The feet are connected to the seat! -KR
There are 26 bones, 33 joints 19 muscles, 6 eastern medicinal meridians and multiple nerve endings that coordinate with muscles beyond just the foot. Ignite your inner hippy and set your boot feet free.
How to do:
1. From campfire, let your hips/knees down
2. Regain Squash posture and breathe
3. Keep the focus up, and breath going
4. Stabilize yourself squarely on your seat
Don't do:
Lose your Squash posture & breath
Tighten the hip flexors, inner legs
Force an uneven stretch or strain
Rock back completely on your tail
Tip:
When we consistently take the chance to stretch and circulate muscles, we intentionally prepare them to serve us well. This inner leg stretch, foot activator is one of the most applicable poses for riders. Our inner legs are what we use most, and stretch the least. When we make sure to stretch from and through our previous positions, it sets us up well to have a well-framed stretch for our legs. It is really common to try to tense and protect yourself where you don't feel flexible; try to avoid this. Breathing into the tension a few seconds at a time, with frequent breaks and reattempts, will help you achieve a functional position to actually hold the stretch in. If you have time, it is also beneficial to firmly rub the bottoms of your feet. There are a lot of muscles that coordinate up the leg and pelvis. So by giving them physical feedback, it will help the muscles to release easier. Pay attention to where exactly feels tight and then find a way to incrementally increase the flexibility and circulation there.
Ride and Apply:
This posture correlates in a couple ways for riding. The first is flexibility in getting our hips to open up. We do so many repetitive leg movements, micro movements, and adjustments in the saddle. Over time we can really get locked into a certain muscle memory, which is too hard to stretch out of. The second is stability and circulation. Our back, neck, and shoulders can sometimes 'forget' they don't need to be so busy. Letting our upper body be still and find a resting alignment, while still being stable, is important. This position also allows us to be hyper-aware of our breathing. The distraction of standing up is gone, and we have a really physical sense of where our breath is going and how it's filling and releasing the tension. And lastly... it's just nice to remind your skeleton is DOESN'T have to be hovering over the phone.
Try it:
This is one stretch that; if you couldn't exercise daily, I would encourage you to do daily. It encompasses all of the baseline postures we've done so far, and causes you to concentrate on all the principles of them in a somewhat uncomfortable stretch. This also gives us feed back if our femur is tight in the hip joint socket. A lot of stiffness can be acquired when we ride a lot, so taking a tally on how flexible and open our hips are will help us avoid back pain and uneven riding habits. Try to find some time daily to 'talk to your body' in this stretch!
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