Stretch & Core

Hi. I'm Jamie Isaac, and welcome to this stretch and core workout. So these are some plies inspired movements with a lot of stretching in between. So you feel lengthened, strengthened, and at the same time with an improved posture and toned muscles. So Let's get down to the mat and begin. So we're gonna come down onto our backs to start with a little bit of a warm up.

And just begin by hugging your knees into your body, a little rock from side to side. Just feel that gentle massage of the back, the lower back, and then bring your hands onto your knees. So we're gonna rotate circle on these around. I want you just to move the legs, not the legs move in the arms, but the other way around. So the legs are going along for the ride, really, as we oil up our hips, just loosen them up, and then reverse them, take the circles in a the other direction, just trying to increase our range of movement as we go.

Do one more. Circle it around, hug them in. And if you want, you can lower your feet down, bring your arms down by your side. Float our legs up to tabletop now. So I want us to hold this position, keeping our upper body quiet, so it's strong. So abs draw in and up, arms and shoulders press down for femur arcs. As we just tap individual toes down, We'll do it 2 more on each side. Just keeping your abs drawing in and up.

Palm shoulders pressing down. And then bring our legs together. So pressure thighs together, see if we can do both legs at Jamie time. And this can be quite challenging. It's more challenging than it actually looks.

So you have to really recruit your abs, see on, inner thighs, pressing together. As we get our core fired up. We do 2 more of these. Just tap in our toes down. Alright. And then lower our feet down to the mat.

Let's keep the thighs pressing together, bring our arms out to the sides. Lower your knees to one side. And as you do so, keep the thighs together, keep your abs connected, and press your opposite shoulder down into the mat. Use your core to bring the legs back up. We go to the other side and back through the center.

And again, so as your legs lower, we keep control, and then we come back through the center keeping the abs strong. You get a stretch from this for sure, but at the same time, we are firing up our powerhouse, firing up our core muscles, pressing our upper body into the mat. One more on this side and then come back through to the center. Arms come down by your side now for curl ups. So bring your chin to your chest, your nose to navel, abs in enough and just reach towards your ankles with your fingertips.

Just coming up and then inhaling, lowering back down. And again, chin to chest, reaching up. Just press and reach, reach, reach, lower and back with control. Reaching up as we exhale, press inhale to come back down. Let's do 2 more. So as I'm coming up, my navel's drawing inwards and upwards.

I'm scooping my belly out. Last one coming up. Here we go. Change of chest, roll up and reach, and then lower back down. Into the mat. Let's bring our arms up to the ceiling now. So, I want us to do circles with our arms. I want you to keep them under control but at the same time allow that range of movement to go as wide as you can.

So we're really opening the body up. Big inhales as the arms come up. Acts houses. They come back around. Breaching, stretching. Feel the shoulders warming up as they stabilize the movement.

But it also allows our ribs to open our lungs to really fill up with air here. And exhale as they come around. Let's reverse those circles back the other way. Just fit the breath in wherever it feels comfortable now. Moving your arm from the back of your shoulder.

One more time. And then reach all the way past your hips. Let's just try set press. Just press them out. Do this a few times, stretch in your arms, hugging your elbows into your ribs.

Once more. And then stretch there. Reach your fingertips forward now. So we're really reaching We're gonna bring our chin to chest and nose up to navel. So we're here in this position ready for our 100.

So a little bit of a modified 100 bring your knees into your body straight and your legs up, and let's begin pumping our arms as we breathe in and breathe it out. That's it. Vigorous pumps, abs scooping deep. And let's start scissoring the legs as we do so. Just reaching your toes away. Pump in your arms, keeping nicely connected to your core.

That's it. Keep breathing wide as well. Get that circulation going around your body. One more set. Legs's come up, hands behind the back of your head. Now lower your legs to wherever your point of challenge was for a 100, and we'll just do a couple of criss crosses here.

Just over unders with the legs. Breathe in still. Don't forget to breathe. And bend your knees into your body. Have a little hug, a little rock from side to side.

And then we're gonna roll on to our right side, come up to sit, feet out in front. Okay. Arms reaching in the front. Scoop your abs. Round your back, gonna curl back, come back up, sit tall, and lift up. And again, exhale rounding back.

Scoop your abs, lift up nice and tall. Stretch up nice and tall. Round and back. Stretch. You know, let's do 2 more of these. So as you round back when you really pull your navel in and up, and then lift up nice and tall, reach for the ceiling.

