Lower back, hips, knees and shoulders
Supported Forward Fold: Chair
The most accessible version: a seated forward lean over your thighs stretches your posterior chain with virtually no disc pressure, excellent for sensitive lower backs.
How to do it
- 1
Sit on a chair with both feet flat
Knees about hip width, feet under or slightly in front of the knees. Nothing is standing or balancing here, which makes this the gentlest version in the family.
- 2
Sit tall and rest your hands on your thighs
Lengthen up through the spine first. The arms stay along the thighs and give you something to push against on the way back up.
- 3
Tip forward from the hips over your thighs
Lead with the breastbone and stop as soon as the back would have to round to go further. Your chest may only travel a short distance, and that is enough.
- 4
Stay 30 to 60 seconds, then press up
Let the breath be slow while you rest there, then press through the hands on your thighs and come up at the speed you went down.
What to watch for
Collapsing the chest towards the thighs instead of tipping from the hips. The hinge happens at the hip creases; if your back is doing the folding, you have gone past where this version works.
Ways to adjust it
- Arms along thighs
Other ways to do this movement
Every version below is the same movement set up differently, so one of them usually suits. See all Supported Forward Fold versions in one place, ordered from gentlest to strongest.
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.
One movement is a start. A session is the thing.
A few questions about your body and how it is today, and Vinys builds a session around it, including which movements to leave out.
Start your first sessionFrom the clinically authored Vinys movement library.