HealthWatch-Lower back exercises
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - With the weather heating up, you might find yourself getting more exercise. But how do you loosen up your lower back and keep it in shape? YMCA group exercise coordinator Nicole Craig has some easy ideas in this week’s edition of HealthWatch.
“Hello and welcome to June’s HealthWatch. Summer is getting ready to be in full swing, so let’s make sure we take care of our lower back to get us all the way through it. Let’s start with a nice easy child’s pose. This sequence, you want to do about 30 seconds for each move, two or three times. Hands are going to be forward, knees wider than the hips, big toes together, and just sit back onto the heels as close as you’re able, thinking about bringing your chest to the floor. After about 30 seconds of that, you’re going to come up for one of my favorite moves, cat cow. We’re going to round that back and then sink that belly, trying to be a long as we can, trying to be as high as we can here. And then rounding from the top of the head all the way to the tailbone. Round and extend. After our cat cows, we’re going to flip over and lie on our back. All the way down, nice and slow and we’re just going to bring our knees into our chest. That back leg can be bent or straight, whichever feels good for you. And think about bringing the knee to the armpit. And then you’ll switch. After that, were going to go right into a figure four. One leg is down. The other ankle comes right up into that knee and you can hold here for a nice figure four or you can lift that back leg up. And try to pull or think about bringing that knee into the chest to release that lower back. Your abs are tight for all of these moves so your belly button is glued to your spine for that nice support. After that, my favorite move of all time. Hands are out to a tee, feet are down. We’re going to drop the knees to one side and look in the opposite direction. Bring the knees back up to the center and switch. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. This is Nicole Craig with HealthWatch.”
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