Stretch: Lower Back (Knees to Chest)

Target area: Lower back. (Diagram 14)

Steps:

1. Lie flat on your back with your body extended.
2. Flex your knees and slide your feet toward your buttocks.
3. Grasp behind your thighs.
4. Exhale, pull your knees toward your chest/shoulders and elevate your hips from the floor.
5. Hold the stretch and relax. CAUTION: Grasping the upper knees may result in their potential hyperextension. Secondly, the legs should be re-extended slowly one at a time to prevent possible pain or spasm.

• Position: lying flat on the back, knees flexed, feet toward the buttocks.
• Action: grasp behind the thighs; pull knees toward chest/shoulders; elevate hips from the floor.
• CAUTION: grasping the upper knees may cause knee hyperextension; re-extend the legs slowly one at a time to prevent pain or spasm.
• Static stretch: hold and relax.

• static-stretching — technique used.
• erector-spinae — lower-back muscles stretched.
• stretch-lower-back-cat — companion lower-back stretch.