One more to do. All the way up. Nice and tall. Let's add a little twist, 2 on each side. Reaching back. Set up tall.

Reaching back. Set up to a one more each way. It brings a bit of a twist through the body, still anchoring down through our seat. And then up nice and tall. We're gonna lower down onto our backs now, and we're gonna do a little bit of a stretch.

So for this, I've got a strap. You can use a belt, a towel, anything that allows you to get into this position. So just lower back with control. Take the belt and place your foot through the belt. And you want it to go just over the balls of the feet.

That's gonna allow us to also bring and flex the foot back. If you can, stretch your other leg out long, and then just holding the belt give that a gentle encouragement to stretch towards you. Keep in the back of your hips heavy. Now, from here, let's just point and flex three times. And then each inhalation lengthen the back of your leg, each exhalation, see if we can increase the stretch just a little more. And when you feel you're about at the maximum of your stretch, just take a moment just to hold here and breathe.

And look for any sort of sensations you might get. You may be someone who enjoys stretching, stretching may be the worst thing for you, you know, in terms of how it feels but it's all gonna benefit you. So just try and breathe through it. Let's begin to allow this leg now to come out to the side. And you can use the strap for that and help support it because I wanna try and keep my opposite hip pinned down. And just let that go a little wider.

I'm still pulling it towards Jamie, still breathing, letting that stretch just happen. Just breathe as we deepen into it. One more breath here. I mean, carefully bringing the leg back through to the center. Let's take it across to the other side. So change hands.

This arm comes out to the opposite side to support and then we let the leg come across the body. Of course, the hip is gonna lift, but I also wanna encourage you to try and pull the toe towards the the top of the body towards your shoulder because that's gonna help this stretch go a little deeper. And just hold here and breathe. I'm keeping my opposite shoulder pinned down, and that's gonna allow that stretch to feel. A lot more anchored and a lot more stable stretching from a strong base.

Once again, just breathe as we stretch or fill that down through the whole of the side of the leg, maybe into the hips and the glutes as well. Okay. Bring that back through the center. Let's change legs. Bring your other leg in. You'll notice as well that while we were stretching here, you're getting a little stretch into the front of the support and leg.

So same again. If you can straighten this leg out, and then just draw this other leg in towards you. We begin by flexing and pointing three times. And then work every inhalation, lengthen in the back of your leg, each check, tillation allowing you to pull it a little closer towards you. And something I always recommend as we stretch is to switch everything else on like get your quadriceps on and that will allow a little more give in the back of the leg and also keep the rest of the body active.

Let me just breathe into it. Just stretch into a point where you feel the stretch. You're challenged by the stretch, but don't push too hard. Don't over stretch. Because then everything's gonna tighten up around it.

So try and keep as relaxed as you can. Even though you're engaged, relaxed, but engaged switched on. Alright. Let's take that stretch out wide of us as we open the hip, keep the opposite hip pinned down. And once again, just breathe. Just notice there will be a difference most likely between each side of the body.

Don't judge that. Just notice it. It's something that we we can inform our movement going forward. Because for me, this is definitely my tight aside, and I'll notice that, take care of that. And maybe that allows me to sort of think about other movements and sizes in my workouts that might help open that side of my body a little more and bring some balance into my body. Let's bring that back through the center and then change hands again.

So other hand, and now pulling across and up. So just open in that side of the body, the other arm reaching out to the other side. Everything's switched on. This is one of those stretches that always feels better when it's finished, but, hey, stay with it. Just breathe through it. Let's bring that back through the center.

And we can take both feet out of the strap and move that to the end of the mat. Just hug my knees in for a moment. The rock from side to side. And then I'm gonna bring my legs towards the ceiling. Let's get back into some of those core exercises.

Finger tips reaching up now, chin to chest. Let's touch our toes. Ten times. Now we're not bringing our toes to our hands. We're gonna try and bring our hands to our toes. We may not get there, but we're going in that direction. Okay? Here we go.

Scoop and reach. Ambreach. Ambreach pressing our toes up to 12 o'clock if we can. 3 more. Alright.

Nice. Now take one hand, both hands to one leg. Stretch the other away. Give it two pulls. Pull pull and switch for scissors. Keeping your core switched on, abs in and up, legs reaching long.

And if you can, elbows wide. Alright. Then both the knees in, hands behind the back of your head for crisscross so we can get the obliques firing too. Stretch one leg long. Take the opposite elbow to the opposite knee.

