There are a lot of different ways you can make your lifestyle healthier, but one of the most accessible changes that everyone can benefit from is doing a little more stretching.
This is especially important as you get older, when your mobility and flexibility can deteriorate, but also for anyone who spends a lot of their working day sitting at a desk. Taking a little time to unlock those tight muscles is a great way to protect your long-term health.
If you’re not sure where to start, a holistic stretching routine like this 12-minute session from fitness trainer Maddie Lymburner, who goes by MadFit on YouTube, is perfect.
In the video, Lymburner guides you through a series of stretches to target muscles all over the body, and you don’t need any equipment to do it, though rolling out one of the best yoga mats will make the floor moves more comfortable.
Watch MadFit’s 12-minute stretching workout
The 12 minutes are broken up into 60-second chunks by a timer in the corner of the screen, and for each of those, you’ll be focusing on one area of the body. Sometimes you do one dynamic stretch or hold one pose for the full minute, while at other times, you might move through a couple of moves in the time.
Throughout the routine, Lymburner provides useful advice on how to engage the right muscles with each move, as well as demonstrating them, so make sure you can see and hear your screen when doing the routine.
There’s no bad time to do this stretching session during the day. You can do it as soon as you wake up to prime your body for the day ahead, or last thing at night to ease tight muscles before bed.
For me, the best time to do it, if you can, is during the working day to break up long spells of sitting still at your desk. This might be tricky if you’re in the office, of course, but if you can add some stretching to your day, it will feel amazing — maybe next time your fitness tracker buzzes at you to say you’ve been stationary for too long, you commit to this stretching workout instead of a short walk.
Anyone can do it, but some moves will feel harder than others, depending on your current level of flexibility. As a runner, I have nightmarishly tight hips and hamstrings, so it’s hard to get into the right position for moves like the lying glute stretch.
In that situation, give it your best shot and, most importantly, try to find a position where you feel the stretch in the target muscles. Even if you can’t mimic Lymburner’s exact position, you can still get the same benefits by stretching the right areas.
Along with carving out some time to look after your body, doing this routine daily is also great for giving your mind a break from the daily grind, because you can focus completely on the stretches for a short period.
Aside from a small time investment, there’s no drawback to making stretching part of your daily routine, so give this workout a go, or, if you want something more directly focused on combating the effects of sitting, you could try these four hip stretches recommended by a fitness coach.
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