Getting to Your Whole Body in Just Ten Minutes

The total-body routine in this section progresses through three stages:

• Breathing is the most fundamental of all stretching techniques. Breathing helps your muscles relax, which makes your stretches more effective. If your body has any tension, then your muscles won’t stretch to their full potential.
• Correct body alignment is important for good posture and to prevent injury. The totalbody routine helps you find and maintain a neutral spine (keeping your hips, buttocks, and back all in one straight line) to assist in proper alignment. This stretching routine also helps you strengthen your shoulders and upper back so you can stand up tall and proud.
• Stretching all the major muscle groups leads to whole-body wellness, and this routine helps you slowly progress through a sequence of stretches designed to concentrate on all those major muscle groups — from your top to the bottom. Just start at the beginning of this routine and work your way through each stretch as prescribed below.

Each stage above is a building block. For instance, after you master the proper technique for breathing, you then use your breath to relax so you can focus on enhanced body awareness throughout the following stretches.
In addition, this total-body routine is full of ACD stretches — Anyone-Can-Do stretches (or at least that’s what I call them). This sequence of stretches gently allows you to increase your awareness of your body and the way it feels, while helping you get more comfortable with the basic stretches.