Pilates Stretch Band Exercises: Hamstring Stretch

Video Transcript

"This is a stretch that is designed to increase your flexibility in many directions of your leg. Go ahead and take the band and bring it around one foot. Inhale and then exhale curl down and bring that leg up. It is up to you as to whether the other leg is bent or straight, depending on what is more comfortable for your back. You are going to take a nice inhale and exhale pull that leg as close to you as you can. Inhale bend the knee, exhale, flex up, inhale bend, exhale up. So your knee is coming right into the chest. Inhale, bend the knee. The foot is not coming down like this, exhale up. After you've done that go ahead and point and flex, and point and flex, feeling that stretch all the way up the back of your leg. Inhale and try and pull that leg a little bit closer to your body. The next part of this exercise is to bring the leg over in the direction of the opposite shoulder. Take a nice inhale, bend that knee, kind of coming at a diagonal, exhale, push that knee at a diagonal, inhale bend in, again the foot is not coming down it is staying where it is, exhale out, inhale in, bring that foot out and point and flex and point and flex, one more time point and flex. Inhale and try and bring that leg a little closer to your shoulder. The last piece of this exercise is to try and bring that leg all the way out to the side. Again we are going to inhale bend the knee in and try and get that knee right under your arm, exhale and push the heel out, inhale bend, notice when I bend I'm not dropping that heel, exhale out, inhale bend, exhale out and then we'll point and flex, point, flex, point and flex, trying to bring that leg a little closer and back to center and go to the other side and what you'll notice when you are finished your leg feels a lot lighter."