Daily Functional Strength

Hi. I'm Jamie Isaac, and welcome to this blend of stretch and strength and agility. And this is gonna help you feel like loose, but in control. So strong and connected. So we'll divide this up into two halves. The second one repeating some of those movement patterns, but incorporating some weights for that as well. So let's go. So we're gonna start standing.

Let's get warmed up. We begin just standing nice and strong. Just feel your feet into the mat and feel your spine lengthening up. And we're from here, engage our core straight away. So every movement coming from the center.

So abs in and up, seat engaged shoulders rolling back. And let's begin to move our shoulders. Just roll them backwards. Just let them lift, roll around. Let's move them forwards. And then we'll repeat this, letting the arms move now. So roll them back, stretching up.

Just move those arms around. Reaching one more. And then reverse them back the other way. Let your whole body move if you need to, but stay strong from your center. And then shake your arms out to the side. Alright.

I want us to stay loose through our upper body now, but really strong, connected through the lower body. So let's just start with some arms. Just let them tap across your body. It's actually almost like your tapping yourself on the back, giving ourselves a pat on the back before we've even started. That's how good we're gonna work.

So here we go. So let that happen. Let the heart open as well. Couple more of these. And then bring our arms down by the side of our body.

Bring them down here. So here's a pattern that we will repeat. Once again, just curling in, reaching up. Curling in. Reach it up.

Opportunity everywhere to breathe, inhale. Get all that good oxygen in the in the lungs around the body. 2 more. And bend those in. Great. Arms out to the side. Once again, still with that kind of tap in, just let the arms loose.

So the upper body's loose, lower body strong. Just let that turn and build up some twisting, and we'll start to build that range of movement. Starting to strengthen our arms now. So they're not as loose. We're not just flinging them around the body and your feel and your fingertips, all that lovely blood flow, pumping the oxygen around your body. Should we take it a little lower? It's got a little lower.

Low as you want, and then come all the way back up to the top. Shake it out. Alright. Feeling nice and loose now. We're ready to bring that down to the mat. So we're just gonna sit down. I wanna bring you into a 90 90 position, you know, bring you here.

So just for the moment, let's take a little hip mobility time out. So I want you to press down with this knee here on this side. And on this side, can you open your hips as far as you can when you reach your point of maximum So a range, then allow this one to lift and we're lower to the other side and repeat. You can move at whatever tempo feels good because you'll notice we're not just moving the hit We're also rolling out our glutes as well. I'm giving ourselves just a little more professional massage at the same time. If you wanna challenge yourself and your core as well, then bring your arms forward and create the same movement, but staying strong through your upper body.

Would you want more on each side, one more to the right, one more to the left, and then come back through. And then from here, let's come to a cross legged position. I want us just to work our shoulders a little bit here while still stretching out our hips so you can let your body move. Place your hands down on the mat. And we'll just begin by pressing the floor down in a way, lifting our seat up.

Off the mat, lower it down. Now you can repeat that if you like. Just repeat that push and then that lower. You notice I'm not bending my elbows. Just working my shoulders.

If you're feeling like you wanna challenge yourself some more, can you pick up one leg can you pick up the other leg? Or if you want, we're gonna push up and see if we can hold with both legs up in the edge, pushing down, really strong, 2 more breaths, and then lower down with control. Nice work. You can practice that one at any time. It's a full body engagement exercise. Lauren to our tummies now. From here, I want us just to take a little stretch lengthening through our bodies, lift our head up.

And then from here, don't even worry about pushing up in one unit. Just come to your knees into a plank. And then we're gonna walk our plank. Take it for a little walk from side to side. So step hand in, hand out, come through, lower down, stay that same stretch, lengthening our body, pressing up, and then walking our plank back. Back to the center.

It's lower down, pressing up, and then walking back again over to the other side this time. Lower down, lengthen up, press up, And we can start to be a little stricter on the way we press up now. It's lower down, lengthen, lift our knees, press the whole body up in one whole unit. Step into the other side. Jamie again.

