What are exercises to do at home?
This is the wall exercise. Find a wall, stand with your back up against it and make sure all of your major joints are touching the wall. With your feet and hips against the wall place your shoulders and head against the wall as well. Remember not to hyperextend your knees into the wall. From here, go into a “goal post” position with your arms at a 90 degree angle. From here, take your elbow and wrist and make sure they are touching the wall then slowly slide up to where your wrist or elbow can no longer touch the wall. At that point, slide your arms back down a little bit and rest against the wall and hold for 20 seconds. You are going to feel this stretch in your pectorals.
For the next stretch you’re going to find a doorway and you want to be in 90-90 goalpost position. Make sure both of your toes are pointing straight forward. With your hands on the outside of the door frame, you are going to use your whole body and lean into this stretch ever so slightly.
Arm circles is the next exercise and will be prescribed if we see you still have a slight lean in your posture picture. You will use one arm and make 10 small circles forward and 10 small circles backwards. This is not a true exercise but more of a brain exercise to help those muscles come back to center.
How do you strengthen your spine?
The whole spine range of motion is the next exercise to go over. This will help with low back range of motion. First is low back flection. You will bend over a touch your toes while keeping your knees straight. You never want to force it, let your body hang naturally and your body weight carry you down. Next is low back extension. Look up to the ceiling and bend backwards in a nice deep bend. The last one is a lateral bend. For this one you will slide your hand down your leg and try to get to your kneecap. Let your body go as far as it can without forcing it.
Next is neck range of motion. First will be a chin tuck. Try and tuck your chin into your chest. Don’t force anything but let your head hang naturally, then you will look up at the ceiling. Next is rotation. You will try and look over both of your shoulders. A normal rotation will be able to have your chin reach your clavicle. The last one is a lateral bend. This is where you will bring your ear to your shoulder. Make sure your shoulder is staying down, you want your ear to go to your shoulder.
Next is the balance disc and there are quite a few exercises that can be done with it. There are two sides to the balance disk: one side has grips and the other does not. The side with grips goes towards the carpet to help keep the disk in place. Stand on it with two feet and find your balance. Then you’re going to step on down. There are other variations to this as well depending on what the doctors assign.
The monster walk is the next exercise and you will need a elastic band to complete it. When you’re setting the band up, you will stand on it and put it in the groove of your shoe right at the ball of your foot. Then you’re going to crisscross the band in the back behind your knees and then pull it up to your hips. Make sure that both of your feet are pointing straight forward and that you’re about shoulder width apart. Make sure you’re holding the tension at your hips when you do this exercise. You don’t want it to be too high or too low otherwise you’re not going to activate the right muscles. From this position you’re going to side step, keeping those toes pointed straight ahead about shoulder width depending on what you can do with the resistance of the band. You are going to feel a burn in your glute muscle on the side.
For the ab stretch it’s super important that you have both toes pointing directly forward in the same direction. You’re going to find a place bench height or tall enough for you to rest your foot on and then place your hands on your hips while placing one leg on the surface. Make sure your hips are forward, then you will lean your whole body into the stretch.
For the sacral reset exercise you will want to lay flat on the floor and make sure your toes are pointing towards the ceiling and that you don’t have a bend in your knee. You’re going to take the slowest motion possible and raise your hip to your ear as you’re laying down. This exercise is great for any low back pain, pelvis pain or anything like that. You will want to do this for 90 seconds or until you feel the pain stop.
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