mindful that your feet can be grounded on the floor for a little extra balance and support, and also, as always, listen to the signals that your body is giving you. Make good choices for yourself and for the body that you have today. Alright. Let's get started. 

We’re just going to rest our hands on your thighs, allowing your shoulder blades to just come down your back, and we'll begin by just simply rocking your pelvis backwards, reaching your hands to your knees and allowing your spine to come into a round shape, just peeking down at the front of your body. And then start to roll forward, pressing your sitzs bones and your seat into the chair, sliding your hands back, and just lifting your chest and your focus as high as you like. And let's go back and forth between these two motions of our spine, just warming up any areas that feel especially tight. I wanna think of breathing in a way that feels supportive and relevant for where you are today. So if that's breaths that are more shallow, allow those breaths to be yours today. If they're deeper, allow that to be the way you breathe today. Let's go one more time to arch up into the back, lifting up a little higher, allowing your collarbones to spread wide across your chest. And then when we're ready, come back to center and just feel a sense of vertical lift through the center of your body like someone's pulling an imaginary string out of the crown of your head. 

We're gonna begin to do some neck rolls here, so begin by dropping your chin towards your throat, almost like you're trying to hold a napkin between your chin and your throat. And then from here, slowly roll your right ear towards your right shoulder, creating space on the left side of your neck. And then, we're going slow to increase and encourage some opening as we circle our head around to the ceiling. Allow your left ear to come to your left shoulder, opening up the opposite side, and then bring your chin back to your throat again, and then lift your head back to center. If you happen to get dizzy during any of these, slow it down or make them smaller. Bring your gin to your throat and let's go in the opposite way. You always have the option of choosing a different exercise that works for you, but chances are if you're having a hard time with any of the stretches, just a good idea to take it a little slower, make it a little smaller, and do something that allows you to stay with it. Good. 

Come on all the way up to the top. Let's bring our arms down by our sides. We're gonna lift the shoulders up to the ears, and then press them all the way down in your back. Feel your shoulder blades sliding along the back of your body. Think of closing the distance between your shoulders and your ears, and then opening it up wider and longer than it's ever been before. Let's do one more of these, lowering it down and then let's take these shoulder shrugs into a circle. Bring your shoulders forward, lift them to your ears, bring them backward, maybe a little squeeze between your shoulder blades and all the way down. And again, forward, upward, backward and downward. 

One more time in this direction. Now, some of these movements are so, so simple, but often, as you've heard me say before in class, the small moments matter. Let's reverse. So some of these small mobilizing exercises can make the difference between feeling really stiff as you start or finish your day, or feeling a little more circulation, a little more juice in the joints. We wanna give an equal opportunity to the small simple movements in addition to the larger more energetic ones. Let's do one more shoulder roll. All the way forward landing. Let's take your left arm up and touch either the back of your head head or in between your shoulder blades, whatever is available to you. 

We're gonna take your right arm and reach it down on the diagonal towards your left knee. We're trying to keep your chest facing front here, and then pull it back. Take that same arm, reach it across the diagonal, and bring it back. Take it a little higher on the diagonal and bring it back. Then maybe the highest you've got, all the way up on that side and bring it back. Now, let's go from top to bottom. Reach it up to the top, pull back, opening your chest, reach it a little lower, pull back, reach across your chest, and then let's go down on the diagonal towards your knee and it on the other side. Right hand comes up behind your head or in between your shoulder blades, left arm reaches across to your knee, pulling back across the chest, pulling back a little bit higher, pulling back, and then as high as you can. 

Now, if you're feeling any tension as we reach up to the high point again, explore where you might reach that feels a little bit more comfortable and possible for you. The goal with exercise is challenge, of course, but it's not challenge to the point of frustration or pain. Good. Let's release all the way down and relax. Now, we're gonna take the right arm across your chest, hook your arm at any level. If you can get higher up to your elbow, wonderful. If it has to be around your forearm, that's okay. Just gonna hang in here and then we're gonna do a little side bend aiming for the ground and coming all the way up. 

Side bend aiming for the ground and coming all the way up. You're bending your spine like it's a candy cane. All the way back to center. And more. All the way back to center. Let's release the arms, bring them to the back of your chair, whatever you're seated on, and another chest lift here just to open up the front of your rib cage and your chest. If it's possible to take a breath in here, gently do so, and then we'll recover and go to the other side. Bring your left arm across, hook it underneath, and then begin your side bend over and back to center. 