Open up your body as much as you can and change and change. And again, 3344. Last one on each side. And 5, and then hug your knees into your body. Lower your head down, and we're gonna because we've worked the abs, let's give them a little stretch.

Bring your heels really close to you. If you can't get your hands on your ankles, grab your strap again because you wanna get a little bit of a pull here as we push our hips up and just pull on the ankles or pull on the strap and let's just move the knees from side to side You're gonna feel a stretch through the legs and through the front of the body. It feels great. Let's do one more breath here and then lower down vertebra by vertebra, all the way down to the mat. Roll on to one side.

We're gonna turn over onto our tummy. So from here, just lower down onto the mat. Reach our arms out in front. Still working with the core, but trying to bring ourselves into a bit of extension. Want you to imagine that you are flying over the rooftops.

Lift your legs, lift your arms. Hold. And that means switching on here too. Switch this on. It's gonna help with the lift. So lift and hold and lower. And again, we're going up lift.

Go a little higher a little longer and lower. Now, of course, lifting up. If we're flying over the rooftops, wanna see where we're going. So make sure we keep our head up and lower. 2 more of these. Lift.

And lower think long through your body for this last one. Lift it up. Now, lower your legs down. Take your arms back and out to the sides. And again, take them back out to the sides. One more. Reach back.

And lower all the way down. Come back into rest position just to stretch your back off. Reaching through here, feel that stretch through your back, and then bring ourselves forward again. This time we're coming into a forearm plank and we're just gonna hold that position. So bring your arms onto the mat.

Palms can be down. Or palms together. I don't mind. Take your legs back and just hold. And you'll find that this just on its own is plenty of challenge because you gotta keep the abs in and up, the back body arm, and, of course, the arms and the shoulders working. So just hold and breathe.

Think longer through your body. I also find if you press your heels together, That's gonna help switch on the back of your body, which supports this position. Let's do a couple more deep breaths here. Good full body exercise. There's lots of core, whole body working, full engagement. Well done. So from here, let's lower ourselves down onto our front to give the front of our legs a little bit of a stretch. Now, once again, the belt is there if you need it, What I want you to do is just bend one leg in, take your hand to the top of your foot.

If you can't reach your foot, and use the belt. Let's bring the other leg in as well. I want you to press your thighs together, lengthen your body, push your hips towards the mat. And just simply pull your heels towards your seat. Grow in the longer.

Feel that stretch in the front of your quads. To do that, press your hips down, press down was into the mat. Just hold and breathe. Two more breaths here. Alright, release.

Let those go. Rest your head on your hands for a moment. Just give your hips a little shake. Alright. Moving on. Okay. So from here, It's come into our side plank position. So I want us to find a really good side plank.

If you need to do this on your forearm, if you have sore wrists, you can do. But otherwise, hand supporting the shoulder and then a nice wide base with the feet. We're gonna press up into our side plank position and reach your arm up as high as you can. That alone will be great work, but if can bring some movement and join me with this. Let's do this. Alright. So press our hips up.

Reach back and touch our our ankle, our toe, wherever you can get coming back up to the ceiling. And again, reaching through. Let's do 3 more. Press. And to one more.

Let's change sides. Simple is just rolling to the other side, reaching up, and then pressing back, touching the ankle or the foot, wherever you can get. And lift hips up. Press. And press. 2 more.

And last one, all the way up. Bring your hand down. Come down to your knees. Okay. On all fours now. Lift one leg up. So stay strong through your core. Once again, core focus A little bit of glute work here as we pulse that heel up ten times.

Keep your hips square. And change legs and pulse. 5 more. Alright. Just rest back into that rest position again. What I like about this is we can still add stretch here, not just our back, but bring our side body into that stretch.

So walk your hands to one side. Bring your hips back. And just take a moment. Just take a couple of breaths right here. And then walk our hands over to the other side.

So we're drawing our hips back to our heels and to stretching feel that side body opening up. And then coming back to the center, let's come to all fours now. A little bit of cat and cow. Cat and cow Isaac lovely way just to move the spine I like to curl my toes under, but you can have them point whichever way you want. We're just gonna round our back, and then inhale.

And as I lift my head, I want you to think about broadening your collar bones as well, and then the shoulders get a little bit of work as well. I want it skin rounding. And arch and just ride the wave of your spine through these movements. Let's get one more lifting up and then turn over onto your backs for a little bit of stretch for our glutes. It's lowering down.

