Stretches

Morning Stretches

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Morning stretches for loosening up after sleep. The page has gentle filmed moves for the shoulders, back and hips in an order you can follow, plus a guided morning routine.

Morning stretches with video

These are the 8 movements from the MoveWell library for this area. Each page has a demo, numbered steps, the muscles worked and common mistakes.

Arm Circles demonstrationArm Circles10 to 15 seconds each direction, 1 to 2 rounds. Cat-Cow demonstrationCat-Cow8 to 10 slow reps. Cobra demonstrationCobra15 to 30 seconds. Downward Dog demonstrationDownward Dog30 to 60 seconds. Forward Fold demonstrationForward Fold30 to 60 seconds. Happy Baby demonstrationHappy Baby30 to 60 seconds. Knee to Opposite Shoulder demonstrationKnee to Opposite Shoulder30 seconds per side. Child's Pose demonstrationChild's Pose30 seconds to 2 minutes.

A simple morning sequence

Do these in order: warm-up drills first, then any rolling, then the longer holds. Move slowly and stop if anything is sharp or numb.

#MovementHold or repsSides
1Arm Circles15 s each wayn/a
2Cat-Cow8 repsn/a
3Cobra20 sn/a
4Downward Dog45 sn/a
5Forward Fold45 sn/a
6Happy Baby45 sn/a
7Knee to Opposite Shoulder30 s/sideEach side
8Child's Pose60 sn/a
JR

Joel is the founder of MoveWell and IMPOSSIBLE. He became the youngest person to run an ultra marathon on every continent, and created MoveWell to make recovery easy with routines he would actually do.

More stretches

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