How to Reset Your Body After a Long Flight
Six hours crammed between two large gentleman. Shoulders folded, back hunched, squeezed like a sardine just to keep from rubbing up against my neighbors the entire flight. That was the reality of my journey back to Washington from Maryland last night. I woke up this morning feeling like I was still sandwiched in that seat. Here is the 5 step process I used to reset my upper body (hint: its great after long days at the desk too):
My approach follows a two part framework. In part one you create space and in part two you take space. To create space you want to relax, release, and lengthen the muscles that spent the majority of the flight in a shortened, contacted position. Once that is achieved then you want to take space by isolating and integrating the muscles that spent the flight in a lengthened, inhibited position.
Step 1: Relax
Our muscles work like a dimmer switch. Their percent of maximum contraction can be turned up or down. And the nervous system is responsible for how high or low that contraction is dialed up. So before you attempt to release and lengthen the muscles I think it makes sense to influence the nervous system first. And we can do this with our breath. Step one is to take 3-6 minutes and use your breath to tone down our nervous system. There lots of different breath work combinations you can use, but a in general any 1:2 combination will do. For example: 4 second inhale: 8 second exhale, 6 second inhale, 12 second exhale, 10 second inhale, 20 second exhale. You could also add in holds after the inhale or exhale, but i’ll leave that for a standalone article. Whatever you do, take 3-6 minutes to intentionally slow your breathing down, and keep your exhale longer than your inhale.
Step 2: Release
After the breath work I moved into some soft tissue work for the major internal rotators of the shoulder. I used a lacrosse ball on the corner of the wall to get into pec major and anterior delt. I then used the foam roller to get into my lats and on my upper back to aid in getting into thoracic extension. I didn’t put a time limit on how long I rolled, but spent roughly 1-2 minutes on each muscle group per side.
Step 3: Lengthen
Once I had those tissues feeling good and loose I opted to lengthen them with some simple long hold, static stretching. For the pecs I went with the TRX Chest Stretch for 2-3 minutes. I played around with elbows straight, elbows bent, and at all different angles. Sitting into the stretch deeper when it felt particularly restricted in that range. I then moved into a Wall Lat Stretch. Again playing around with hand positions to sink into areas that felt like they needed more space.
Step 4: Isolate
With those muscles toned down and inhibited it was time to isolate the muscles responsible for opening my shoulders up. The purpose here is to turn up the dimmer switch on those muscles and promote blood flow to those areas. I used 4 different external rotation exercises, along with banded A’s ,T’s, and Y’s for rhomboids and lower/mid traps.
Step 5: Integrate
With a good little pump to the individual muscles responsible for opening me back up I got some integrated work focused on horizontal, vertical pulling, and thoracic rotation/extension. A couple sets of wide cable rows, pull ups, and t-spine rotations had me feeling completely reset. As I sit here writing this 6 hours later I can say my posture feels great!
If you’re looking for the exercises I used or a routine specific for you let me know! I’m happy to set you up, alex@evergreen-performance.com