Just take one ankle, place it over the opposite knee. This might be enough for you. This might be tight enough. If it's not, want you just to reach through, see if you can grab the back of your thigh, and then pull the leg towards you. You should start to feel a stretch here in the side of your hip. If you want, and you want it to be more intense, by all means, just press your knee out.

But be cautious. Don't overpress want any strain in the knee or the ankle. So pressing the knee out, but I like to keep the foot nicely flexed up, and that adds that engagement that prevents over stretching or likewise grab both hands behind the thigh and just push your elbow in. I'm just breathing to the stretch. Alright. Let's lower that leg.

Change legs. Cross the other hand, pull over. Bring your leg in and just pull that towards you, flexed foot. Just hold pulling towards you as you breathe. Take this as deep as you want.

Alright. Bring both legs down. I'm gonna roll over and come back onto all fours. So from here, Skip back into activating the core. So, curl your toes under round your back and take your hips back. I want you just to reach opposite arm, opposite leg. Just stretch it out.

Bring it in. Course switched on whole body working. So, the stronger you are through your arms and your legs as well as your abs, the more support you're gonna have in this exercise. Bring that in and again reach And abs in and up. Arms legs reaching long.

It's got one more on each side. Last one. Bring that in lower back down to your knees. Okay. So I want you to come into a plank now. Hold your plank position.

We're gonna bring some leg raises in. So I think strong. Lift one leg up. I'm gonna go 10 leg raises. Here we go for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 more. And change legs.

So the leg raising's getting some work. But the arms, shoulders support leg are 2543 2. 1. Once again, back down to all fours. So core work, but whole body work now. Alright.

Let's get some stretching in and some core combined. So let's press back into a downward dog. So I want you to really feel that stretch out. Take a moment, walk it out a little bit, pedal out the feet. And then when you feel that stretch, in the backs of the legs feels good and you've had enough, if you can ever get enough of that, that nice stretch.

I'm gonna bring your body forward over your arms. And at step one foot forward the outsides of your hands and then just pulse your hips forward. Feel that stretch. We're also getting like a little bit of work, mobility work in our hip here. And of course, our shoulders arms working hard.

To stabilize and support the exercise. Breathe as you move. And you might notice as you do this, it starts to get a little easier because our hips start to open a little more and mobility increases. And that's why we're doing this. Right? You do this enough. It will all start to feel a lot freer life will become easier, more mobile, more agile.

Let's go one more each side. The last one. And then what I'd like us to do is walk our feet towards the middle of the mat Take a moment. Just ragdoll out a little bit and let the body feel loose and then soft knees as we roll. All the way up to stand for our final stretches for some splits and lunges.

So hands onto your hips. Let's step forward into a nice lunge and turn the back foot out. Now, from here, square our hips up, and we're just gonna pulse. You can have your hands here, or if you want behind the back of your head, as we bend the front knee, I mean, straight and three times. Then lift our arms up.

Alright. Roundover. As we do so, you can bend your knee. Place your hands either side of your foot. Okay. It can be on fingertips, on blocks if you need.

And just straight on the front, they and bend. And again, straighten and bend. One more time. And bend, and then turn the back heel to the ceiling, lower your back knee down. Place your hands on the top of your thigh. If you feel like your foot's crept in, you can walk the toes out, but press our shoulders back now.

If you wanna really lengthen through our spine, and then just pulse him forwards three times. And then the same arm to the back leg Reaches up, forwards and up, follow it with our eyes, still lunging forward, and stretch across the body. And that's gonna be a really nice top end of the sewers stretch. We're getting through the hole of the sewers here, through the whole chain. Okay. Bring both your hands down.

Step your front, your back foot forwards. Step your back foot back. Come back up to standing. Let's do the other side. Hands behind the back of your head or on your hips, whichever you prefer.

But square your hips up as much as you can. Back foot is turned out. Here we go. 3 knee bends lunge in and up. One more. Reaching up rounding over.

Okay. Here we go. We straightened and we bent and straightened. And one more time. Then the front knee, lift your back heel, lower your knee down. Hands to the top of your knee. Press your shoulders back.

Just three pulses here. And then lift your front arm forwards, upwards, stretching back, reaching over across the center line of the body. Big breath here, and then bring our hands to frame our front foot again. Step our back foot through. Walk the feet out so that they're wide again, softening on these.

A little more moment just to ragdoll out and then roll all the way up to stand in, finish standing nice and tall. We should feel like our core has done some work Our buddy's done some work, but we got that really nice sensation of stretching as well. So I hope this has been great for you to lengthen and strengthen. Thanks for joining me