Post-recital relaxation

Dr. Wolff - Pectoralis minor stretch

After playing, it is time to relax! If you stretch out in bed, put both hands on your forehead, palms facing to the ceiling. Think about holding a large exercise ball with your elbows, activate your muscles to "squeeze" it.

Hold this position for few breaths, then spread out your arms to the sides - either at shoulder level (90 degrees) oder pointing into the corners of the room. This way, two different muscle parts of the Pectoralis minor muscle are stretched. This muscle draws your shoulders forward and is often hypertensed.

If you want to increase the stretch, you can pull the pectoralis muscle towards your neck (use your thumb and index finger of the contralateral side, place the thumb in parallel to your neck and the index finger on the first mucle contour of your armpit. Now you give some pressure into the armpit and you pull towards your neck. This is a perpendicular stretch to the course of the muscle fibers).

The second way to increase the stretch is to position a towell underneath your spine (either in longitudinal direction for a generalized stretch, or perpendicularily, for a specific vertebral segment). This way, putting the arms to the sides results in more of a stretch.