The Best Stretches You Can Do With an Expander
Are you in a panic participating in our challenge with the resistance band ? Good, because it’s time to take a break and relax a little.
Most of the stretches with an expander are variations of what you can do without an expander, so you can follow it even if all you have is a yoga strap or a towel. The resistance band adds adjustable tension so you can immediately decide if you want to stretch a little deeper or relax and be softer. Remember, you don’t need to be in pain to benefit from stretching.
Here are some basic stretches you can do with any resistance band that is long enough. I use a tube with handles, but it also works well with a loop.
Warm up the shoulders
This is a great combined stretching / strengthening exercise to prepare you for any kind of shoulder exercise, or you can use it to work on shoulder flexibility at the end of your workout. Simply stretch the tape in front of you and run it over your head and back up to waist level while your arms are straight. Adjust tension to get more or less stretch.
Hamstring stretch
Wrap the tape around your foot and gently pull your leg up. You can hold the stretch here or move into and out of the position.
The adductor and abductor muscles are stretched
Without removing the leg bandage, stretch your straight leg out to the side to stretch your inner thigh muscles. Then move your leg to the other side of your body to stretch the muscles on the outside of your thigh.
There are tons of stretch marks with elastic bands – these are just my personal favorites. (For something completely different, check out these dancer stretches , which I am in no way allowed to display.) What stretches did you do?