Dr. Brianna Dawson, a physical therapist, shows four stretches for postpartum pain in the hips, back, and neck. The groin rock and frogger stretch target tight hips. A foam roller exercise opens the chest for nursing mothers. The open-book rotation mobilizes the mid-back.
Hey moms, so are you experiencing any like hip pain, back pain, neck pain after having a cute little baby? Well, my name is Brianna Dawson. I'm a doctor of physical therapy and I'm here to give you 4 tips and tricks to help mobilize and make you feel better. Okay, so number 1, I call this your groin rock. So we can go 3 different planes so we can stretch your hip flexors and your groin muscles, especially after giving birth, they get very tight. So you're set up, you're gonna try and keep pelvis level. You're just gonna rock right forward and then back. You might do 3 to 5 each direction. And now I'm gonna switch. So now I'm more of a 45-degree angle to get more of the groin, just like that. And then now I'm more out coming like this. Okay, number 2, we're gonna do a frogger stretch. So your setup, you're gonna have knees wide apart. It just depends on how, like, flexible and tight you are here. If it's a little painful, just bring your knees in more. If you want more of a stretch, you just bring them more out. I'm gonna go kind of in a plank position here, and then the idea is I'm gonna keep my back straight and and I'm just gonna rock my butt right back until you feel that nice stretch for a couple rounds. And oh my goodness, feels so good. Number 3, we're gonna do a foam roll back thoracic extension, especially tight mamas. If you're breastfeeding or feeding baby, we get really tight in the front of our chest, so we're gonna try and open us up in the back. So what we're going to do, we'll set it up so it's kind of parallel with your shoulder blades. My butt is planted, my feet are planted, hands are behind head. What I'm going to do, I'm going to start right at the top of my shoulder blades and then I'm just going to let my head sink with my hand supporting my head. I'm going to just let it come back. So we're again promoting some extension and we're opening up the front of the chest. Number 4, we're going to do an open book. So again, this is going to be promoting opening up the chest, but also opening up your mid-back as well, because we're going to add some rotational movements. So what we're going to do, we're going to put our hips at a 90-90, so we're locking out low back. We're going to have one hand down on the ground and the other hand on top. Now you'll do this on both sides. Um, to start, you can just come straight back. And again, look, I'm opening, I'm rotating, opening up my mid-back, and then I come right back just like this. You should feel a nice stretch through the— your mid-back and then also your chest. Hey moms, hopefully those 4 exercises helped get you a little bit looser and moving better. Now those were only mobility exercises, so please follow along for our next videos for strengthening and stability to help pull the whole thing together and get you feeling good.
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