These were chosen for 1 main reason – people tend to lack core stability, and people tend to lack hip stability. If you can increase these 2 areas of stability in your body, it will move better, more efficiently, and sometimes help with aches and pains.
2 Exercises for a Strong and Healthy Body:
Forearm Plank
In my opinion, forearm planks are one of the best exercises you can do to increase both core strength and core stability in one shot. If this is really hard for you, try building up to a minute – do 10 seconds of work, and 10 seconds of rest, until you’ve reach your 60 seconds of work. Continue adding to this as it gets easier – 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off, then 20 seconds on 20 seconds off, etc. until you’re up to your minute.
Things to Pay Attention to:
- Elbows are stacked right underneath your shoulders
- You’re pressing down into your forearms so you don’t feel like you’re sinking into your shoulders – it should feel like you’re lifting up and out of your shoulder joint
- Your hips are in line with your shoulders – not lifting above towards the ceiling, not dropping below towards the ground
- A way to make this easier: WIDEN YOUR FEET. The wider your feet are, the easier this will be.
Glute Lunges
Most people seem to need more hip stability exercises thrown into their routine, so here’s a glute strengthening exercise for you to try. Don’t worry about the balance here – we’re not focusing on that. Hold onto something so you can concentrate on working your glute muscles, and not be so focused on not falling over.
Things to Pay Attention to:
- This is NOT the same thing as a yoga lunge. It is a SHORTER stance. Bring your back foot in. As the back knee bends it should be doing so pretty vertical or perpendicular to the ground.
- Try to get all 10 toes to face forwards so you’re not turned in or out in your feet.
- Your knees can go past your toes. In fact, they should.
- Brace your core as you’re doing this. If you’re not sure how to brace your core, watch my short tutorial on YouTube.
If you have any questions about these exercises or anything at all feel free to drop a comment or reach out via email at kateformanyoga@gmail.com. Or just let me know how these felt for you and if they helped! I’d love to hear from you.