# Spine Stretch Forward: how to do it

- Main muscles: lower back, hamstrings
- Also works: abs
- Equipment: yoga mat
- Level: beginner
- 3D demo (side view): https://media.trainaq.com/exercises/spine_stretch_forward/4dc8c0749b/side-m-720.mp4

## Steps

1. Sit tall with your legs straight and a little wider than your hips, feet flexed.
2. Reach your arms forward at shoulder height, palms down.
3. Breathe out, drop your chin and round forward one vertebra at a time, reaching your arms forward.
4. Keep your hips stacked over your sit bones.
5. Breathe in and restack your spine from the bottom up, head last; repeat 4–6 times.

## Cues

- Round up and over a big ball.
- Hips stay stacked, belly scoops in.
- Grow taller every time you come up.

## Common mistakes

- Folding from the hips: keep the hips upright and round the spine instead.
- Slumping at the start: sit on a folded blanket if your lower back rounds.
- Lifting the head first: the head comes up last.

## The version in our demo

The classical mat Spine Stretch Forward (Joseph Pilates, Return to Life; Balanced Body mat manual): sitting tall with the legs apart, round the spine forward one part at a time from the head, then restack. It is a spinal articulation, not a hamstring stretch: the hips stay stacked.

## Starting position

Sitting tall on the sit bones, legs straight and a little wider than the hips (about mat-width), feet flexed; arms reaching forward at shoulder height, palms down.

## The movement

Breathe out, drop the chin and round forward from the top of the spine down, as if over a big ball, reaching the arms forward; keep the hips stacked over the sit bones. Breathe in and restack the spine from the lower back up, the head last, back to sitting tall.

## Breathing

Out to round forward, in to restack.

## Tempo

6 s: tall 0.5 s, round 2.5 s (out-breath), hold 0.4 s, restack 2.6 s (in-breath). Real practice: 4–6 slow reps.

## Form in numbers

- Tall: trunk within 3° of vertical; legs straight (knees about 7°), ankles 60 cm apart, feet flexed; arms at shoulder height, straight (elbows about 11°).
- Round: the head first (chin to chest), then the spine rounds 62° in a C-curve; the arms reach forward and 18° down; the head ends 37–38 cm above the mat.
- The hips do not move (0.0 cm).

## Sources

1. J. Pilates and W. J. Miller, Return to Life through Contrology (1945), "The Spine Stretch".
2. Balanced Body, Pilates Mat instructor manual

Source: https://trainaq.com/exercises/spine-stretch-forward