• workouts

    Flex for Resilience

    By 24Life

If you want to move more but your body has other ideas, chances are your fascial tissues need some attention. This connective material is vital to your body’s ability to be strong and flexible and move well, all at the same time. Fascial tissue is like a web that wraps individual fibers and also wraps around your muscles, bones and organs. Healthy fascia helps the body to be strong and resilient, improving your ability to move in all directions, prevent injury, and decrease common aches and pains caused by movement restrictions in your joints (and by faulty and repetitive movement patterns).

This circuit-style workout can be done anytime, anywhere, and it’s designed to get you moving with ease while you get fit and strong. Get ready to flex for it and get more out of every rep.

  • After the warm-up drill, perform each movement in succession for 45 seconds and rest 15 seconds after each one.
  • Repeat the entire circuit three times.
  • Finish with the cool-down drill.

Warm-Up

Tri-Planar Lunge Matrix

  • Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart.
  • Step forward with your right foot into a lunge. Make sure your knee does not pass your toes. Push through your right heel to return to your starting position.
  • Step out to your side with your right foot. Sink into your hip, bending your right knee and keeping your left leg straight. Push through your right heel to return to your starting position.
  • Step back diagonally with your right foot to a four o’clock position, rotating your body as you step. Sit down into your right hip, then press through your right heel as you rotate and return to your starting position.
  • Repeat with your left foot.

Workout

Bear Crawl

  • Stand with your feet hip-width apart, arms at your sides.
  • Lower yourself to your hands and knees. Keeping your back flat, core engaged and neck neutral, flex your feet to rise up onto your toes so that your hips and knees remain at 90 degrees with your knees hovering off the ground.
  • Step your right and left foot forward, alternating, to travel forward for a few feet. Then reverse the arm-and-leg motion to crawl backward to return to the starting point, and repeat for 45 seconds.

Squat With Arms Overhead

  • Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart, your toes turned out slightly and your arms resting at your sides.
  • Engage your abdominal muscles and broaden across your chest by gently pulling your shoulder blades toward each other. Extend your arms overhead, keeping your biceps close to your ears.
  • Bend your knees slowly, pushing your butt and hips out and down behind you as if you are sitting down into a chair. Keep your head and shoulders aligned over your knees and your knees aligned over your ankles. Keep your weight balanced evenly on your feet (neither just in the front nor just in your heels).
  • Continue to lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Keep your knees externally rotating and tracking over your toes; don’t let them fall inward.
  • As you lower down, try to keep your chest lifted and your biceps close to your ears.
  • Squeeze your glutes and straighten your legs to return to standing. Repeat for 45 seconds.

Brazilian Push-Up (aka Spider-Man Push-Up)

  • Begin in a plank position, with your body in a strong, straight line from head to heels.
  • As you begin bending your elbows, bring your left knee out to the side toward your left shoulder.
  • At the bottom of your push-up, begin pressing the earth down as you extend your left leg to return to your plank position.
  • Repeat with your right knee and continue, alternating sides, for 45 seconds.
  • Tip: Lower yourself slowly to the floor.
  • Tip: Spread your fingers and press the floor down as you push up.

Lateral Lunge With Side Bend

  • Stand with your feet hip-width apart.
  • Step to your right and sit down into your right hip, keeping your left leg straight.
  • Extend your left arm over your head to reach to the right.
  • Push through your right heel as you bring your arm back overhead to your left side and return to your starting position.
  • Repeat on your left side. Continue alternating sides for 45 seconds.

Forward Lunge With Open-Sided Side Bend

  • Stand with your feet hip-width apart.
  • Step forward with your right foot into a lunge. Make sure your knee does not pass your toes. Push through your right heel to return to your starting position.
  • Extend your right hand up and reach overhead to your left side.
  • Return your right hand to your side as you push through your right heel to return to standing.
  • Repeat on your left side. Continue alternating sides for 45 seconds.

Cool-Down

Lateral Squat and Hold

  • Stand with your feet wider than hip-width apart.
  • Sit back into your right hip as you let your left leg straighten. Hold for a count of 10 before pressing through your right foot to return to standing.
  • Repeat on your left side.

Model: Maggie Jesse, 24 Hour Fitness

Photo credit: Milles Studio, Stocksy
GIFs: Tom Casey, box24studio.com
Hair and make-up: Katie Nash, katienashbeauty.com

Background

Don’t leave without becoming a 24Life Insider! Get free 24Life workouts, recipes, lifestyle hacks and more direct to your inbox.

Author

24Life

A mighty and fiercely curious team focused on creating stories and curating ideas for you.

This Month’s Issue – Flex For It

Volume 4 Issue 4
Mindset- Feed Your Life
Movement – Feed Your Body
Nourishment – Feed Your Self
Regeneration – Feed Your Soul