Lower Your Risk Of Pain And Injury

Want to stay flexible and alert throughout your day? Stretching is one way to achieve that goal. Not many of us know the art of stretching. The source article has 30 + stretching exercises. We'll cover the most important ones here and give you a link at the end to go check out the rest.

In order not to do more harm than good you have to know the right way to do any stretch. Each different stretch will target a specific muscle group.

Which Muscle Are You Stretching and How To Do It

Head

Lateral side flexion of the neck (fig.7)

Target: Sternocleidomastoid “SCM”

Can be boosted by sitting on a chair and clutching the bottom of the seat

Neck rotation stretch (fig.8)

Target: SCM

Apply pressure with opposite hand for a deeper stretch

Neck extension stretch (fig.9)

Target: SCM

Make sure not to collapse your cervical spine

Lateral side flexion of the neck with hand assistance (fig.10)

Target: SCM

Can be boosted by sitting and grabbing the bottom of the seat

Upper Body

Forearm extensor stretch

Target: Forearm extensor

Touch the tips of your fingers in a tea cup shape to extend the stretch

Lateral shoulder stretch (fig.13)

Target: Side deltoid

Standing assisted neck flexion stretch (fig.14)

Target: Trapezius muscle

Lat stretch with spinal traction (fig.15)

Target: Latissimus dorsi

Avoid if you’ve recently injured your shoulder or have pain there

Lat stretch at the wall (fig.16)

Target: Latissimus dorsi

Not recommended for those with lower back problems

Child’s pose (fig.17)

Target: Latissimus dorsi

Lateral flexion with a dowel (fig.27)

Target: External obliques and latissimus dorsi

Not for those with lower back problems

Triangle pose (fig.28)

Target: External obliques

Keep your gaze on the hand in the air as you rotate away

For more stretches go to this source article.

All images were captured from the source article.