This exercise helps you turn your head and shoulders while kneeling tall and holding a weight behind you, using your breath to find your true range.
Brettzel Diaphragmatic
This exercise helps you unlock rotation through your spine and hips while lying on your side, letting your breath do the turning.
- Starting Position:
- Side-Lying
Start: Lie on your side with your head on a foam pad. Bend your top knee up and rest it on a foam roller at belly-button height; keep your bottom leg straight in line with your body. With the bottom hand, hold the top knee. With the top hand, reach back and hold the ankle of the bottom leg — use a towel or strap if you can't reach it.
Action:
Breathe in. As you breathe out, rotate your upper body away from the top knee, toward the floor behind you.
Keep breathing: the inhale may pull you out slightly, the exhale lets you turn further. Gain a little with each breath.
When the rotation stops improving, hold the position for 2–3 more full breaths.
Rotate back to the start slowly, then switch sides.
Feel: This should feel like your spine untwisting from top to bottom. Nothing sharp, nothing forced — if you're straining, you've stopped using your breath.
Related Exercises
-
-
This exercise helps you rotate your upper back from all fours with a hand behind your head or lower back, keeping your lower back out of it.
-
This exercise helps you loosen your shoulders and build core control by circling a kettlebell around your head while kneeling on one knee.
-
This exercise helps you learn and practice breathing with your diaphragm, using ankle weights on your back to feel where the breath lands.