Get Back Into Your Body

Three self-care moves help anchor your ambitions to your body.

Surrounded as we are by images of what’s ideal, even the most self-aware of us can get distracted from our deeply personal and unique reasons for seeking good health. Here are three movements from Jill Miller, self-care expert and creator of “Treat While You Train,” designed to help you reconnect with your physical presence and stay the course of your health and fitness journey.

To get started, you’ll need one Yoga Tune Up® (YTU) Ball and one Coregeous® Ball.

Pelvic Floor Tune-Up

Equipment: One Yoga Tune Up Ball and a stool or chair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTS-8mjSLzI

Your pelvic floor is like a soft tissue hammock formed by the intersection of back, core and hip muscles. We’re sitting on it all day, yet we don’t think about how strengthening it can improve movement for men and women, from load-bearing strength training to simply walking. This is a move to help you with this overlooked area.

Elastic Heart Breath

Equipment: One Coregeous Ball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ6YMKjfdgc

Creating gentle traction and elasticity between your lower and upper body decompresses the spine and frees up your breath, while strengthening your core muscles. This move helps you feel the integration of your breathing muscles and the oblique muscles that connect your rib cage to your lower body. It massages the back of your heart and rib cage, improves spinal alignment, and is also great preparation for the third exercise in this sequence, the crab reach.

Crab Reach: Animal Flow®

No equipment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBho5Z7y4Zc

This move is courtesy of Mike Fitch, the creator of Animal Flow, and it assures that your shoulders are integrated into a strong and mobile rib cage. This move is not a backbend—it’s a thoracic rotation that strengthens your entire back body, helping you stay mobile, healthy and resilient.

Photo credit: Todd Domenic Cribari, inspirostudio.com
Hair and make-up: Mariah Nicole, mariahnicole.com