Standing Hamstring Stretches

Video Transcript

"One type of muscle group is the hamstrings. This is Alice Monsaert and I'm going to demonstrate some exercises you can incorporate in to your daily routine to make sure that you lengthen the hamstrings. These are standing hamstring exercises. The first one you place your heel forward, elevate your toe. Your hand can be on your hips or placed on your thigh. You are going to shift your weight back and kind of raise your tail bone back. This knee is soft and not in a locked position and the knee that I am standing on or the leg that I am standing on, the knee is very bent. I'm going to exhale and press into the stretch and hold that stretch up to 30 seconds and same thing with the other side. Hips go back, chest stays lifted, head stays in line with the spine, raise the tail bone and hold your stretch. Another way to stretch the hamstring would be to have both feet on the floor. Knees are always soft. Shoulders are back. Arms can come out to the side or be at your hips and rock back into your heels and just bend at the hip, not round up the spine. If I shift my hips back, keep that neutral spine and just go as low as I comfortably can so I feel a slight pulling sensation in the hamstrings and hold that stretch. One more standing hamstring exercise would be try to reach all the way to the floor. Some people cannot. They don't have enough hamstring flexibility so this would not be appropriate. If you have enough hamstring flexibility to reach all the way down to the floor and place the fingertips and/or the palms on the floor and let the head drop down and you will definitely feel that hamstring stretch out the back. This is Alice Monsaert encouraging you to keep those hamstrings flexible so you can prevent low back injury."