Pro Footballer's Quick Morning Stretch and Yoga Routine | 15 Minute Yoga for Soccer Players

what's going on guys welcome to another become Elite stretching video you guys seem to love these videos which is fantastic to hear the first one I did was 45 minutes long really deep stretch uh really enjoyed that one I do that probably about once a week like a really long 45 minute to an hour long stretching session the second video I put out was like 30 minutes and I think that was kind of deep stretch as well but also some foam rolling as well and now this one is going to be short and sweet 15 minutes long but all of these exercises are stretches that we'll do will just be held for about 30 seconds I really like this routine because I do this one pretty much every single day before training so I get into the facilities I get changed I talk with some teammates or whatever and then I go outside and I start this 15 minute Mobility session before doing my activation and and rehabbing prehab exercises and then we go and do the full team training session so this is like my morning wake up Mobility get the blood flowing before I start moving on to activation rehab in team training so I do this like I said pretty much like every single uh every single day before training so without further Ado let's hop into the very first stretch of child's pose so every time before we get into this stretch we'll get like a 10 second grace period so 10 seconds to get into it and we'll hop down into child's pose right here so child's pose just sink back try to get your butt to your heels arms stretched out and just kind of sink into this stretch okay so it's 30 seconds there's nothing crazy it's not anything deep stretching it's just kind of like a little a little uh pick me up in the morning next we got seal so just try to push your pelvis forward chest up arms straight and just really try to arch your back like a seal I think this is good in the mornings too before training because before a game before training session I mean it's not that bad to do longer holding of stretches but there's just been some research to show that it can kind of lower some of your uh your power output and muscles so it's just you know a little bit better just to do a little bit quicker holds like this for 30 seconds next we're going to go back into child's pose take one of your arms your mind taking my right arm and throwing it underneath the left do you like child's pose with a Twist [Music] feel this in your lower back and behind your shoulder that deltoid and you know as I'm saying all this and try to sound all cool I am not a yoga instructor I'm just a professional footballer and this is just what I do I don't even know if all these stretches are uh actual yoga you know official stretches or whatever but this is just what I do and I feel really good from doing it so next one we're just going to go over to the left side so or to the right side with our left arm so left arm underneath and then just twist and sink back I really feel this in my my lower back I think it's great especially from like sitting on the computer and training and all this stuff it's my body tidens up very quickly especially now being 30 years old I just find that I need to do this pretty much every single morning to uh to really feel my best and when I don't do this it feels like I it takes me longer to get into the team training session okay it come out of that do steel one more time here we go foreign you can also walk your hands a little bit further back to really make that even more dramatic of a stretch okay here we go now we're gonna go to one of my all-time favorite stretches ever the pigeon stretch so just take your right leg throw it on try to make it parallel like I said I'm not an expert at stretching or yoga so mine's not perfect but you can watch a tutorial on pigeon stretch this is like my favorite one my glutes always seem to get extremely tight so this is like my go-to and then I just try to sync sync my butt closer to the ground my hips closer to the ground my chest close to the ground just relax I'll go over to the left and yeah I literally like I had training this morning team training this morning and I did exactly this before I started my exercises like I said and exercise Wise It's you know it's just kind of like my problem areas and do some stuff for my patellar tendonitis you know just so that doesn't come back at all some hamstring stuff some some hip flexor stuff growing stuff I've had surgery in my groin so this is kind of like getting my body a little bit warmed up blood flowing a little bit it's like my warm up for my activation exercises if that makes sense okay just about done on this left side I'm gonna go hip flexor and quad this is another really good one couch stretch so I'm just gonna bring my light right leg forward left leg behind me and then I'm just gonna pop that left leg up and I'm going to work on bringing my heel to my butt and also kind of pushing my hips forward like this so that I can feel it really in my hip flexor but it's hip flexor quad all that stuff really good one what's cool about these stretching videos too um the first one I filmed was in my apartment in Tulsa I think in 2020. and then the second one I filmed was in my backyard in Charleston okay I switch and then the third one I filmed this one is in my backyard in Hartford Connecticut so it's cool to see the uh the journey through these stretching videos and it's even cool to see like that first video I love Gucci like running around and causing a ruckus and in that uh and this one you know now I have a a baby a kid it's it's really cool to see that also I have this I cut my foot moving some of my outdoor furniture around for this video let's have a little Band-Aid so if I start bleeding or crying you know why okay next one we are going to do the crisscross and reach great one again for the glutes It's Gonna Come crisscross applesauce got my left foot in front of my right and just lean forward and again sink into it when I started stretching back when I was like 22 and I was so tight this is like I think I was in Germany I was like I could not even sit crisscross applesauce because my hips were so tight and that led to like a lot of lower back tightness and pain and a whole bunch of problems so now I've come a long way okay now we're going to do is just take the right leg or your other leg and put it in front of the opposite leg now do the same exact thing with the legs opposite crisscrossed you'll probably find that you have one leg like a preference that's easier like for me it's way easier for me to do the left leg in front of the right leg for whatever reason okay and we'll go into the frog stretch this is just uh basically putting your legs wide this for the groin feet out behind you and then you're just going to sink backwards into