You ever wake up and immediately realize it’s going to be a great day? Well with some morning stretches, the day could get even better. I’ll give you a great morning exercise or two to do on a daily basis that will ready your body for the rest of the day, remove the fatigue of sleep from your body and the best part is the morning stretches will gently wake up your entire body making sure you will feel better all through out the day.

The ideal is that when you wake up and remove the morning glory from your eyes, you get ready for the rest of the day with the morning stretches below. Each morning exercise is designed to target different parts of the body and most of them focus on body parts that tend to get sore after a night’s rest, these morning stretches will be a nice way to face the day and a wonderful way to work up the appetite for breakfast.

Seated spinal twist – sit straight and with your feet placed firmly on the ground for one of the most basic morning stretches, you twist your entire body to the right, twisting your neck as far as you can go as well. Let your left forearm rest on top of your hip and hold the position for a couple of breaths. Allow your left forearm to rest on top of your hip for leverage and finally release. Do the alternate side and repeat a few times. Your body will feel great to get this morning exercise done with after sleeping a full 8 hours.

Seated spinal twist is a common and easy morning stretch that energizes the spine and stimulates the digestive fire.

Neck and shoulder – this refreshing morning exercise can be done seated and between you and me, a lot of people do this without even knowing it. Start by sitting up straight, then gently lean your head as far left as you can, you feel a slight resistance when you hit the furthest stretch you can, from there use your left hand to grab right side of your head and gently push down. You’ll feel an alleviating sigh of relief from your neck and shoulders as you hold it for a few seconds and release. Now repeat with the other side and now you have just done one of the most awesome morning stretches known to man. Simple wasn’t it?

Calf stretch – a really effective morning exercise that you can start off from a standing position, after which you prop your right leg on top of an elevated platform (maybe a chair or a stool) and point your toes straight up, trying to get it to point towards you as best as you can. Take your left leg and do the same. This is a one of the key morning stretches to take away your leg’s fatigue from not moving for a few hours.

Standing quad stretch – stand straight and use your bed or a table for support for this morning exercise, bend your right knee backwards so that your foot is positioned right behind your bum, catching it with your right hand. Hold the position for a few breaths and release, repeat with the other leg and there you have it, a better-stretched quadriceps. Remember during morning stretches like this one, it is best if you’re a little more awake as balance is a must because people tend to fall due to this morning exercise. Make sure you have wiped away the sleepiness before doing these morning stretches.

Shoulder stretch – stand straight once more and make sure your legs are shoulder length. Now move your right arm in front of your chest using your left inner forearm to pull your right via the elbow. As you can feel, your right shoulder is being stretched properly and you can hold it for a breath or two, and then release. Repeat the morning exercise with the left arm and you can feel your shoulders sigh in relief. This is another simple one among the many more other morning stretches available for you to do each and every morning.

Triceps stretch – again remain standing with legs positioned just below your shoulders. Raise your right arm above your head and allow your forearm to go behind your head, use your left hand and hold on to your right elbow. You can feel a little force on your triceps as you hold this for a few seconds. Once more repeat the morning exercise with the left arm and you’ll feel so much better, especially with this being complemented with other morning stretches.

Triceps stretch is important and should always be included in the warm up and cool down sessions to improve muscle health and avoid injury.

Standing side stretch – stay standing, this morning exercise is guaranteed to wake you up, now lift both hands above your head, grab your right hand with your left and bend at your hips to the left, you will then proceed to lean to the side giving your body a full stretch. Finish and repeat on the other side. Aren’t you feeling even more prepared for the rest of the day? Not yet? Let’s keep doing some more morning stretches so we can get a great big yes for that question!

Hamstring stretch – now that you are probably more awake since you’ve done quite a few morning stretches already, it is safe for you to lie down without falling asleep, probably. If you are confident in not falling back asleep, lie firmly on your back and then move your right foot in front of you, stretching it out as far as you can and as vertical as possible. You may use both hands to grab the back of your knee and hold your leg up. This hamstring morning exercise is particularly great and easy since you do it lying down with no threat of losing balance.

Back stretch – still lying down, while staying awake of course, you are still awake right? If you did all the other morning stretches, for sure you are wide-awake. As I was saying, stay lying down for this morning exercise, and keep your legs straight. Raise your right knee to your chest and hold it there with your two arms. Keep it there for a few breaths and gently return to starting position. Repeat the morning exercise with your other leg and cycle a few times until fully stretched out.

These are just some of the morning stretches that are available to do on a daily basis. You can do a few of them at a time or all of them daily, doesn’t really matter. The more morning stretches you do the better prepared you will be for the rest of the day and the less stress your body will feel from a full night’s rest. Yes I know that sounds weird but it is true. Pair up the morning stretches with a proper and healthy diet, or might I be bold enough to suggest perhaps you might be thinking of becoming a vegan,  then these routines and lifestyle will definitely do wonders to your body!

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