If you're anything like me, you probably rush stretches, particularly after a workout.
In fact, when I'm doing static stretches I almost always come out of the movement before I should, out of boredom and the urge to wrap up the session and hit the showers.
However, I recently saw a video on TikTok about someone's experience of holding child's pose for seven minutes, which is significantly longer than the 30 seconds or less I usually spend in a stretch.
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The creator claimed that holding the stretch for a longer period helped her back feel looser, released her hips and made her feel more calm. I was curious to see if seven minutes of child's pose would have the same effect on me.
What is child's pose?
"Child’s pose is part of the yoga repertoire and as such it is really designed to be a resting pose and a counterposition for backbend type movements," says Helen O'Leary, a physiotherapist and clinical director at Complete Pilates.
To do it, begin on your hands and knees, widen the position of your knees, sit your glutes back to your heels and reach your hands forward. The position stretches the back, hips and shoulders.
What happened when I held child's pose for seven minutes
Child's pose is one of my favourite stretches but I've never held it for longer than a few minutes. Holding it for seven minutes was difficult, not physically as it's a fairly gentle stretch, but mentally because it was difficult to stop my mind from wandering.
However, I focused on my breathing and tried to treat it as a mindful moment and I was eventually able to relax into the pose.
This exercise reminded me of restorative or yin yoga, which involves holding poses for longer than in other styles of yoga. I've tried yin yoga before and find it works as a better form of meditation for me, as opposed to just sitting cross-legged, because it gives my brain enough to focus on that I can usually eventually stop it from wandering.
Physically, holding a child's pose for seven minutes felt great. I struggle with tight shoulders but my muscles felt a lot more relaxed than usual when I came out of it.
It also opened up the muscles in my hip and my back, more so than when I do this stretch for up to a minute, because the longer I stayed in the position, the more deeply I could move into it and get more of a stretch.
I don't know if holding it for seven minutes was entirely necessary—I think holding it for a shorter period like three or four minutes would have had similar effects—but it was certainly a good opportunity to switch off.
Are there any benefits to holding stretches for longer?
It certainly made me feel good, but there isn't much in the way of research to show that holding a stretch for seven minutes can improve your flexibility. "The most recent American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines recommend that you should stretch for a total of one minute per exercise," says O'Leary. "There is no conclusive research to show that stretching for longer than two minutes is better than stretching for less time."
That doesn't mean you shouldn't try it though. "I don’t see any risk of being in that position for a longer period," says O'Leary. "Holding it as a resting pose, you could focus on several cycles of breathing or meditation, in which case it might be quite beneficial to hold that position for a long period of time."
