5-Minute Core Warm Up

Hey, I'm Jamie Isaac and welcome to the beach this beautiful day. So join me for some fun exercises that are gonna challenge your core. Okay, so let's stand to the top of the mat and we'll start with some squats. So I've got my feet hip distance apart, arms out just for balance, and then we're engaging the core, engaging those deep abdominal muscles and let's squat down and lift back up. And I'm gonna try and keep my back as straight as possible and get the work even through both of the legs.

Let's do a few more of these, lift up all the way, standing tall. Squatting deeper each time and up, let's do two more. And now on this one, let's crouch all the way down and lower onto our seat. Have your legs out in front of you, knees bent. And if you want a little support, hold the backs of the thighs, but otherwise, join me, reach the arms forward, lets scoop the abs back and come back just to the small of the back and come all the way back up and sit tall.

You'll feel that connection through the whole of the core. Lifting up. Let's do one more like this and then we'll add a little twist to it. So scoop back and then twist out, reach from fingertip to fingertip, and then come back up through the center. Let's go to the other side, reaching back, stretch and scoop, lift tall, one more each way, just reach and last one.

And come all the way up. Let's come onto our knees now. So I'm gonna cross my legs and just roll over into a all fours position. Now, from here, this is one that we all recognize and we all know quite well. I'm gonna call this quad core.

You might hear it called other things, but we're just reaching opposite arm opposite leg and staying as stable as possible. Try and keep your hips nice and even and reach your arm and your leg in opposition as far away as you can, just stretch them away and bring them back. Try and get the hand and the knee to land at the same time. Now, let's keep that same exercise. If you want additional challenge, curl your toes under and just hover the knees just off the mat.

And this is a real core challenge, not just the deep abdominals, but your your shoulder girdle as well as we reach and try and balance in our position. You can see I'm wobbling, it's that tough. And in, lets do one more on each side. You just choose which level of difficulty suits you on any given day, and bring that back in. Very nice.

All right, over onto our seat again. Take our hands behind us. And this one is just fun. It's a great way we get a stretch and a core connection. Lifting the hips up.

So you'll feel that your seat is working as well. And let's just march the legs, just lifting the knees up and try and keep your hips up and keep your head up as well. Don't let your head fall back. Let's do a few more on each side. I can feel that in my core.

I can feel that in my glutes as well. One more on each. And then coming back down to sit. Now here's an absolute classic that we've seen 100 times, which is the plank. I mean planks are excellent, full body integration, but really good at getting that core connection.

But how can we make them interesting? Let's have a little play. There's so many things we can do. I mean, have a go at all of these and just find the one that works best for whatever your, you know, physical pursuit is. So here's a great one to bring a bit of a hip mobility with it. We're holding our planks strong and bring one foot forward and take that leg back.

We go to the other side and take it back. Let's repeat one more of each and back. Feel the stretch in the hips and the work through the plank. All right, we could turn that up and not put the foot down this time. So just bring your knee to your elbow, take it back.

And again, knee to elbow, reach the leg back. Lets do one more of each and back. And then of course, just bringing the knee into the nose, lengthening back, repeat. Let's do one more on the other side or the same on the other side should I say, here we go. Knee to nose, reach it back and reach it back.

And then if you're feeling keen, let's do three push-ups to finish. Here we go. One, two, three. Now walk your hands back towards your feet. Soften the knees, roll all the way up to stand, roll the shoulders back. I hope that you feel much more connected to your core, feeling some heat from the inside.

And if you enjoyed this, come and join me for more workouts and more Pilates adventures at Pilates Anytime.