Emma’s Exercise
“Standing Roll-Up”
This exercise is all about putting sequential movement in your spine. What does that mean? That means you are going to work your spine from head to tail and reverse back up from tail to head. Articulating your spine will put movement into all of your vertebrae! Your spine is one long chain that’s interconnected by 24 bones (vertebrae). Work those bones and the muscles around them individually!
This is one of my favorite exercises!
And this exercise is a twofer because at the end of your roll down, guess what? You are in a forward fold! This is one way to learn how to get IN and OUT of a forward fold safely!
⚠️Bend your knees as much as you need to⚠️
Another bonus (starting to see why it’s one of my favorites)? You receive a nice hamstring stretch (back of the tops of your thighs)!
GO SLOW. Can you identify all of your vertebrae individually as you are peeling up and down? Try it against a wall. The wall will provide you with great feedback on whether or not you are articulating bone by bone. It will let you know if there are sections of your spine that you skip!
REMEMBER-your core is on the entire time. Your core is the REASON your spine is moving. Make your spine move BECAUSE you are using your core.