If you've ever trained with me or taken B Strong Body Fix, you know I lead you through an extended warm-up that looks a lot like this! These low impact, mat exercises quickly & gently warm your body & activate the muscles that support your joints. This helps you build joint stability to avoid injury & get more muscle fibers involved in your workout, which increases calorie & fat burn! So use this to get yourself warm, then attack a few videos from my Greatest HIITs series for a super effective, total body workout!
Here's the series:
A. 3 Single-Leg Glute Bridge + 1 Standard, Alternating side for Single-Leg each rep
B. Upside-down Cross-Over Crunches, Alternating sides each rep
C. Plank: 3-Leg Downward Dog, NOT alternating sides
***Perform each exercise, in order, for 10-20 total reps/exercise, cycling through the circuit 2-4 rounds.***
Notes on form:
[Single-Leg Glute Bridge]
- Drive through the heel of the foot that's on the floor & keep your lifted leg straight up, perpendicular to the floor
- Keep your core pulled super tight & your lats engaged by pulling your shoulders away from your ears
- Squeeze the glute of your working leg as you lift your hips & consciously keep your hips square to the floor - avoid letting the hip of your lifted leg sink lower than the hip of your working leg
- All of the notes about your working apply to the standard glute bridge!
[Upside-down X Over Crunches]
- Laying on belly, looking straight ahead at your mat, finger tips placed lightly behind ears, pulling shoulders far away from neck, & squeezing shoulder blades tight to pull elbows nice & wide
- Slowly lift 1 elbow & shoulder up & twist back so that you're looking directly to that side
- Lift & twist as far as you can without either hip bone lifting off the mat - if the lifting arm pulls the same hip bone off the floor, you twisted too far!
- Alternate sides with every rep
- NOTE: this move is super awkward! If you feel like a fish out of water, you're likely doing it right ;-)
[Plank: Knee Crunch to 3-Leg Downdog]
- Suck your "gut" in to pull it "out of the way" as you pull your knee straight forward to the space between your elbows
- As you extend your leg straight back, lock out your knee & lift your hips & press your chest back toward your grounded foot just like you're doing a downward dog
- Squeeze the glute of your straight, lifted leg & keep your hips square, avoiding letting the hip of your lifted leg reach farther back than the other hip
- As you lower you hips back to a plank position, be sure you re-stack your shoulders directly over your wrists & pull that knee right back to a crunch
This circuit is considered low impact, but it's still pretty challenging! Find me on FB/IG/TW @cassiebstrong to tell me how challenging you found it on a scale of 1-5!
B Strong,
Cassie B.