Neck, upper back, shoulders, wrists, lower back, hips, knees and ankles

Full Body Warm-Up: Chair

The most accessible full body warm-up: complete chair support lets you gently wake up every joint in your body with total comfort, suitable for all conditions.

How to do it

1. 1

   Sit well back in a steady chair

   Choose a chair that cannot roll or tip, with both feet flat on the floor and your back supported. Let the chair take your full weight so no part of you is holding you up.

2. 2

   Start at the top and work downwards

   Small slow nods and turns of the head, then shoulder circles, then elbows, wrists and hands. Keep every circle small and unhurried.

3. 3

   Carry the same idea into the lower body

   Gentle rocking of the pelvis, then lift and lower one knee and then the other, then circle the ankles and spread the toes. Nothing needs to be big to count.

4. 4

   Take five to six minutes over the whole body

   A few slow repetitions at each joint, then move on, so the whole body has been visited by the end. Every single movement here can be made smaller if a joint prefers that.

What to watch for

Turning a warm up into a stretch. Nothing here should reach the end of its range, so if a joint objects, shrink that one movement and carry on down the body.

Other ways to do this movement

Every version below is the same movement set up differently, so one of them usually suits.

• Full Body Warm-Up: Quadruped
• Full Body Warm-Up: Seated
• Full Body Warm-Up: Supine

Before you try it

Move within a range that stays comfortable. Stop if this brings on sharp pain, dizziness, or symptoms that travel down an arm or a leg, and speak to a clinician before repeating it.

From the clinically authored Vinys movement library.