Road Trip Relief: Surprising Hacks You Wish You Knew Sooner!

Long car rides are a pain. In your butt, in your neck, in your lower back, it starts hurting all over. I'm Roland Litsche-Bracht and I'm going to show you how you could survive long trips, be it in a car, a bus, a plane, whatever long lengths of time of sitting is involved. Ina is with me again and Ina is going to show you what to do. Please get out of the car. First thing, we're going to use the car as our exercise tool, so you can really enjoy your road trip. Not only survive, but enjoy it. It's supposed to be fun, riding through beautiful landscapes, getting some positive vibes. Ina, use your car for the exercise, lean against it a little closer, a bit more, and now we compensate for sitting so long. Ina tucks her belly button in and that straightens up her pelvis and you could feel a slight pre-stretch here in the front of your thighs. This already involves your hip flexor, which contracts the most in these long car trips and causes all that discomfort. And then shift your belly button forward, your groin, that is. Tuck in your belly button and in case you're too close to your car, just step back a bit and make sure to give yourself support with your fingertips, so you could bend over nicely. And since we always sit in our cars like this and not like this, we also bend our head over backwards. Please move it backwards. Pay attention. Keep your pelvis straight so that your groin is moving forward and your belly button is tucked in. If bending your head back like this becomes too hard and two minutes are too much, then raise your head up again for a second, but keep the rest of your body in the stretch, because this is affecting this area, deals with your back pain, that's where sciatica problems start. The muscles in the front have become too short, so the glute muscles in the back counteract, pinching the sciatic nerve that also becomes over-acidic and starts burning. You do that for two, two and a half minutes. Now, if people in the parking lot are staring at you, just ask them to join you and then we get up again. And that should free up your lower back. Now we're going to deal with sitting behind the steering wheel hunched over, very similar to a desk situation. Now we want to open that up, so you open your car door, stand like this, place one hand on the roof, the other on the door frame, step back for a stable stance, and now move the upper end of your breastbone slowly downwards. This is how we start. One hand here, the other hand there, and now figure out how to position yourself so you can spread nicely across the whole distance. And now move the upper end of your breastbone downwards, and your hand stays here, up here, and then keep moving downwards. And the angle is in line with your shoulders. But now, if you move back a bit, but keep your hands in position, that changes the angle and that requires you to move your hands forward a bit more. And then you could feel how you can move up the angle, but you can also move forward, but keep your hands where they are and only move your head towards the steering wheel, more into the car, and then you could feel how you can adjust exactly the angle that gives you the best stretch. Stay there, do that for two, two and a half minutes, and slowly leave the position. And that opens up everything nicely. We freed up everything down here and up here, and now we're going to deal with the focus of this exercise, your buttocks. Some of you know this story, the burning in your buttocks, that's like fire. And sometimes you can't take it anymore and you raise your butt a bit for relief. You do anything just to avoid sitting on your buttocks because of the searing pain. And we're going to use our trunk for the next exercise. Now, depending on your car, you can just sit on the edge of the trunk. Driver and passenger can do this together. Cross your right leg over your left one, move it up so you could start a pre-stretch. Hold on to it with your hand. In case the trunk is a bit higher, your leg automatically angles downward. And to keep your right leg from sliding down, you should hold it with your hand. And now, arch your back extremely, extremely. Before we wanted to avoid an arched back, but now arch your back as much as you can. And when your back is arched, move your belly button forward. Great. And then you'll immediately feel the stretch in your right buttock. It's important not to round your entire body, but to move your belly button forward and then you could feel it in your buttock. Probably exactly the spot that started to burn. And then you can try out different positions. Shift your upper body to the right a bit. Only with your upper body. Stay seated. Everything else stays the same. Only your upper body shifts to the right. The rest stays put. It's a good thing that Ina didn't get it right this time. That gives me a chance to explain it again. Your foot stays in that position. So does your leg. Your upper body moves to the left. Don't move your head. You only do this movement. To the left. Left is over here. Don't rotate. Just shift to the left. Now you've got it. And now, you see what I mean? Doing this intensifies the stretch, right? And that's good. So you shift your upper body in a left or right bend and move it in the directions where you notice it's a good intensity for your buttocks. Now I have another idea for you, because it's always about your back. So if you're on vacation and you finally arrive at your destination, you can join in our back challenge. Clicking up there takes you to the video for our back challenge. And during your holidays, you can address all of your back problems. See you then. We'll say bye-bye.