Stretches for the Inflexible! Complete Beginners Flexibility with Nico _ Dance, Gymnastics, Splits

Hey , everyone .

It's Nikko and today I'm going to be taking you through a complete beginners flexibility routine .

If you're someone who feels that flexibility is one of your weakest suits .

This video is for you .

So we're going to start standing on the mat and I'm going to bring my right arm up and just place it over the other side of my head and just let gravity pull me down .

This is something that you always want to keep in your mind while you're stretching is to just let gravity do all of the work .

You're not necessarily pushing yourself into anything because that can cause pain just letting your neck fall , using the weight of your right arm to pull on your neck and then we'll switch to the other side again .

You don't want to be pulling down on your neck because that could hurt you just rest it there and then we'll wrap both arms behind our head to go forward , just let it dangle every time you breathe , your muscles get more relaxed .

And finally , we'll just hang our head back , maybe shake it a little bit side to side and then we'll take one roll and then to the other side , then we'll roll our shoulders back and forward .

Bye and forward .

Then I'll step my feet out to be a little bit more than hip with the part .

And we'll play a or bend the knees to reach up and breathe and then come back down to reach up and breathe .

I'm gonna do this a few times and what we're doing here is really stretching out the whole body and letting it warm up , getting all the muscles moving before we start stretching .

And this is something that you should always , always do before you stretch .

You don't want to just start pushing your body into something it's not ready for .

If your muscles are warm , you're gonna find that the flexibility comes much easier .

Awesome job guys .

Great .

So for this next stretch , I'm gonna grab this stool behind me , but you can grab anything in your house .

That's about that height , a desk , a table or a chair , anything will work .

So if you need to grab that , go ahead and do that now .

So I'm gonna come and place my feet more than hip with the part and then we're gonna lean forward to rest our hands on this stool .

And this is just to make , getting into this stretch a lot easier .

You really want to make progress here and make sure that you're not putting too much pressure on your hands , but it's there to keep it from being too painful .

So let's hold here , make sure you're breathing , sending oxygen to your hamstrings while you stretch them and try as hard as you can to relax .

Because the more relaxed your muscles are , the more flexible they will be .

And then I will come up and we'll move it a little bit to the side so that it makes a line with my leg and then I'll come to the side in this position .

I want to make sure my hips are even .

And I'm not letting one be higher than the other .

And again , I'm breathing and then we'll come back up and move it to the other side .

And you can also be moving your body instead of the stool or chair or whatever you're using .

I'm going to breathe and back up and just one more time for good measure , we're going to come back to the center .

So I'm going to come down on my elbows here to give myself a little bit of an extra stretch .

But I only recommend doing this if you're able to keep your back flat while doing so .

And by that , I mean , it's engaged , your shoulder blades are tucked down , pulling towards your lower back and you aren't letting it arch up like this , just keeping it nice and flat should be parallel to the ground .

And if you aren't able to do that here , then come back up onto your hands and then we'll come back up to stamp .

So for this next stretch , we're going to be sitting on the ground .

So I'm going to move this stool out of our way .

I'm gonna sit back on the edge of my mat and extend my legs out to either side .

Now , in a full straddle stretch , your legs will be straight .

But in our modified version , we'll have our legs bent here , lifting our knees up off of the ground and from here you'll just go as far forward as you can .

Now , I encourage you to place your hands a foot , maybe 2 ft in front of your hips .

And from here you want to slowly try and straighten your legs , bringing your knees to touch the ground .

So that's what you're fighting for and you just want to hold .

So stretch stretch is a great stretch to be able to see your own progress in .

I encourage you to pay attention to the floor if you're stretching in the same place every day .

So you'll start to see your hands move along and it's really encouraging .

So , while you're pulling to get into these stretches a little bit deeper , you always want to make sure you're pulling from the right place .

And the common thing to do is pull the top of your head down to try and pull yourself closer to the ground .

But you actually want to pull your chest closer and that's gonna keep your back lifted and your shoulder blades pinch together like the flat back I was talking about earlier .

So you're able to reach out and really go to the fullest extent of your stretch .

So for now , make sure you're pulling your chest out and think about trying to get that pulled down all the way to the ground .

Ok .

So now we're going to stretch each side and in a normal straddle stretch , we could stay here and then fold over to each side .

But to make it a bit easier , we bring our opposite leg in and then go over .

So you want to grab onto your leg and pull your chest closer as you stretch and you wanna make sure you're keeping that back flat , you will be able to reach farther if you arch , but you're losing all of that nice stretch in the back of your leg all through your hamstring if you do .

So .

So fight for that flat back and try and get that chest to your knee and now we'll go to the other side .

So we'll switch , bring our other leg into our thigh and then fold over .

I'm pulling my chest to my knee stretching out that hamstring trying to keep your back as flat as you can and come back up and to the center .

Let's do the middle stretch one more time .

So we'll bend our knees and come forward .

