Deep Core

Hi and welcome to Deep Core. Join me on the floor on your back. When you're here make sure your hair is out of your way so that your chin is tucked and your head is flat on the ground. Put your feet on the floor and your knees are up. Find your pelvis, put your hands on your hips, make sure they are nice and cozy on the floor. Then find your rib cage and push that into the floor as well. When you do that it closes the gap between your low back and the floor. We're going to stay in that contracted position for the majority of the sequence. Press down as hard as you can and when you do you should kind of feel your abdominals starting to fire. If you find that this is straining on your neck you can lift your chin and your chest up just a little bit but if you're straining maybe a small pillow would work better underneath your neck. All right, tuck your pelvis, pull the rib cage down. We're going to lift our arms up towards the ceiling and here we're just going to take a couple of deep breaths. So inhale, exhale, pull your shoulders down towards your hips. You're starting to feel your abdominals if your back is on the floor. Inhale again, release. Exhale, push that back on the floor and pull your shoulders down towards your hips. One more inhale. Exhale, pretend like you're blowing out some candles but make it forceful like you're angry at your birthday. When you do that you should feel the contraction in your core. We're going to stay here, you're going to keep the contraction. You should be able to speak through it, you're not sucking it in and once you have that contraction start to lower down your thumb towards the floor, whichever hand you please, and bring it back up. Now let's add our breath. Inhale, exhale your other hand towards the floor. Thumb comes back behind you. Bring it back up. Inhale, exhale as you lower your right thumb towards the floor. Bring it back up. Inhale, exhale again. Other thumb comes towards the floor. Bring it back up. As you do that you start, you're starting to build a little bit of heat in your core. Now we're going to add the legs. So put your hands down next to your hips and lift your knees up in tabletop position. When you do that, if you've got weakness here your hips will start to sink forward and that gap will come back. So push that mid-back back into the floor as hard as you can. Pretend like I'm standing there with a towel and trying to pull it away, pulling that towel away from your mid-back. Don't let me take the towel. Stay here. Exhale your air a couple times just to make sure you've got that stability. As hard as you can try to wake up the kids in your house. One more. Stay here. Hold the contraction as you drop your right foot and tap your toe on the floor. Bring it back up. Exhale. Hold the contraction. You can inhale on your own. Drop your left toe and bring it back up. If it's easier to have your hands up in the air, try this with me. Put your hands up in the air just like you did before. Exhale. Drop your right toe. Touch the floor and bring it back up. Inhale on your own. Exhale. Drop the left toe. Tap the floor. Bring it back up. Inhale on your own. Now we're gonna try to go for both limbs. We're gonna inhale here.

Exhale as you extend your right arm and your left leg. So opposite limbs out and bring it back. Inhale. Exhale as you push left arm, right leg out. Bring it back. Inhale. Exhale. As you extend those limbs out, try to keep that low back on the floor. Come back to center. We're going slow because I really want you to feel that contraction. This is gonna come back in a little bit. Inhale. Last time. Exhale. Extend left arm, right leg. Hold it there. Come back to center. Okay. Let's sit up. Let's move to all fours. We're gonna try to find the same core in our all four positioning. So it's gonna, if you want to put something on your back to make sure you've got the balance, great. But if you want to just push the ground away, hips are right above your knees. You're about hip distance wide between your legs. And you're gonna tuck the pelvis and pull the ribcage down. You should already start to feel the core engage. And in this position, we're gonna do some really big belly breaths. So you're gonna extend your belly and then you're gonna pull that belly in as hard as you can. What I don't want moving is your low back or your mid-back. Whatever you have weakness in is going to want to move. You're gonna keep everything else still. Alright, here we go. Tuck the toes, push the ground away, pelvis, ribcage. Now you're all set. Inhale, exhale. Again, like you're blowing out a giant cake that you don't like.

Inhale, exhale. One more. Inhale, exhale. Hold it here. Can you lift one arm up without losing that engagement and bring it back down? Can you lift the other side without losing that engagement? And if you lose it, it's okay. Wiggle it out. Try again. Inhale, exhale. Pull the belly button towards the spine. Ribcage is naturally coming down and you're all engaged here. Keep that engagement as you lift a limb again and lower down. Lift and lower. The reason why we're not taking a breath every time is because that's naturally supposed to be happening while you keep your engagement. Let's try it with our feet. Inhale, exhale. Shoulders away from your ears. Tighten up the core. Maybe you lift your left leg up off the ground and bring it back. Inhale, exhale. Right leg off the floor and bring it down. Let's move on to contralateral movement, so opposite limbs. So we're gonna start with our pelvis tilt. Pull the ribcage down. Find that engagement. Shoulders are pushing into the floor and then we're gonna lift the right arm and the left leg at the same time. So take an inhale, exhale real hard. As you lift and hold it there for just three, two, one. Drop it down. Let's try the other side. Inhale. Find that core on your exhale. Lift. Left arm, right leg. Hold it for three, two, one. Drop it down. Now you get the limb action that you want.

Now you have the core feeling. Let's try a couple together a little bit faster. So tuck the pelvis, ribcage, engage, tight core. Inhale. Exhale, lift. Right arm, left leg. Bring it back down. Left arm, right leg. Inhale. Exhale as you lift. Drop it back down. One more each side. Inhale. Exhale. Right arm, left leg. Bring it down. Inhale. Other side. And drop it back down. Take a second here. Let's take a break. Give our wrists a break before we go to our most advanced movement, which is a plank. Hands on the floor, shoulders over your wrist, just like before on all fours, but instead you're gonna step back and find your plank position. Now before you get too comfortable here, this is a down dog or the beginnings of a down dog. It's not a plank. So tuck the butt down and shift your weight a little bit more towards your head than your feet. Make sense? Shift forward, dig those hands into the floor. Now tuck the pelvis and find your ribcage. We're just gonna stay here for three, two, one. Drop down low. If you find that your hips are dropping, your core is not engaged. If you're finding that you're not moving your weight forward, your core is not engaged. Let's try it again this time with our breath. Hands underneath your shoulder blades. You're just gonna step back into your plank. Take an inhale. Exhale, blow that candle cake that we talked about earlier. Tuck your butt a little bit and shift your weight forward. Hold it for five, four, three, two, one. Drop your knees down to the floor. Take a quick break. We're gonna do it again. Shoulders back. Wiggle into it. Shoulders over your wrist. Push the ground away. Super important. Step back into your plank. Push your weight forward into your fingertips. Palms are touching the floor still. Inhale. Exhale. Drive that belly towards the spine. Hold it there for five, four, three, two, one. Drop your knees down. I'm gonna challenge you to hold it a little bit longer every time. This is our final round. So what we're gonna do is really push forward. Really tighten down and try to find that same core connection that you did on the floor in this plank position. Hands on the floor.

Let's go. Let's go a little bit wider with our feet. Push forward. Pull the pelvis in. Rib cage is tucked. Shift your weight. Hold it for six, five, four. Find that breath. Inhale. Exhale. Push the ground away. Three, two, one. Drop it down low. If you can continue to work on that plank, your push-ups will get better, your shoulder stability gets better, and your core gets far deeper connected than before. Thanks for being here.