Mark Wright: Yes, it's Thursday, Work out the Wright way, Flexibility Thursday as always.

I love a bit of Flexibility Thursday.

It's a time to relax, stretch the muscles that are feeling tight from the week

So far. Also a time to relax the mind a little bit, we're gonna add a little

Bit of meditation into today's stretching exercises.

We're just gonna get moving on the spot,

Just dancing around. Get the arms going as well.

It's not very good to stretch when your muscles are cold and not

Loose and not warm. So, we're gonna be doing some big stretches

Today, so we just wanna warm up the body. Let's just have some lateral...

Jumps, side to side. Good.

Brilliant work. From there, we're just gonna hop

On our right leg. There.

We're gonna do about ten hops.

When you feel like you've done your ten, move to your left leg.

Good. Just move on,

Just warming up the body, getting the blood flowing before we have nice stretch.

From there, we're gonna touch our heels on the inside.

Just warming up our bodies now, really bringing our heart rates up

Before we settle them down and stretch.

From there, we're gonna touch our heels on the outside,

As so. Good. Flicking out to the side.

Brilliant work.

Good.

It's very important

To have a warm body as well, when you're stretching, to help you stretch further.

Upper body's just twisting round.

Good. BREATHES HEAVILY

Good. Let's just do the shoulder roll now. Forward,

Keeping our arms bent, fists clenched,

Shoulder rolls. Three, two,

One and backwards.

BREATHES HEAVILY

Good. Have a little jog and a little

Shake off, just to finish

Before we go into our first

Exercise.

First exercise today for Flexibility Thursday is the tree pose. You're probably thinking, "what? Tree pose?".

No.

It's not just, that. This is what the tree pose

Is. Okay, in stages.

We're gonna stand and balance on one leg, lifting our other leg up

Like this, until our knee -

If you can - is in line with your waist. We're then

Gonna turn our knee out to the side,

Keeping our balance. From there,

Notice my foot drop down. So, it's gonna come in towards my leg.

I don't want you resting it against your knee. You have two choices.

Preferably, I want your foot up here.

If you can't get it that high,

don't put it on your knee,

Keep it on your calf. I will

Warn you, you will feel a wobble.

It's not gonna easy to balance.

Okay. Keep your arms out, this will help.

Focus on a dot on the wall in front of view, that will also help.

You will feel this not only stretching, but you'll feel

Your standing leg

Really tensing and toning. It's a great toning exercise as well.

A tree pose, you can just put your leg straight to here and start,

But I wanna add in the three stages, which is up, out, in. Hold.

Hold. Around five or six seconds.

Then we can go down and

switch to the other leg.

Okay, we go up, out, in. Everyone will have a leg

That they're better at balancing on. My better

Balance leg is my right and that's because I kick with my left foot.

So, when I'm kicking, all the time, I'm landing

On my right leg, which helps that be stronger.

So, my right leg is easier to balance.

So, on my left leg like

this, I do find it tougher but I have to focus, breath,

And try and balance. Good. Balance and flexibility,

So important in every walk of life. Okay, shake

It off. We're gonna go back to the first leg.

Arms out, leg up, to the side and in. Hold.

Tree post, do I look like a tree? Kind of. Come on Mark, keep your balance.

I look like a tree in the wind at that moment. Argh, I'm going. I'm gone.

Back to my position.

Hold

And good. Shake it off. Ooh, I'm really

Feeling that on the standing leg, I must say. The toning.

Back to my left leg. Right knee up,

Out to the side,

In. My balance is not great. Once you're going, you just go, don't you. You feel like

There's no turning back. Hold. Hold. Hold

And rest. Shake off, we're gonna go one more on each leg, okay?

Leg up,

Out. I'm gonna put it on my calf this time. I feel like it's a real strain getting it

That high, so I'm just gonna put it down, which is

Still great. Still great for flexibility

And balance. And strength

As well. I feel like this is a hidden strength exercise.

I never knew standing on one leg would be so tricky, and talking to you at that same time it's not easy.

And rest. Shake it off. Other side

For the last time.

Hold. Breath,

In through your nose, BREATHES HEAVILY Out through your mouth.

Focus on something, find a dot on the floor or on the wall.

Just stare at it to keep your balance.

Brilliant. Have a shake off.

Next exercise is around the world. I want you to open your legs. So, this is shoulder width apart. We're gonna go further than shoulder width

Apart. Not all the way out, around about here.

I want you to get your hands and your arms and line them up with your feet.

So, you're holding a beach ball or a work out ball, that's quite big. Not a football,

Not a tennis ball, not a golf ball,

A beach ball. We're here. Great exercise and this is perfect for me. I always get a stiff lower back.

I'm getting old now, you see. So, from here, we are going to start

With the ball above our head. We're gonna go all the way around the world. So, we're gonna go out to the

Side, down, round, back up, and up. Notice how when I'm back

Around here, I'm not just bringing my arms up, I'm going

All the way with my body and

All the way up. Then we go back round the other way. Down, side

And up. Okay?

Have you got that beach ball in your hand?

Let's go all the way down,

Round.

Genuinely feels

Amazing. It's a real stretch on that lower back.