And again, we're working on stretching the side of the shoulder right through here, maybe even a little bit of the side of the arm and then also just moving our spine. Let's do one more here. Reach it over, bring it up, release, take your hands back, lift your chest up, and come back to center. Alright. Let's bring the arms down by your sides. Lift your heels up, pressing all toes into the ground, bring your arms out to a t, and then lower all the way down. Let's lift and lower, and lift and lower. Go 2 more times. 

And last one, leave those arms up to a t, press down through your heels, and let's rotate your spine any amount over to the right, passing through center and over to the left. Moving through center to go right, moving through center to go left. Good. Moving through center to go to the right again, take your left hand to your right knee, and just see if you can reach up to the sky with that other arm. Opening up that side body, maybe breathing breath into your right lung. Bring it all the way down, arms reach out to a t. Let's go to the other side all the way over. Hand to the knee, reaching up, stretching for the sky. 

Good. Coming all the way back up, back to center. Let's go back to our first movement, hands on the knees, rounding the back and hands on the knees, arching the back. Hopefully, that's feeling a little bit more open. And more time here, let's arch our back and then let's come back to center. Walk your feet out a little wider. You might have to scoot to the edge of your chair, and it's perfectly fine to hold on to the chair here. You're gonna lift the heel of your right foot and then just dial the foot inwards so you can feel a little stretch on the outer thigh. 

My chest and shoulders are facing forward and my hips are trying as best they can to face forward as I come into this stretch. Then we're gonna open the knee, place the heel down and go to the other side. Lift your heel, pivot on your foot, rotate your knee inward, come back out to the side, lower it all the way down. Good. Let's do that again. Lift the heel, rotate inward. This time, let's go ahead and turn your body, so you might have to adjust your seat a little bit. Let that knee hang downward towards the ground, your back arm is supporting you fully, and then that same arm as leg reaches up to the sky. 

As you bend towards the back of your seat, think of the distance between your fingers and your knee increasing. Feel the tension as you pull those two ends apart and the spaces in between get the stretch. Good. Let's come back to center. Lower your arm down, rotate your leg open, and come to the other side. So we're almost in a little lunge shape, reaching down through our knee, reaching up through our arm and then a big side bend over, always finding where the breath wants to support you, finding that opposition. And let's come back to center, lower the arm down, take your legs apart, bring your forearms onto your inner thighs, walk your feet wherever they'll support you most, and then think of hinging forward, folding in your hips with a nice flat back, a long spine, folding in your hips with a nice flat back, a long spine, open chest, open heart, opening those inner thighs. Good. 

From here, come back to vertical, take your hands on your knees, and we're going to round the spine over like you're taking a stretch for your back, and then move your spine in a long, flat back out to that stretch we just did a little moment ago for our inner thighs. So we're going between the rounding, pressing your back into a round shape, and then lengthening your spine out to a long shape. You really can't get this one wrong. It's meant to be really nourishing, creating lots of circulation for your spine. So do what feels right and chances are you'll get it right. Let's go one more time all the way back and all the way forward. And then come back to center, bring your legs back to the front. We're going to extend your left leg out long, sit at the edge of your chair. 

Let's lift the arms all the way overhead, fold at your hips with that same long, flat back. You can take your hands to your supporting leg, or to your knee, or to your toe if that's available for you. Pull the toes back to you. Feel even weight in both legs as much as you can, and continue to create space around your chest, your neck, and shoulders. No need to collapse here, we wanna stay really long and lengthened. From here, let's roll back up through the spine, standing your foot back. We'll take it to the other side, reaching up. Hinge forward, find the place where your hands are most comfortable, reaching all the way through. 

Breathing here, and then roll all the way up. Take one leg out to the side and you can turn the other leg out slightly. We're gonna take one hand to our bent leg and the other arm reaches over for a little inner thigh stretch, maybe we get into your hamstrings or your hips a bit. Good. Pressing ourselves upward, coming back to center, switching sides, take your right hand to your left leg and take it all the way over, Coming all the way back to center, let's bring the legs together for one final stretch. Reaching all the way up, we're gonna fold in the hips to just take a and its spine forward. You can take your hands on your knees or to the ground if you like. Take a moment of rest for yourself, breathing into the wide area of your ribs and back.

 And then from here, feel the weight press through your seat to roll all the way up through the spine. Come all the way to a seated position. Let's reach our arms forward, breathing in gently as we open the arms, breathing out as we reach forward, we'll do 3 of these. And the last one. Really great work. I wanna encourage you to try this stretch sequence or maybe one of your own that you're familiar with in the coming week ahead. The more we are consistent in our practice, the more we can adapt these different ways of feeling mobile and circulated and like movement is a bit more possible for us. So, I wish you the best of luck in the week ahead. 

Remember, you are strong and resilient, and the small moments matter. I'll see you next time.