Hello, and welcome to tip number five. Do you want a more supple spine get moving. We recommend 20 to 30 minutes of walking daily for many reasons. First, you want to make sure that you have a comfortable pair of shoes, a good pair of cross trainers or running shoes that support your feet. And that'll also help improve your posture and your comfort level while you're walking. Cardiovascular Health is so important.

We're breathing in fresh oxygen. When we get our heart rate elevated and our breathing rhythm increased a little bit. We're improving the oxygenation to all of our cells in our body. We're increasing our muscular endurance when we're walking for 20 to 30 minutes a little out of our comfort zone. It's important as well. He keeps our skin glowing, our internal organs functioning optimally and gives us a little bit more zest for life.

So it is important to get moving every single day. Now we wanted to share with you two different stretches that you could do before you go out for a walk, just to prepare your hips and also to stresses that you could do after your walk, just to stretch out the muscles of your thighs. So try this before going out for a walk to improve the suppleness inflexibility of both the shoulders and the hips. Try this stand tall, feet close together. Engage your thigh muscles, contract them a little bit and your butt muscles. Extend your arms out to either side.

Now putting the thumbs into your palms and turn the pumps and the arms upwards and back. Close your fingers and start to do nice big circles towards the back. Now what you want to do is keep the shoulders down and relax length To the arm straight out, reach out towards your knuckles. Now if you hold any tension in your neck, your pictorial area, your arms down to your hands, you're going to feel this one. And it's a fabulous, dynamic stretch to help improve the circulation and the suppleness of the connective tissues and muscles in your arms and shoulders. Take a few deep breaths 10 to 20 times to do the trick, and then give it a little shake out.

So that would be movement one before heading out for your walk or your hike. Number two, grab the back of your thighs and just pull the knee up towards your chest and try to do that as you alternate. Now you can do this standing on the spot or you can do it also in motion while you're walking. So maybe 10 times like that, just to get the circulation going a little bit more through your gluteal muscles through your hips. And it's great to start to release through the sacred iliac joint and it Get the oxygenation to your intervertebral disk in your spine. So our spine, for a healthy spine relies on movement, one of the only organs within the body that requires movement to get adequate circulation, those intervertebral discs, those little shock absorbers that are between each vertebrae in your spine.

For a healthy back, they need more nutrients and they get those nutrients when we start to move the shoulders when we start to move the hips and we start to move rhythmically, such as in walking. So make sure you get out there and move every single day, your whole body and your back. Well thank you for it. Our spine to remain healthy requires movement. This tip is learning how to stand tall and to walk well. Oftentimes we experience pain, whether we're reaching for something bending over or even walking you Because our posture is incorrect, and we're incorrectly aligned, when we stand tall and stand proud and walk correctly, it actually increases the circulation to the spine and the intervertebral discs, which provides more nourishment to the cells, which helps with adequate recovery.

Movement combined with proper rest is the combination that we're looking for here. We'd like to share with you now on how to walk properly since we recommend at least 20 to 30 minutes of daily movement to improve the strength and endurance of your cardiovascular system and improve the endurance of the muscles that support the spine and improve also the circulation and the resiliency of the tissues that help support your back. So be sure that you are standing tall standing proud with your chest high and your arms alongside of your body. It's better to walk at a moderate to vigorous pace than to walk slowly and slowly without moving the arms, be sure that the arm movement is initiated from the shoulder and not just the elbow and that the arms are moving opposite to the legs. So we're going to focus on our power posture, we're going to move and walk vigorously at a good strong pace.

Let's get moving. Before going out for your walk. refer to some of the dynamic stretches that we do to help prepare the hips and warm up your spine before you go out just to get the circulation going. Number one, let's focus on nice tall posture. refer back to the power posture video. roll your shoulders down and back.

Stand tall, stand proud. Take a couple of deep breaths. Make sure that your breathing rhythm is smooth as you go about walking. Most spine specialists and doctors will prescribe walking to almost all of their clients and just the art of walking with your legs and your arms. swinging and opposite movements will help improve the circulation of your spine. The coordinated movements of your arms and legs during walking will help improve your energy.

Improve the resiliency of your tissues and help very gently build some endurance in the muscles around your hips, your legs and your back and take the tension out of your spine. So be sure that your spine stays well aligned as you're walking, following a nice smooth, brisk pace. When we move better, we feel better. According to Harvard University, just 15 minutes of rhythmic activity per day is like taking an antidepressant. And their studies concluded that not exercising not moving rhythmically is like taking a depressant. So when we do rhythmic movements, such as 20 to 30 minutes walking that we've suggested You'll feel better, more mental clarity and definitely a better mood.

I know I feel great after I've spent some time outside after a good walk. So after your walk, try these two stretches to stretch out your quadriceps and your hamstrings. You can go against the wall or hold on to the back of a chair. Grab onto the ankle, soft knee and the opposite leg. Try to line up both knees, draw your hips forward, and then move the knees slightly downwards. So three actions to the stretch, pulling the knees in line with one another, bringing the bum in so the hips are straight, and there's gently dropping the need downwards.

So we hold that for six to eight deep breaths, just to the point where you feel that stretch to the front part of your thigh. We show some different variations of this stretch also later in the full men my back program lying on the floor. Once you've done that leg, you do the same thing on the other leg, the back of the thigh, we want to balance out the muscles. A hamstring stretch, this is a standing variation. Soft knee will bring our heel up onto a chair or a bench tip from the hip. So remember that hip hinge that we learned in one of the previous tips, we pull the hips back First, draw the belly towards the thigh and pull the hip back.

So my left leg is extended, I'm drawing my left hip back and moving forward far enough until I feel that stretch to the back of the hamstring. Now the more of my toes are pulled towards me, the more I'm also going to feel the calf muscles stretching. If that's a little too intense, or if you have sciatic nerve sensitivity, then we want to make sure that the foot is a little bit more pointed. So we're not really yanking those toes back. Just go to the point of tension. We're never working at 100% of our capacity.

So it's not about trying to go deeper rounding the spine to get somewhere and start bouncing. Avoid the bouncing, nice static stretch, we go to the point of tension. We hold it for six to eight deep breaths. And again, we'll show different variations of this stretch some of our favorites. Using a yoga strap or a belt. Also lying on the floor is really effective.

So try those two stretches after your next walk or your hike to loosen up the muscles around your thighs.