And back the other way. Down.

SIGHS I can literally hear you going SIGHS. It does, it feels incredible, doesn't it?

SIGHS Shake it off.

Have a rest from your position and your pose. We're gonna go back down. This genuinely

Feels amazing today. I need it. Thursday, it always gets to that point in the week, it's been a long, we've been working out and things are starting to feel stiff, my back's starting to ache.

A day like today to stretch is so important and just perfect.

Okay, we're gonna put that beach ball back above our head, we're back on the beach.

Legs slightly apart. Here we go.

Back down, to the side, up, and hold.

And the last time... Now I don't know about you but, that

Feels amazing.

You can do that all day today if you're feeling

Tight. Please, always stretch. That is a great exercise, especially

If you're coming down low, you can get a hamstring stretch at the same time.

Coming across, stretching

This hamstring, this quad. Up. My back, my arms, everything

Is being stretched. Really focus, do it nice and slow.

You can can do that any point during week, throughout your whole life, whenever you're feeling stiff. I hope you love it, 'cause it do.

The next exercise, you'll be pleased

To know, you can sit the floor.

Lovely, lovely stretch.

I love this exercise. It's also a time to really relax and focus on yourself,

And get away any stresses that you may have,

Think about all the positives in your life. I like to do this once or twice a week, when I get out of bed in the morning; sometimes, when I go to bed, if it's been a long day.

So what we're gonna do, we're gonna get our feet, put them together,

And we're gonna bring them in closely to our pelvic area as we can. From there, we're gonna rest our elbows onto our knees and

Gently press out. Straightening

Our backs. We don't wanna be arched over, we wanna keep out backs

Nice and straight. From there,

We're gonna hold. If you can push out further, great, you'll feel it in your groins in here.

I want you to close your eyes,

Breath in deep through your nose BREATHES HEAVILY and out through your mouth.

Any stresses that you may have from today, or for the week, anything that's been annoying you

Or bugging you, I want you to forget about. Think about them now,

Put them in a little box and close the lid. Go on, just literally

Get that thought, put in the box and close that lid.

Now, I want you to think about everything you're grateful for: The fact that you're here, working out today;

The fact that it's Friday tomorrow; the fact that you love your family; the fact that you love your home;

The fact that you've good at school or been good at work.

Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth,

BREATHES HEAVILY keeping your back straight and just think about everything good in your life. That's all I want you to do.

Have a little rest, bring your knees back together,

Keeping your eyes closed.

We're gonna go back out again, eyes closed.

This time, if you wanna think about a happy place; Is it a holiday, is it a

Beach? My happy place,

Immediately comes to my mind when I think of the beach.

I think of the sea, the sound,

Being with my loved ones, the sun hitting my body,

Feeling good and just feeling happy. Just taking in deep breaths.

You'll be feeling this stretch in the groins, in here. Any sport you need to quickly change direction, it's good for. Sports that you need to get down low or squat for,

It's great to have groins nice and loose and feeling stretched. Okay, legs back together,

Have a little shake if you need to,

It's very common to get groin strains and

Pulls in the groins in lots of different sports we take part in; football,

In squash, any kind of racket sports where you're getting

Low and stretching out your leg.

Yeah, so, keeping your groins nice and flexible is very, very important.

Rest there. We're gonna get ready to stand up for our challenge exercise.

For your challenge exercise, it is the Forward Bend. We've done something like this before for a challenge,

Trying to touch our toes, getting as low down as we can. This

Time, we're gonna wrap our arms around the back of our legs whilst they're straight, we're gonna try and get our heads and our bodies as close to our legs as we can, okay? So,

We're gonna go down into

That position now.

I want you to try something: hold it for another three seconds.

Now come up.

Shake off and go down again. You should be able to go a little bit further.

BREATHES HEAVILY

Good. Hold. We did this

In week one, how are you feeling?

Have you managed to get further? That's the question. Ask yourself, "am I

Further down than week one?".

Week one, I remember being able to get my hands just to the floor. Now,

I can get them right on the floor

And put my hands being my legs,

Which I couldn't do week one. So, I'm seeing a real improvement with that.

BREATHES HEAVILY

Good, hopefully, you've seen an improvement as well.

What we're gonna do to cool down, nothing much at all. We're just gonna shake off any lactic

Acid. We've just basically

Warmed up and warmed down for the whole session,

Stretching; you should be nice and flexible now.

But, just have a little shake off, have a little move on the spot,

Just to, kind of, loosen everything off, shake of any lactic acid you need to shake off.

Also, a little bit of breathing exercise.

BREATHES HEAVILY Arms up, back

Down. Really

Fill up the lungs. Brilliant. Tomorrow, we'll be doing Feel Good.

Friday. We all love Feel Good Friday, it means the weekend is here and we're choosing all our favourite exercises

From the week. Hands behind us again, chest out like we did in the warm up.

In through our nose, out through our mouth. BREATHES HEAVILY

Stretch anything you feel like you need to stretch more of,

'cause you're feeling tight, but I'm feeling pretty loose after that session.

Hopefully, that stretching session has made you feel amazing.

Both--