Grounded Relief

Welcome, thank you for joining me today. I want to take you through some poses and postures that are available to you. They can be done all at once or they're just available to you throughout the day. I have a tendency to fidget in my chair and do these often all day, every day. So first I'd like to start with just paying attention to where we are in our seat, making sure our feet are centered on our footplate, we're comfortable as we can be, in our chair, feeling the shoulders, up and around the ears, down the back, taking a deep breath as we come into this series of postures.

The first thing I'd like to do is do a little stretching overhead. I have a gait belt and I carry it in my purse with me every day, I find it's a really useful tool for just doing some chest opening and that's where I'd like to start. So let's raise our hands up, reaching up high above us, engaging the core, what you have in your core, that way you're not super tippy, lengthening the arms, relaxing those shoulders down and back and let's open up the arms, trying to squeeze the shoulder blades behind us, pressing the hands backwards. I find this stretch is huge for me in my day as I have more metal, I have metal from T9 to L3 in my back so I don't feel as I can open up as much as I used to and so this strap having it along all day is really useful and we can feel some freedom here moving side to side. Good inhale and exhale with each movement, inhale again, lengthening my arms and exhale back.

This time I'm letting my head come forward and just hang in between, I feel a little bit opening up in my shoulders and the back of my neck. Just exhale, you can do that with a belt, a strap, a t-shirt, whatever might be available for you. I'd like to move into a little bit of cat cow now, let's keep lengthening that back. I'm going to put my hands on my knees and I'm going to inhale, lengthening in my spine, sliding down a little bit in my hips into my chair and then exhale folding forward, letting my neck dangle between my shoulder blades. My chin is almost touching my chest.

We'll do this a few more times, every time inhale with lengthen, putting the shoulders pushing them away from your ears and every time folding forward, creating as much arc and space you can, bringing your belly button back towards your spine. Every lean forward or lean back, giving a little pelvic twist. One more big inhale, extending and exhale all of the air out, folding over, rolling the shoulders and as much of your back as you can. Bring back to a neutral seat, I'm trying not to let my back rest get in my way here, just trying to use my core. We can move into extended side angle, so I find with this pose, it's okay to put my elbow onto my wheelchair or you can have a block down by your side but we'll lift up our left hand, reaching high for the sky and then folding over to the side.

With each inhale we're lengthening along that open side and with each exhale we're folding deeper, curling more over. Try to be aware of how much you're leaning forward or backwards in your chair. I like to lean backwards a little bit just because we don't get a lot of chest opening. Inhale coming back to that neutral spine, relaxing the shoulders down the back. Inhale your right arm up.

My left elbow is going to my wheel and I'm going to extend over, feeling lengthening in my right side body and between the ribs. Inhale reaching, exhale folding further into it. Inhale reach, lengthening, almost grounding my right hip into my chair as much as I can and exhaling, melting over my wheel. One more inhale, pushing my arm back a little bit and exhale folding forward. Inhaling back to center, neutral spine, shoulders rolling back.

Big inhale here, exhale, feel free to move your hips a little bit around in the chair. Next let's bring our left leg up and over, crossing it over our right. My ankle is just about at the edge of my knee here and when I do this, I do this pose a lot actually throughout my day. I really like it when I'm talking with friends and just trying to be in a different seated position. I push on my, right now since I have my left leg over my right, I have my right hand on the ball of my foot and I'm pushing it forward, trying to create a little more length in my Achilles tendon.

As we all know in wheelchairs, we have what's called foot drop. No weight on our heels and in our feet. So I'm trying to provide a little pressure there. I'm also providing a little pressure on my knee with my left hand, pushing it out and away from my hip. We can do our cat cow here, we can inhale, lengthening towards the sky and exhale folding forward and over.

Getting my head hang here but also having a little bit of movement. You can push on the left leg creating a little more space in the hip. We can lean to the left and push down on the right. Taking the breath, inhale lengthening and exhale melting further into your pose. One more good inhale here.

Inhale it all out, forward fold. Let's inhale back to center and let that left leg just cross over the right into this dainty little cross-legged position. We can move next into eagle arms and get a whole bind here by opening up our chest to start coming in for a big hug and we'll sweep our right arm underneath our left. Eventually you might get the full bind here where your right fingers are touching the insides of your left palm. But if it's not available to you yet it's okay to just, the point is trying to squeeze my elbows together and opening up the shoulder blades behind me.

