Dynamic Stretching: Warm Up Before Workout (Shen Yun Principal Dancer - Angelia Wang)

Hey, welcome back, I'm William Lee, and today we have Angelia Wong joining us. Hello everyone. She's a principal dancer with Shenzhen and she's on all of our posters, if you haven't noticed, and she's gonna be teaching us some dynamic stretching movements today. Cross your fingers, put it at the back of your head, and then give a little pressure, tilt your head down. Give a little pressure and stretch the back of your neck. And when you feel comfortable enough, come back up. And now we put the hands under our chin and push it. Give a little pressure, stretch, go. And now we go to the left. Also give a little pressure on your hand and then help to stretch the side of your neck. And then come back up another way. So we should be gentle with these movements, right? Yep, but try to stretch to the point where you feel uncomfortable or stiff or sore. I do these stretches a lot every morning because after a long night of rest or a very intense training, my back muscle actually feels very stiff often. So I will do these stretches. Stretch them out. Neck is very fragile. You want to warm it up before all the intense workouts. We did two sets already. You can do multiple sets if you feel like it, but I think two sets is enough for just warming up. Okay, so the next one will be stretching the side of your waist or just the back. It will be like open up your arms and then try to stretch them out even before starting the dynamic workout. And then go up. Try to put your shoulder blades completely vertically. And then go to the side. You can use your left hand to put a little pressure on your knee. It's just to stabilize your whole body and to stretch the side muscles. Okay, that's a good stretch. And then after this, we go back, still go up to the top, and then go far down, reach down, and then stretch. And then after a few stretches, we can do more faster ones. Just one, two, one, two. Two, one, two, one, two. Yeah, that'll be it for this one. So the next one will be cross your arms, hold on to each other, and then we'll stretch your scapula, like the shoulder blades part. So put more focus on the top of your upper body. Okay, so we go to the left, stretch. Use your right hand to pull your left arm and then go back, and then this way as well. Try to stretch your shoulder blade because it gets really sore after a long standing. Like stand for a whole day or walk for a whole day, especially for girls, if you carry a shoulder bag, your shoulder feels really tired. So doing this actually helps a lot. So this is the third set. Normally I would just stretch like three sets. I feel good enough. If you want to do more, you can always do more. Okay, that's it for the set. Okay. Open up your arms, and then to do the lower side back. So we're going lower this time? Yeah, lower this time. It's also kind of like moving horizontally, but then as you reach the very end of your back, you go down a little bit. So this will stretch a little bit lower? Yeah, the lower back. For people who sits in the office, you can do this more. Not even for dynamic stretch, just a normal stretch is good for you to stretch out your back for sitting for too long. So we did three sets already? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so as I said, for dancers, we use our back a lot, especially for the girls. We have a lot of zi jing guan, and da tiao zi jing guan, all that jumps and kickings. So we need to stretch out the muscles because these parts will be very tensed up after a whole day. Yep, so that's it for the set. Just hold on to each other, your arms. And then this, you will just go around like this. And then for our dancers, we often crack our spinal cords with this. My back just cracked. Oh, that feels good. Well, if you want to go for lower back, you can bend your knees a little bit. Because if you're going for the top part, it cracks this part more. But if you want to crack your lower back, just bend your knee a little bit. Yeah, so just try to do this more. So you feel more warmed up as well, because it's more dynamic, this one. This gets your blood flowing a little bit more. Okay, just do as many as you feel like. Okay. Stand naturally. And we'll flex our foot as we reach forward. And then step out. Is that right? Yep. Oh, bend your back leg, right? Yep, and then now you stretch the back of your leg. Try to keep your front leg the same angle as when you stepped out. And then on this point, and you can stretch a little bit. If you don't feel very balanced, you can put both of your hands closer to your knee, and then stretch the back of this big, long tendon. Also your Achilles, yep. And then after this, go back to your normal standing position. And then so we can do the other way. So it'll be this one, flexing your foot, and then go out to the right angle. And then try to straighten your back leg. And then start stretching a bit. You can go on a five or 10 times stretch. Just bounce to the point where you feel like you're stretched out. And now I'm already feel like sweating a little bit, because it both works my core and my knee, and even my ankle and all that. Stretching my hip flexors for sure. Yeah, okay. Try to reach the floor with your heel. Kind of hard for me, but some people can do it. Like Will. Almost. Okay, so after