Let's take that stretch that extension. Knees off. Press up one whole unit. Coming down. Lift lengthen up, pressing up. Let's go to the other side one more time out here. Just feel that stretch. Press up and then step to the center.

I'm gonna come all the way down to our tummy again. Just lower it down. Take one more extension here into that swamp prep position. X, our length and back down, and then press our seat back to our heels for rest position. Just stretch it out, round in our back. Thighs are together, and abs are pulling away from the thighs.

So we get that lovely. Counter stretch, and then coming on to all fours. Little cat and cow. So it's rounding our back. Arching our backs.

We're really mobilizing our spine, just staying nice and loose, lengthening our body one more time, one more time around. One more time arch. And then bring one foot forward, taking it to the outside of our hands. So from here, we're getting 2 stretches for one here. We're stretching out our back hip, working in our hip crease here with hip flexion.

And now we're gonna add in some hamstrings. I want us just to straighten our leg and pull our hips back. Now if you can't get that straight there, bring your hands back here and just move between the two. Just try to feel that stretch Keep it moving. Hip stretch. Hamstrings.

Hip stretch. That's it one more time. Stretch it back for our hamstrings and then come forward. Bend the back knee, and I want you to reach back and take your foot with your hand. Now if you can't reach there, you can use a strap to get your foot. I like to come up onto my fist here.

That helps me keep a strong straight arm, and then I'm pulsing forward whilst pushing back into my hand with my back foot and then just press and explore the space. You might wanna just feel that that stretch forward. You might wanna lean a little. I like to open my collarbone smile with my collarbones. Open my heart a little.

I just feel that stretch through my body. It feels really good. And I'm gonna lower my back leg. One more hamstring stretch. Take that foot back.

Just change legs. Bring the other one forward. Jamie thing. Let's repeat. So we're lunge and forwards and then straight leg stretching back. And remember, you can bring your hands back here.

Just do whatever you need to find that stretch. Pulse our hips forward, draw our hips back. And again, one more time. And then let's bring that forward, bending our back knee, taking our hand to our foot. Come onto my fist here.

You can be on your fingertips up on a block if it helps. But just allow the stretch to happen. And you're gonna push your heart forwards and up slight twist. Push your foot into your hand and just lunge into that. Fill that stretch wherever you want to experience it, wherever it feels good. We come back for one more hamstring stretch and then bring both legs back.

So we're gonna rock back onto our toes now. So just a little fun really here. Little frog hops. I want us to put the weight through our hands and just jump our feet forwards, and we move forwards on the mat. And then let's reverse it. Why not pressing back?

So note it says weight on hands. And a great bit of hip mobility as well. Just do what you can. Jump as close or as far away as possible for you. Last one, and we'll meet back in the middle again.

And just stop here from here. Let's come up to stand. So a little bit of a squat here. So hands can be anywhere you want to help your balance. I like to put my notes in front, lower down deep, stand up tall.

And again, press down. Stand up. Let's do 3 more. And press. Last one. And stand nice and tall. Repeating that same movement.

Hands to the mat this time. A little bit of twist through the upper body. So press the hands down. Rotate. And rotate.

And don't worry if you can't touch the floor here. Just go as low as you can. You'll be surprised if you repeat this, how often you can start to make great progress. And your eventually be down here touching the floor, deepening your squats. One more each way.

And then to the other side, come back to the center. Let's stand up. Alright. From here, just shake the feet out a little. I'd like to take some focus into our ankles. We'll start with one side.

Just turn the ankle around, reverse it, circling weight through the ankle, through the foot. We tend not to give our feet enough love, actually. They do a lot of work. Support in our body onto the other side. Around the other way. Alright.

And then little rock side to side. Now from here, let's keep that side motion going. I'm gonna drop into a couple of lunges on each side as we go down, touch the floor, up, touch the floor, and up. Touch the floor up. And up. 2 more on each side. It goes low as you can once again with control.

