Building stretching into your daily routine is one of the easiest and most rewarding ways to keep healthy. If you’re one of the millions of people working in an office, or who has a sedentary lifestyle, a daily stretch could prove vital. Stretching doesn’t just increase flexibility and prepare your body for sport or a hike, it improves circulation, alleviates and prevents pain after being curled up over the keyboard all day, provides stress relief, gets your brain working again, builds up your muscles and helps with balance and coordination.
Prolonged sitting can lead to obesity and heart disease (and a super groggy brain). Moving around and stretching a few times a day (or, ideally, moving four minutes in every hour, and standing for an extra 16 minutes) is really important. There are also stretch routines you can do to help yourself sleep better and specific stretches for relieving neck and shoulder tension, back pain and even headaches.
The great thing about stretching is you can do it on the spot, with no equipment or special clothing required. Try out some of these popular stretching and exercise channels, each with different goals and focus. In a lot of cases, the stretching channels include other fitness workouts as well, should you chose to follow a stretch with some exercise.
1. Five and 10-minute stretches
Jessica Smith is a sensitive trainer with a positive vibe who has created a number of fitness programs aimed to get beginners walking, through keeping the sporty-types strong. She has produced stretching videos that are easy to follow, can be done by almost anyone, and are quite short. Among those videos are the ten-minute total body stretch, and the eight-minute towel stretch, below.
2. Stretches for pain relief
HaASfit is brilliant — all of their hundreds of videos include two instructors — one demonstrating for those with experience or who are more fit, and one for beginners. Their workout videos include goals, countdown clocks and a calories-burnt clock. As part of their collection, they have a number of stretch routine videos, including stretching for wrist pain relief and the neck pain relief exercises below.
3. Intense flexibility stretches
FitnessBlender has over 4 million subscribers because their videos are professional, informative, easy to follow and no-nonsense (no hyped-up titles promising impossible things). Their flexibility series includes a three-day challenge, with 20 to 30-minute videos that will help you increase your range and motion.
4. Yoga stretches
Actress and yoga instructor Adriene Mishler takes a chilled approach with a bit of humor as she guides you through a range of yoga routines. Her playlists include 22 videos of yoga for weight loss, 38 videos of yoga for busy people (10 to 15 minutes long), 14 yoga for anxiety videos, gentle yoga, yoga for beginners, seated yoga and more. She also has 30-day challenges, with a different theme each day. Because people with physical disabilities are often left out of stretching and exercising videos, we’ve included one of her yoga videos below that is designed for people who are seated in a wheelchair or chair.
5. Yoga for seniors and for people who hate workouts
Dr. Melissa West focuses on seniors and people who don’t want to do yoga as a form of fitness training. She explains each move in detail, has some of her routines translated into other languages and has videos aimed at various levels, including some for children. A lot of her videos go for an hour or more, with stretch series that are aimed at full pain treatment or relief, mindfulness, flow and restoration, emotional balance and more. The video below focuses on letting go of emotional control and includes yoga positions like banana pose, plank pose and Apanasana.
6. Stretching for athletes
Jeff Cavaliere is a pro-athlete trainer and physical therapist. His videos are the place to go for stretching tips targeted at more serious trainers and at specific parts of the body, and his videos address areas such as mid-back stretches, the hamstring stretch to avoid, stretches to fix your shoulders, chest stretches and more. The video below shows you how to stretch your triceps, and what to not to do as well.
7. Super short stretches
Lastly, Bowflex presents this series of 14 routines lasting one to six minutes. The stretches can be done before or after a workout, or as a quick break while working. The video below is a routine that lasts less than two minutes but is a great way to loosen your muscles and get started for the day.
Do you have any stretching videos that you would recommend?
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