The Complete Stretching Sequence for the Hotel Room: How to Take Care of the Body When You Are Far from Home

Why the Body Asks to Be Stretched After the Travel

When you arrive in the hotel room, the body speaks with a clear voice. The back is stiff like a wooden board. The neck has become heavy. The legs feel swollen, especially if you have made many hours in the airplane or in the train. This is not something strange, and it is not necessary to be athletes for understanding what is happening.

The explanation is very simple. When we stay for a long time in the same position — seated in the car, in the airplane seat, in the train wagon — the muscles shorten themselves. The blood circulates with more difficulty. The joints lose their natural oil, which is called synovial liquid, and they become dry. It is like leaving a door closed for many months: when you try to open it, it makes resistance.

For this reason, to stretch oneself in the hotel room is not a luxury. It is a necessity. And the beautiful thing is that you need not a gym, not special instruments, not even much space. You need only your own body, the floor, and perhaps the bed.

The Morning Sequence: Five Minutes Before the Day Begins

The morning is the moment in which the muscles are most rigid, because during the night we have moved very little. The first thing to do, before even to put the feet on the floor, is to stretch oneself while still lying down.

In the bed, still horizontal:

• Bring the knees toward the chest, slowly, and hug them with both arms. Stay in this position for twenty seconds. You will feel the lower back that releases itself, like a hand that finally opens after being closed too long.
• Then, extend one leg long on the mattress and bring the other knee up. Make small circles with the raised knee. Five circles in one direction, five in the other. Change leg.
• Finally, stretch both arms above the head as if you wanted to touch the ceiling, and point the toes of the feet away from you. This is the movement that even the cat makes when it wakes up. The body knows it by instinct.

Near the bed, standing:

• Put the feet at the width of the shoulders. Bend yourself forward, letting the arms hang down like two ropes. Do not force. The hands must go only where they go without pain. Breathe. Stay twenty seconds. Then rise up slowly, vertebra by vertebra.
• Make ten circles with the shoulders: five forward, five backward. Simple, but for the neck and the upper back it is a true relief.
• Turn the head slowly to the right, stay five seconds, then to the left. Never make fast movements. The neck is delicate like a bird’s wing.

This whole sequence asks five minutes, not one minute more. And yet, the difference in how you walk to the breakfast is enormous.

The Evening Sequence: To Undo the Day

The evening stretching has a different purpose from the morning one. In the morning you wake up the body. In the evening, you must thank it and release the tensions accumulated. Perhaps you have walked all day through the city, or you have stayed seated in a conference room for six hours. In both cases, the muscles need attention.

Here the sequence to do on the floor of the hotel room (put a towel if the carpet is not clean):

• The position of the child: Kneel on the floor, sit on your own heels, and extend the arms forward on the ground. The forehead touches the floor. Breathe deeply for thirty seconds. This position opens the hips and calms the mind. Even a child understands it: it is the position of rest, of returning to a safe place.
• The figure four: Lie on the back. Cross the right ankle over the left knee. Grab the left thigh with both hands and pull it gently toward the chest. You will feel the stretch in the right hip. Stay thirty seconds. Change side. This is fundamental for who has walked many kilometers or has stood in feet for long time.
• The torsion of the spine: Always on the back, bring both knees to the chest, then let them fall to the right side while the shoulders stay on the floor. Open the left arm like a wing. Stay twenty seconds. Repeat to the left side. The spine breathes again.
• The stretch of the calves against the wall: Stand facing the wall of the hotel room. Put one foot back, heel on the ground, and bend the front knee. You will feel the calf that stretches. Twenty seconds per leg. This is essential after a day of walking with not-perfect shoes.

Breathing: The Invisible Part That Changes Everything

Many persons make the error of stretching without breathing properly. They hold the air inside, they make the movement, and they release. But this is like watering a plant with the pot covered: the water cannot enter.

The rule is simple and you can explain it to a child: when you go into the stretch, you breathe out slowly, like you are blowing on a hot soup. When you return from the stretch, you breathe in. The breath must be long, from the belly, not short and from the chest.

If you do this, the muscles understand that there is no danger, and they release themselves much more. Without the correct breathing, you can stretch for ten minutes and obtain the result of two.

Taking Care of the Energy from Inside: The Other Half of the Work

Stretching takes care of the muscles, of the joints, of the circulation. But the body is a complete mechanism, and for it to work well, also the fuel must be in order. When we travel, we eat at strange hours, we skip meals, we eat too many sugars at the airport bar. The glucose in the blood goes up and down like a roller coaster, and the muscles suffer this, they become tired before the time, they recover with difficulty.

For this reason, many persons who travel often have inserted in their daily routine a support for the maintenance of healthy glucose levels. In this sense, Glycorium is a product that various travelers have begun to keep in the suitcase together with the toothbrush. It is a supplement thought for who wants to give to the body a steady base of energy, without the peaks and the falls that make you feel without strength at three in the afternoon. You can find information about it on glycorium.biz, where they explain with clarity what is inside and how it works.

This does not substitute the stretching, and it does not substitute a good meal. But it is the same logic: to take care of the body from the outside with movement, and from the inside with the right support. One without the other is only half the work.

The Small Practical Rules for the Hotel Room

Some things seem obvious, but it is better to say them clear:

• Never stretch cold muscles with violent movements. Always start slow. The first movement of the morning must be gentle, like you are waking up a sleeping friend.
• Use the bed as support if the floor is not comfortable. The edge of the mattress is perfect for stretching the calves or for doing the torsion.
• If the room is small, you can do everything standing. The wall becomes your best instrument.
• Do not compare yourself with nobody. If your hands arrive only to the knees when you bend forward, it is perfect. Tomorrow they will arrive one centimeter more. The body has its own time, and it is necessary to respect it.
• Make the stretching at the same hour every day of the trip. The body loves the routine. After three days, it will ask for it by itself.

The Body Remembers, and It Thanks You

There is a thing that I have learned in many years of traveling: the body does not forget how you have treated it. If for five days of a trip you ignore it, you return home with the back in pieces, with the neck blocked, with a tiredness that is not only of the mind. But if every evening you give it ten minutes of attention, you return home lighter, as if the trip had not cost anything to the body.

The hotel room is not a prison. It is a space that you can transform, for ten minutes, in your own small place of care. You need not music, not special clothes, not experience. You need only the will to listen to what the muscles are saying.

And they are always saying something. It is sufficient to bend down, to breathe, and to listen.

Aphing Marie-Joseph