So as I'm breathing here what I feel is my elbows are squeezing together a lot, my shoulder blades behind me, right behind my neck feel like they're lengthening and opening, stretching opening and as I push my elbows away or my shoulders down my back I get more space. Take a couple deep breaths here and just play with it. Play with where your arms and shoulders feel the best, what opens up that space behind your neck for you. Slowly unravel the arms, centering your shoulders again. We can unravel our legs and go to the other side.

So I'll lift my right leg up. This leg for me is a little tighter, I have an extra bone mass in my femur from this accident so this hip always feels a little tight and has a lot more grinding happening. So I find it's really important for me to continue doing these poses to keep them open. So again I'm pushing down slightly on my right knee, my left hand is cradling the bottom of my foot, pushing on the ball of the foot. Sometimes I even play with my fingers and the toes just trying to give my toes a little more extension as they don't get grounded in the earth like they used to.

Inhale here and exhale, feel free to roll around, moving the hips open. You feel this in both hips, if you're lucky maybe you feel it in your glutes, I don't. One more big inhale and exhale, fold it forward, letting the head hang. As we inhale back to center we'll glide the right leg over the left, crossing the legs here in the front and we'll come into eagle arms on the opposite side as well. Let's do our chest opener, get ready for our big hug, inhale and as we exhale we'll swoop the left arm under the right, binding our rights and our lefts.

For me this one is not as open, my right shoulder is a little closed as well so this pose feels a little more difficult on this side for me but as I inhale I'm trying to relax that shoulder down, squeeze my elbows together and my left hand into my right palm. Exhale lengthening in the spine, exhale relaxing all the joints. My core is still quite engaged here trying to create a more upright posture, not collapsing. Lengthening, pushing my shoulders and my elbows and exhale relaxing. One last inhale, big inhale, unravel the arms, unravel the legs.

Plant our feet firmly in our chair, wiggle as needed, let's give a little rotation to our neck. This is something I don't do very often in the day but it's so simple. Just trying to create some length, some distance from my ear to my shoulder as I rotate around it. Let's switch directions in your role. Be mindful of any tight spots or straining spots, roll through them gently.

Coming back to our neutral seated position, we're going to move into my favorite posture since being in my chair, we're going to tuck our hips forward bringing our butt nearly to the end of our seat. Putting my feet on the ground, not often we get to do that these days. I really like this pose, I really like taking my shoes off in the middle of the day and sitting outside with friends and just at least putting my feet on the ground. I might not be able to feel the ground but at least my feet can get dirty in it. So while we're here, we can plant our feet, I provide a little bit of pressure in the heels here.

My left leg, my left ankle likes to roll a lot so that one takes a little bit more effort for me to be cognizant that it's not rolling outwards and how I can weight it. Inhale here, just be mindful of your positioning of your seat so you're not going to fall out of your chair. Inhale, relax the shoulders and the eyes, exhale, grab onto your wheels or whatever works back for you, we're going to leave our butt in the same position but we're just going to lean back. Oh, I love this one. Opening up my hips, lengthening, reaching my arms overhead, be careful of your weight and your balance here so you don't tilt backwards but this is where we can move around and play with the hips a little bit.

Maybe grab your left wrist with your right hand, extend that left side body, remember to keep your shoulders relaxed if you can instead of tucking them up in your ear, push them away and down. Now let's switch sides, I have my left wrist grabbing my right and pulling on my right arm and relaxing the right shoulder. I'm trying to engage my core here rather than letting it sink in, I'm trying to engage my core here. If I had a six pack, you would see it. Engage all of the packs that you have, open up the shoulders, spreading your elbows back, hands back.

You can relax your neck here a little bit. Nice long inhales and exhales, just enjoy this lengthening. One more inhale and exhale, let's come back over our knees and we can tuck our feet back on the footplate. And the last pose that I'd like to leave you guys with today is one of my favorites, the little weight shift wiggle. Breathing up, my arms are straight as they can be but I'm kind of like sinking into my shoulders and allowing my hips to hang and moving my hips from side to side.

Breathing here, remembering that nice, slow, calm breath. Take inhale and exhale as we return to our seated position, just remembering that any of these poses are available to you all day and that breath is available as well. So I encourage you to move about throughout your day, not just in the wheelchair but moving about the wheelchair. Thank you for joining me and letting me know how that goes for you.