this, this workout's done. You can do it several times. Okay, so after that workout, we'll just try to kick your leg through your butt. And then to stretch out this part of the muscle. Especially for female dancers, it's very important to have like, very long and flowy body shape, like the figures and the muscle lines. Like the way your muscle goes. This is like stretching the other side of what we just did, right? Yeah. Okay, this is gonna help loosen up your thighs, the muscles in the front. Yep, that's good. All right, so you can do it till when you feel relaxed and stretched out. Okay. So we're gonna do something that's related to dance. We'll be kicking. Okay. We do 300 kicks every day. And now we're gonna try to do something that everyone can do in their everyday life. So you don't have to hold onto a shanbangshou or whatever. You can just put it on the side and then kick to either 25 degrees, 45 degrees, 90, or you can try to reach your limit. But not to go too hard, because it might stretch the back of your leg too much. Yeah. So go start from our left leg. Okay. So go, so one, two, three, four. This doesn't even work on your leg. It also work on your cores a lot. You have to find your balance too. Yeah. And then try to keep your back straight. You'll feel very warmed up after all this, because you have to coordinate your whole body. I think for our viewers at home, you can also start by holding onto something. Right. You can find your balance at first. That's how we started too. So. Okay, can we stop now? Yeah. And the easier variation will be just to kick a little bit lower. Yeah. Okay. Next one will be just kneel down. And then you don't have to keep your knees closed or open. Doesn't really matter. And now we're gonna lean backwards. Put all your weight on your butt, and then put some pressure on your hand. Okay. And then stretch out this two long muscles on your leg. You can move around, but mainly to stretch them out. For dancers, we do stretches before class and after class. So this is good for pre-workout and post-workout. Now you can stretch the very worked hard muscles to stretch them into a nicer, more flowy lines. And then also to warm up before your workout. Yep, that's it. You can just do several times and just like swing a little bit. Yep, that's it. Also kneeling down, we'll be needing these. Okay, these are some yoga pads. We all know like yoga mats and yoga blocks, but these are a lot more portable and convenient for shooting dancers, because we travel a lot and then we need to stretch everywhere we could. So you can put this on any hard surfaces and you can stretch on them. And it won't hurt your heels or anywhere. And now we're gonna use them to put it under our knees to do our last workout. Obi, you can place on the floor first. Okay. And then put your left knee on the pad and then now go forward and then try to go. Yeah, try to stretch this part first a little bit. Yeah, and then you can bounce a little bit. And then now you can hold onto the floor with your right hand and then use your left hand to try to reach for the back leg. I'm a demonstration for viewers who are more stiff at home. Come on, let's try it. I don't think I can do it. Okay. Oh, oh my goodness. So this part stretch this part a lot, right? Either the front or the back, it both stretches. This is a more intense version? Yeah, stretch a little bit and then you can let go gently. Okay. And then go back up. Can I just bounce at this position as well? Yeah, you could just do that. As long as it stretches your, the hip and the muscle here. So after this, you can switch side and then now put your right knee on the mat and then go forward, lean over. You can stretch a little bit first and now put your left hand on the floor and then try to reach your other leg with the other hand and bend a little bit. This might have the, you'll feel more pain with the stretch but it feels really good afterwards. I'll stay at this position for beginners. For our viewers at home who are just getting used to stretching, I think you could do this variation. Yep, so after this, let go gently and go back up. All right, so the last one is I know some people do like pushups, guys I guess like planks or some like small jumps. So we need to also warm up our wrist and our ankles. Will mention this also has to do with coordination. Right. I guess do your ankles and your wrist at the same time. Just change left and right. Man, this does take some coordination. Okay, I guess for dancers, we use many different methods to warm up our ankles and wrist. Yeah. So this is one method you could do and for me, I'll try to put my weight on my knee and also the front of my foot. So you can actually feel like you're using your knee and then putting your weight onto it. So you feel more warmed up like this. And by doing this, you can also feel your acules a lot. Right. Yeah, so it's good for dancers or just everyday workout before you start some intense workout. Yeah, so that's it for today. All right, thank you, Angelia, for teaching us those dynamic stretching movements. To be honest, I think I need to incorporate some of that into my warmup. Yeah, for dancers, we do both like static stretches and dynamic stretches before class or performance. So hopefully you can incorporate those to your warmup as well. And we'll see you guys next time.