Ben Greenfield demonstrates how he uses a yoga swing to increase blood flow to the head and decompress the spine. He shows specific moves (named the "double diamond" and the "flying squirrel"), explains variations for stretching the arms, triceps, low back and hip flexors, and mentions a personal modification—adding rings to the swing—for different grips and positions.
Hi, I'm Ben Greenfield. Welcome to my house. This is the new thing that I'm doing in the mornings to get more blood flow to my head and to decompress my spine. It's called a yoga swing. Check this out. You don't just have to hang upside down. For example, here's a move that I learned called the. It's called called the double diamond.
And the way that this one works is.
I go upside down like this, push my feet together, get a huge stretch for the arms, triceps, low back, and I can even bring this forward into another one called the flying squirrel. In this position, you can do push ups. You can just look cool hanging out in your living room. Here's another one that I really like. You saw a little sample of earlier. All you do is basically bring your legs apart and get a huge stretch on the hip flexors. Now, another cool thing that you can do on this thing, by the way, I've modified it a little bit. I've even put rings on the outside of the swing. What you can do if you want is you can kind of.
Bunch the swing.
Back kind of towards your hip bones. And then once you do this, you can kind of use these handles. Hold on to one handle, slide down the other one.
Grab one side of your leg, get a really good stretch for the hip flexor on this side. And then I can grab this one and grab this leg and repeat for a really good hip flexor stretch on the other side. You can also use this thing for strengthening. For example, check this out. I can hold on to these handles and go into an inversion, like so. Or I can do reverse abdominal tucks. I can do poles straight up and down. I can do a reverse plow where you bring your legs back behind you and then back up. And then one of my favorites for my dismount is I go into a really deep shoulder stretch. So I come around like so, and then walk forward into a shoulder stretch. So it's called a yoga swing. You can get one of these with a free DVD that shows you how to do all the different moves. There's like 30 moves you can do on this thing. I just showed you a handful. But go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com yogabody BenGreenfieldFitness.com Yogabody and if you use code Ben, what will happen is you'll be able to get a dvd. It shows you how to do all that stuff so you don't have to watch this video of me in my underwear hanging around in my living room. So check it out. Have fun.
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