Ease into movement with a gentle warm-up that wakes your body, loosens your joints and centres your breath – the perfect way to prepare for yoga, a bike ride or any kind of exercise.
A good warm-up does more than just prepare your muscles – it boosts circulation, loosens joints, builds flexibility and helps prevent injury. Pairing gentle movement with conscious breathing supplies extra oxygen to your muscles, helping them work better and more efficiently. This simple, calming nine-step sequence is suitable before any kind of exercise and can also be a soothing morning ritual in its own right.
WHY WARMING UP MATTERS BEFORE EXERCISE
Before any physical activity – whether it’s yoga or a bike ride – it’s important to warm up your body. A gentle warm-up boosts blood and fluid circulation, loosens muscles and joints, and helps make your body more flexible and less prone to injury. Using your breath during the warm-up also supplies extra oxygen to your muscles, helping them work better and more efficiently.
HOW TO PRACTISE THIS GENTLE WARM-UP SEQUENCE
Move slowly through each step, syncing your movement with your breath. There’s no need to rush – this is about waking the body, not pushing it.
STEP 1: LIE FLAT AND CONNECT WITH YOUR BREATH
Begin by lying flat on the ground, arms loosely at your sides, legs relaxed, feet softly tipping outwards. Take a few moments to connect with your breath, mind, and body. Breathe in deeply through your nose, take the breath down to your stomach, and then breathe out slowly through your nose. On an in-breath, raise your arms alongside your head, extending backwards while also stretching your toes as far forward as you can – imagine that your arms and legs are being pulled in opposite directions.
STEP 2: KNEE-TO-CHEST HUG
On an in-breath, bend your right knee and bring it towards your chest. Wrap your arms around it and give it a hug, breathing in. Then, gently draw your head towards your knee and, if you’re able to reach, give it a kiss.
STEP 3: HAMSTRING STRETCH
On an out-breath, gently lower your head back to the ground. Depending on your flexibility, take hold of your right toe, ankle, or shin with your right hand and extend your leg towards the sky, feeling the stretch along the back of it (it’s OK to have a bend in the knee if this is more comfortable). Hold for a moment then release your hand and slowly lower the extended leg to the ground. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the left leg.
STEP 4: ROCK ALONG THE SPINE
Now bend both knees, bring them to the chest, hug them in and gently rock back and forth along the length of the spine, before carefully coming up to a cross-legged seated position.
STEP 5: SEATED HIP CIRCLES
Place your hands on your knees. On an in-breath, extend your upper torso forwards from the hips and begin to draw a circle in a clockwise direction. Breathe out as the circle extends backwards. Do this five times. Then repeat the process in the opposite direction, anticlockwise, remembering to move from the hips. At the end, come to your centre, sitting upright and tall.
STEP 6: PRAYER POSE WITH SKY REACH
Bring hands together at heart centre in prayer pose (elbows active and pushed out from the chest, palms softly pressing together, fingers pointed up). On an in-breath, raise your hands skywards, keeping the palms together. Direct your gaze upwards to follow the hands. Take a moment before breathing out as you lower your hands back to your chest. Now bring the chest forwards and lower your head and chin towards it. Repeat five times.
STEP 7: WRIST ROLLS AND FLEXES
Release your hands. Extend them sideways from the shoulders and gently rotate your wrists clockwise three times, then anticlockwise three times. Follow this with three gentle wrist flexes up and down. Do this by first pointing your fingers down towards the floor and then towards the sky.
STEP 8: SLOW NECK CIRCLES
Bring your hands to rest on your knees and slowly make small circles with your head, first clockwise and then anticlockwise.
STEP 9: GENTLE EYE WARM-UP
Looking directly ahead, gently warm up your eyes. Without moving your head, direct your eyes to gaze first skywards, then right, then to the floor, then left, before coming back to the sky. Repeat in the opposite direction. From here, your body will feel gently warmed, and your muscles and joints will have more flexibility.
A NOTE ON SAFETY
As with all physical activities, please do not attempt if you have any medical or physical conditions that may be affected. If in doubt, talk to your GP. Younger children should be supervised.
WORDS: Dawattie Basdeo
ILLUSTRATIONS: Sara Thielker
This article was originally published under the title Ready Set Slow in Issue 49. You can get this issue here to enjoy more mindful inspiration.
