Stretching by Picture

Lana and Beth both asked what specific stretches I do for running…

Here are the stretches that I do, in the medium of photography and bestowed with my own personal titles:

This is the Figure Four.  This stretch and the following one are the two that I do the most.  The FF is great for piriformis.  and for wrestling.

Just ignore my face, the double chins, the rolls, and focus on the stretch.  Focus, people.

This is the Upside Down Splits, a great stretch for your hamstrings.  These two stretches I do about 3 times on each leg.

This is also known as the Jane Fonda because this is how I imagine her doing aerobics back in the day.  You should feel it in your hamstrings; if not, you’ve got issues.

Another piriformis stretch that the PT recommended is the Black Eye by Knee:

You pull your leg across your body to stretch out your hip muscles.  These three stretches were recommended by the PT for piriformis and hamstring tightness.

These following stretches are ones I’ve made up on my own to do:

The What is this Flab Hanging off my Inner Thigh?! targets your inner thigh especially when you keep your toes pointed up.

The Pelvic Tiltawhirl is where you get in a lunge position but push your pelvis forward to stretch all those hip muscles.

After the Pelvic Tiltawhirl I lower down into the Tight Jeans Ripper and eventually lower down until my knee touches the ground.

The last stretch is the VPL, the visible panty line, because with this stretch if you have them, you’re showing the world exactly what kind of underwear you wear.  The VPL stretches your lower back and if you pull your toes upward it will stretch the calves.

Those are the main stretches I do for my hips.  I also do a few others to stretch my upper body, hamstrings, etc but those ones are specific to the hip area where I’ve had my injuries.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**If you haven’t, you better enter my Chocomize giveaway now because I’ll be announcing the winner this afternoon.  To keep things fair I’ll be using a random number generator.  and accepting cash bribes.

Tagged as: injuries/physical therapy, stretching