F 85 Branch Flexion Extension EN

From a kneeling position, extend the left leg out to the side in line with the hips and the right leg.

You’re onto the tiptoe of that right foot here.

Allow for the upper torso to come upright.

And if you feel any impingement into the hips here, you can walk that left foot forward a little bit out of the line of the hips and the leg.

This is to compensate for any lack of mobility in the hip or also maybe conditions such as arthritis or otherwise.

Whichever position you’ve chosen to start from here, you want to start to reach the arms up into the air and at the same time here we don’t want to lift the shoulders up.

So reach the arms up and if you feel your shoulders are tight, it’s absolutely fine to open the arms out to the side here.

As we extend through the arms, we’re allowing for the chest to lift into the air, keeping the head neutral and activating through the left leg as we turn the body laterally or sideways down towards the left leg, only as far as we feel it’s comfortable to do so.

We don’t want to allow for the top shoulder to collapse inward here.

We want to keep that top shoulder open and we don’t want to force the movement down too far in order to maintain that form.

And to come out of this now, we don’t just lift, but rather move a little bit to the left as we lift.

In the game, we’re imagining that the movement is coming from the chest upward, and the back of the neck also elongates, and the crown of the head also elongates.

And by keeping the legs active here, and you can also grip into that right tip to a little bit to stabilize, we start to move to the opposite side, allowing for the left line of the body to become completely in a perfect line with the left leg.

And again, the head just stays neutral in line with the spine, faces more or less looking forward.

And again, watch that the arm doesn’t collapse, the top arm doesn’t collapse in and down, but it stays open.

And of course, you can keep the arms open here to try and maintain that nice even line with the upper torso.

And activate the legs as you lift back up to center, wiggle through the chest and rib cage a little bit here in your micro movements to try and release any unnecessary tension that may have come up or also to calibrate whatever the feeling has been.

And then release the arms down and release the left leg down to relax.