Last one on this side. And up. Alright. Good job. Okay. So it's time now. I'll walk over.

We're gonna pick up our weights and incorporate those into some similar movement patterns. So, you know, pick my weights up and bring myself down to the mat. So I've got my feet out in front of me here. Take my hands. I'm a hold the weights here at my chest. Now, I want you to stay really strong with your core muscles. So deeper abs, lots of glutes engaged as well because it's important to stay safe.

So we're gonna add a little bit of a curl here. So scoot your abs, come back, come back up. And if you can press your weights up high, Great. Let's do that again. So scoop in lower back. Press your weights up high. One more of these to do, and then we'll add a little something to this to turn the volume up.

I'm rounding back. Lifting tall. Okay. We're all set now. Gonna go back. Touch both sides up through the center.

Press up tall. And again, we go back. Side side. Up. Press. Bring it back.

Side. Side. Come up tall. Press. One more to go. Let's go back. Touch to the side.

Touch to the other side into the center, press up. 1 more pressing up till reach as high as you can. Abs the back muscles working to bring the arms in, place them down by your sides. Okay. From here, think about when we did our cross legged lift. Alright? So we've got the weights now. So you've got a little bonus because it helps you lift your seat up off the floor. You see? You can hover here and use these as parallel instead of just weights.

So they can be working for you too. What I want us to do is cross our legs, place the weights forward a little, press up. And then from here, step back into our plank position. Alright. So we're adding a little spice to what we did before. Let's add push ups this time. If you want to do this one from your knees and all the walking, you can just do keeping your knees in one spot. That's a great way of adding building block between the first set we did and the set now, but I'm gonna come into the plank.

I'm gonna make myself do this work. Here we go. Let's do a push up. Up. Alright. Now we're walking to the side. Another push up.

Up. Bring it in. Back to the center. You know what's coming next. More push ups. Here we are. Do what you can. If you wanna just hold the plank, that's pretty good too.

Another push up here. Back into the center and guess what? Another push up. One more set each way. Here we go. Going out to the sides. Stay strong. Push up.

Coming in. Back to the center. Push up here. Out to the side. One more time. Out to the side.

Almost there. Stay with me. Stay with me. And then into the center, and if we're gonna make 10, we're gonna do 2 push ups here. 1, 2, and then press your hips back. Pedd it out in a little down dog, get a stretch of the whole of your body, and then come down onto your knees. Alright. Take this wide.

Last time we had coming into a hamstring stretch, we brought our foot forward. This time, we're gonna place it between the weights, hands either side. We're taking just the one hamstring stretch. So let the hips come back. And then this is the part we really wanna get to, which is the lunge.

So my my advice here is just be safe. You've got the weights, their assisting us in the stretch, but just take care. If you wanna do it without the weights, you can do. So stand up and then simply let the lunge go deeper. We'll just pulse in a little deeper, letting our knee actually come over our front toes as far as we can. Pushing our back heel back.

Just explore the space. Just breathe. Lower your back knee. Place the weights down. Let's change legs. Bring the other foot back.

Of the foot forward and start with a little hamstring stretch. Bend on the and then push up and just allow the lunge to go as deep as you dare be strong that the weights just help you. So we're actually stretching, but we're also working at the same time. So it makes it really, really clever movement because we're making a longer deeper stretch, but stronger stretch. More control. It's got a little deeper still.

And then from here, let's stand all the way up. Okay. Lower your weights down. Want you just to take a moment just to stress, stand tall, shake your legs out. Froghops. Here we go. Come down. And let's do these with the weights.

So start from back. Just jump forward with your feet and then use your core to pick the weights up and jump pressing back, pulling the weights back with you. Pull them back. Reach and hop. Breach and hop.

Back and lift. Back and lift. Harder than it looks. Here we go. Reach and hop. Let's go one more forward halfway back. And we're done there.