May notice that you've made a little bit of an improvement a centimeter or two each time you do it , you should feel a little bit more comfortable and fight to lower your knees a little bit , keeping that back flat , a few more seconds , really lower down as far as you can and come out of it .

Amazing .

So now we're going to bring our feet into the middle for a butterfly stretch and here I'm just going to sit and hold my ankles and push my knees down with my elbow .

You should be feeling a nice stretch either in your groin or in your glutes or maybe both , depending on where you need to be more flexible and we're gonna fold over and in this stretch , it's ok .

If you let your head go and you arch your back , it's one of the few really pulling yourself down and now we're gonna do the opposite and try and stretch out and keep that back as flat as we can , pushing that chest out and really stretching out those hips and come back up .

So the next thing that we're going to do is going to be a pike stretch and I'm gonna move sideways for this so you can see me better .

So the key to doing this is having your hips all the way underneath your body and your back up straight behind you .

If you're unable to sit up straight , then you want to keep your butt above your feet .

And there are a couple of different ways that you can do this .

The easiest way using only your body is to actually come up onto one knee and extend the other one in front of you so that you can start to lean forward .

That'll make it a lot easier .

You just have to make sure that you do it on both sides .

You can also be in a pike with either a low chair or maybe a few towels stacked underneath you so that you're lifted above your feet .

So for now , I'm going to stay seated here on the mat .

But if you need to go and grab a chair or something else to sit on , go ahead and do that now .

So I'm going to lean forward , grabbing as far down my legs as I can .

And if you are here and you're sitting up super straight and it's already stretching the backs of your hamstrings , that is absolutely great .

I encourage you to stay here and keep fighting for it .

If you chose to sit here without any other props assisting , you also make sure that you're not pushing yourself too hard , maybe you can do it , but you might find that you're able to make more progress in a stretch that's slightly more comfortable .

So just make the decision that's best for you .

The other thing you'll find is that it's easier whenever your toes are pointed .

So if you flex , you'll get a deeper stretch coming all the way up to the tops of the hamstrings and then we'll come out of it .

Awesome job guys .

Ok .

So I'm just gonna scooch for it a little bit so I can lay down on my back here and we're gonna lift one leg up and you can grab it as low as you need to .

The other thing that you could do here is grab a belt or a scarf or an actual exercise band , wrap around your heel and then pull your leg closer .

But holding lower down in your leg is just fine too .

And as you're practicing this stretch , you want to make sure that you're always reaching and trying to walk your hands up and get them all the way up here .

This really is the goal of this stretch , but for now it's fine to grab it down here and then I'm gonna bend my knee in , pull it to my chest and bring it over my body to come to a twist , really feeling it all through the spine and come back and we'll straighten again , always pulling it closer to you , feeling that stretch in the hamstring and one more time pulling it to your chest .

And then over every time you breathe , relax your spine a bit more and then we'll come back to and switch .

Bring the other leg up , grab as high up as you can and pull it closer to you , making sure that top leg is all the way straight and then bending it in to pull across your body , turn your head to face the other way and breathe , releasing your spine , letting it fully twist and we'll come back to center and do it all one more time .

So stretch the leg out , straight , grab as high as you can and then pull really breathing and bring it back in , pull tight to your chest and then we'll pull it back over to look the other way .

I'm gonna relax into it and then we'll come back to center and put our leg down .

Ok .

So now we're going to come back up to a standing position and I'm going to bring 1 ft up to grab it behind me during this quad stretch .

I want to make sure that I'm pushing my hips forward .

So I'm getting that full stretch all along my quad and into my hip flexor .

And while you're here , I want to take a minute to tell you that you should always be working every single day stretching and working towards that flexibility .

But you also have to remember that your progress is not going to be linear .

You're not going to be making constant amazing results every single day .

Some weeks , you'll do great and others , you won't see much progress .

But remember not to get discouraged that the more that you're fighting for it and working towards that flexibility , you will get there .

So let's switch to the other side really feeling that stretch all in that quad and in that hip flexor pushing my hips forward , breaking my heel to touch my butt behind me .

Hm .

Our hip flexor is always really tight while we're sitting at work and sitting anywhere in the car , our natural seated position actually allows them to contract a lot .

So it's really great to stretch them out and then we'll come out and for that position too , If you're having trouble balancing , go ahead and grab it onto a wall or a chair next to you .

So lastly , we're gonna stretch our arms .

So I'm gonna bring my right one across my body and pull it in with my left , really allowing this shoulder to relax here so that I can get a full stretch .

My left arm is the only one working and then swing it out for the other side .

My straight arm is relaxed , really letting the other one stretch it out and then I'll shake it out again .

Did the tricep on this side ?

You really want to try and pull your hand to your shoulder in the arm that's stretching .

Don't let it hang out up here and then shake it out and other side .

Awesome job guys .

So that's all I have for you today .

I really hope that this video helped you .

Please let me know in the comments what worked and what didn't .

And if there was any other areas that you would like me to focus on .

I'll see you guys in the next video .

Bye .