Linda Wooldridge has literally hundreds of workouts available for free on YouTube. Many of them have warms ups and stretches included in the workout, and many do not. Sometimes the warm up and/or stretch is very short, and maybe you want something longer. Well, Linda has you covered. She has created an 8 minute warm up you can do before a workout and then she also has two different stretches. One 7 minute upper body stretch to do at the end of an upper body workout and one 9:30 minute stretch to do at the end of a lower body workout. They will all eventually be reviewed here, but today I am reviewing the lower body stretch.
I have created (yet another) special little playlist that contains these 3 little bonuses so they are always easy for me to find. This morning I did a Barlates YouTube workout combination. I did Stretch Sculpt Lower followed by 100 Rep Squat & Kick. After frying my lower body like that, I needed something longer than the 2 minute stretch at the end of Squat & Kick (plus it’s Sunday, so I have the time to do a longer workout), so I finished it off with Linda’s Lower Body Stretch. Unlike many of Linda’s other workouts with “stretch” somewhere in the title, this is an actual stretch (see the first workout I did today–Stretch Sculpt Lower; tho “stretch” is in the title, this workout is nothing but hard, advanced work–no stretching). Lower Body Stretch contains some flowing, dynamic stretching and you also hold deep stretches. There are several yoga poses, too. An excellent way to finish off your lower body workouts if you have the time.
Lower Body Stretch is 9:30 minutes. All you need is a mat. Start with cat & cow. Come up into down dog and hold. Flow from down dog to plank (I modified this slightly by flowing from down dog to up dog.) Raise one leg into 3 leg dog and hold. Bring knee into chest then back into 3 leg dog. Bring leg through into runners lunge and hold. Shift hips back and straighten front leg (half front split). Return to runners lunge but this time drop back knee to floor and push hips forward, hands on front thigh. Grab back foot and pull up to glutes (quad stretch). Pigeon pose. Repeat everything on other side of body starting w/ down dog. Lay on stomach and do cobra stretch. It ends w/ child’s pose.
For more info on Barlates and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
3 thoughts on “Barlates: Lower Body Stretch”