Two super effective and informative total body stretches; Brettzel and Brettzel 2.0.
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Everyone is tight on time and needs to make their workouts as efficient as possible. The brettzel stretches are great options that have an impact from head to toe. One biases toward the anterior chain and the other toward the posterior chain. Getting into position, you are leveraging a stretch on tissues that connect from the foot through the leg, hip and torso up to then neck.
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One of the reasons these are great additions is that you can use them to “check in” with your body. Because so many parts of the body are involved as you go through the stretch you will feel where your limitations are on the chain of movement. This can be different from day to day and definitely person to person. Going through the brettzel today I may feel tension in the front side of my hip where as tomorrow, I may feel it through my upper back because I sleep in an odd position. That tension you feel is a bright flashing red light saying that part of the body needs a bit of love.
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Which leads me to my last callout, use your breath as you go into the positions. You’ll notice when I reach the end points on each version that I hold and breath. I doing two things, signaling to my body that I have ownership over the movement (it’s a safe position) and I am breathing into the area of tension. This can help relax the tissue and allow for a great range of motion.
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Video 1 & 2 show two views of brettzel and video 3 shows brettzel 2.0 with a progression. For both, only go as far as you can keep you position.
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Give these a try and see how they feel
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