this and you should feel a really really deep stretch in your groins foreign surgeries one surgery on each groin and after those microwins got so tight and so this was like my I had to do this stretch like four or five times a day to make sure that my groins weren't going to heal all tightened up there we go next we're just going to do a line quad so I'm just gonna Lean Back grab my left ankle pull it behind me some people this hurts their knee if this hurts your knee do a standing quad stretch or whatever your favorite quad stretches you shouldn't be feeling like a sharp twingy pain it should just feel like the Deep stretching discomfort you know there's a difference it is beautiful here in Connecticut though in the Summers the winters suck but the summer is beautiful I mean we're end of May Memorial Day weekend right now and it is just the green the blue skies the flowers it's it's really really nice okay just doing the opposite leg now same thing sinking back if you guys also want um a different stretching routine I mean like I said the 45 minute deep stretch one is kind of like what I do once a week in the afternoon on my off day or whatever the 30 minute session that will be like again I might do that once a week and replace it if I don't want to do the full hour long whatever but this is what I do every single day before training okay now we're gonna go to seated hamstring so super simple just grab your toes or whatever and reach but yeah like I was saying if you guys want um something specific for these stretching videos like a certain time or you want to do more foam rolling or or uh with a lacrosse ball or whatever just let me know I can make them I can do it okay now we're going to do the hamstring stretch again but just a variation just bring your legs in a in a V and wide and then we're going to reach with the opposite hand to the foot so it's like I'm reaching to my right foot with my left hand and then I'm just going to twist and bring my arm underneath like my knee to my elbow and just twist like this I feel this on this hamstring a ton and I also feel this on the left lower back if you want to for even a deeper twist you can take your right arm and bring it under your leg and go up like this that really opens up my lower back so now opposite I'm going to just reach with this hand over this elbow in again I'm going to do the full twist ah there we go okay next we have a little quad stretch and Ankle stretch I'm just going to put my feet flat on the uh the mat I'm gonna sit on my heels and I'm just going to relax some of you this might not feel like a stretch at all and for others this might feel excrucially excruciatingly painful so if it's not painful at all if it's not if you don't feel anything you can lean back even further like this even go all the way down put your elbows on the mat to stretch out those quads even more this one's huge for me because I've sprained my ankles in the past and once you've sprained your ankle that Mobility like it tightens up a ton so you need to strengthen it up and mobilize it like that and for me that's where I've really helped that next downward dog the classic get the dogs out just pushing my heels flat to the ground trying to make my butt up to the sky and my back flat again this is a hamstring and calf stretch [Music] foreign there we go now we're going to do the same one as before sit down on our heels but this time we're really going to like almost try to raise up our knees and get an even deeper stretch in the front of our uh of our feet and ankles and if this is too painful like you can't raise up your knees at all one you should work on it because you need to get have good ankle Mobility so you don't get injured with an ankle sprain or something but just go back to the normal sitting on the heels and if that's too painful do a little modified version or something but you can just sit on the heels raise them up really stretch out those ankles and feet there we go we're gonna do the basically a downward dog but we're going to focus on one leg and just do a calf stretch so we'll start with the left push down the left Heel To The Ground I use my right toes and feet to make sure that my heel is flat on the ground really just stretch and you can move you know go forward backward wherever you really feel some tightness just really double down and and try to loosen that area up every stretch I always want to say oh this is one of my favorite stretches or I'm really tight here but that's it's just everything 's always tightening up on me because I'm training and working out constantly okay so next same exact thing just with the uh the right heel now the right calf so right foot flat on the ground left foot behind pushing down the heel and just stretching and finding that spot where it gets really tight ah [Music] there we go okay and then our very last stretch coming up is the one that I think I get the most comments on and it's where we sit on our heels again but this time our toes are tucked underneath so it really stretches out that big toe and those muscles and tendons there oh it's windy and really just leaning into it with your feet constantly in a in a boot in a football boot like it's just crunched together your feet get very I mean your feet go through so much in those in those boots so this one and stretching out the ankles and toes and everything I I mean I didn't start doing it until I was in my like I was 25 or so and I just noticed that my like everything just felt so much better but anyway that's it guys that is the 15 minute stretch routine um like I said I would finish this right now 15 minutes of that I'm feeling as you guys probably are feeling right now you feel looser you feel a little bit like the blood's flowing then I go straight into like my rehab pre-ax prehab exercises so I'm doing like stuff like leg lifts for the hip flexor or I'm doing like on the Swiss ball like some hammy stuff and I do probably 15 minutes of exercises to kind of activate all those muscles and then I go in put my boots on and then we start team training so that's pretty much like a glimpse into uh how I uh get ready for the day for the training session so I hope you guys like this video if you did please please please hit the Thumbs Up Button keep watching it keep doing these stretches let me know what you guys are thinking let me know if you guys want any um other videos that in particular whatever it is and uh we can do that so anyway thank you guys for tuning in I appreci it I'll catch you guys in the next video alright guys peace foreign

Channel: Become Elite

Views: 595,220

Keywords: soccer, football, sports, vlog, matt, sheldon, become, elite, professional, pro, footballer, athlete, workout, weight, lift, train, training, saint, louis, fc

Id: 3lfBP1OdoG0

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023