Stand tall. Shake your legs out again. Alright. Come back down into that frog position. Jump the feet together. And I want you now to use the weights as parallettes like we did before and see if you can just swing your feet through to a seated position.

So just from here, lift your hips and come through and sit down. Alright. Gonna place my feet out in front Take the weights back a little. And my goal here is just to lift my hips up. Get a little bit of glute work. So push through my glutes.

Whoop. Lift up with my hips. Hold. And then from here, scoop my abs and pull them back, lift up with my hips, pushing as high as I can, and then glutes and abs draw in my hips back. Press with my glutes, scoop with my abs. And all the time, my arms, my shoulders are working very hard.

Here we go. 2 more. Whole buddy. Last one. Press back and return to sit in. Just take a moment. Stretch your hips.

Move around. You can rock from side to side a little if it feels good and you want to return to some of that little more professional massage. Of your glutes because they've been working hard. They really come to stand in for the final stages of this workout. So stay with me. We're doing great. So let's stand up.

I'm taking the weights with us. Alright. So this this squat, we're gonna combine with a curl. We'll make it kinda like a little off balance, a little one leg at each time. So have your heart your arms out. Be strong through your core, strong through your legs, And let's bend to one side.

As we bend, just curl it in. Come back up through the center to the other side. Same again. Cur it in. Be strong and up and to the side. Bend, down, center.

And again, just stay really strong, well connected, moving from the center and staying strong through our legs as well as our arms. And up. So 2 more on each side. And up. And then one more on each side. It's great news. Right? That one more. What was a great phrase to hear? Here we go.

Last one. And all the way up to stand nice and tall. I'm just gonna put this one weight down because the next exercise, I want two hands onto one way. Staying with squats. But this time, just simply coming down.

And as we come up, I want you to throw a bag over your shoulder, alright, and then come down low. Throw it over your head of shoulder. So not not too wild. You don't wanna be thrown off balance, but stay strong, stay really well grounded. It's almost like we're returning to the start of the workout where we're staying loose, but in control.

Throw the back of your shoulder or shovel it over your shoulder, whatever you want to imagine you're doing to allow yourself to stay strong, connected, and fluid through this exercise. Got one more each side. 1. Last one. Boom. Down.

Up through the center. Great work. Keep your feet wide. Plant your feet down now. Nice and strong. Soft knees.

But strong. You're getting the theme here. It's all strong. Hold your weight. Soft in the elbows again, but strong. And we just rotate and rotate.

And again, side to side, with a pause in the center, show control. And you can change the the dynamics or rhythm to this to suit you. We can go fast down, slow back, or slow out fast back. Whatever you prefer. Either way, let's do one more on each side.

Here we go. 1 and bring that in. Very nice. Okay. From here, just pick up the other the other dumbbell, and we'll repeat one of those movements we did at the start. Alright. Arms and in front. Now, this one's tough.

So dig deep. It really is right near the end of the work. This is the last one we're doing with weights. So, come on. Stick with me now. Here we go. Curl. Up.

Cut it in, reaching up. And then again, how are we doing? That's it. Stay with me now for a few more. Almost there. Cut it in for strong, lower controlled, reaching out. Last one.

Deep curve. Strong curve. Whole body engages you reach up. Down. Last curve. Bring it in. Straighten your arms down.

You're done with the weights now, which is great news. Right? Let's finish with a little fluid movement through the body. So place your weights down to the side. Take up that stance. We did that at the very beginning. I want it just to allow her arms to just heavily wrap around her body.

You can tap yourself on each shoulder around the back. Whatever feels good. That tapping can feel great. And then allow the body to start to rotate. Allow all that blood to flow to your fingertips.

Take it a little lower. Get a little lower when I'm building back up. Let the legs move. However you wanna go, let your body just move with intuition, guiding you, come all the way up to standing toe, and then just shake your legs out as well. Rolling shoulders back.

Last thing, big stretch up. Big inhale here. Hands come down by your sides. That's great work, everybody. Thanks for joining me for this workout.