by Cori Lefkowith | Dec 28, 2016 | Blog, Bodyweight, Workouts
Every time I post some exercises for people to try, I get asked, “How many reps and sets?”
Designing a proper workout though isn’t as simple as me telling you a rep range and number of sets. It isn’t as simple as stringing together exercises.
It is about considering your goals. It is about considering what you want to accomplish that week and not only what muscles you want to work, but what movements, what energy systems, what other workouts you plan to do…even what time you have available!
So how do you decide how many reps and sets?
Start with your goals.
What do you want to accomplish? Are you focused more on strength? Or on more of a “cardio” workout? Endurance or sprint? Do you want to build max strength or get more lean muscle mass? Or maybe are you starting out and going a bit lighter with weight?
All of these things should change what type of rep and set range you do!
Some good things to consider….
If you want to build maximum strength, 1-5 reps should be your focus. I find most of the clients I work with, will be in this range the least. I may do a main lift where we go lower with reps, but in general, we tend to spend the most time in the 8-12 rep range. Because most of us aren’t as concerned with maximum strength alone.
However, if you are, you may do about 5 sets in this range as your reps are lower (4-6 sets is the general rule of thumb). You will need longer rest between sets if you are working in this rep range as your body will need longer to completely recover when lifting this heavy.
If you work in this range, you’ll want to really push weight. This will require you to be more experienced. If you don’t challenge yourself and really try to sort of “max out” at this lower reps, you won’t get much out of it. You can’t have the 5th rep feeling easy.
Also remember, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN TECHNICALLY LIFT A WEIGHT, DOESN’T MEAN YOUR BODY IS READY TO! Build slowly. Even if your muscles can lift it, it doesn’t mean all of your connective tissues are ready to.
You need to build a base before working down into this range!
If you want to move better, lose weight and focus on building lean muscle mass, you’ll probably want to work more in the 8-12 rep range (you may even work down toward 6 reps as you go up in weight). In this range, you’ll put on strength, but you aren’t really focused on working toward that one rep max. If your goal is feeling and looking good, you’ll probably spend the most time in this range.
You still need to challenge yourself with weights. If you want to stop at 8 reps, do 10-12. If you want to stop at 6, do 8. You need to challenge yourself with weights, but in this range, you won’t need to rest as long between sets.
This rep range can be used well in circuits (3 or more exercises together) and supersets (two exercises together). You will do about 3-5 sets.
If you are starting out, or trying to build strength and endurance, you can even work in a higher rep range of 10-15. This will probably be more like 2-4 sets as the number of reps is higher.
With activation moves and even muscles like your glutes, you may even find you want to work up toward 20 reps.
Higher rep ranges can even be used, but then you’ll want to do fewer sets. It is important that you pay attention to workout volume…aka the total amount of work you are doing.
If you workout volume is constantly high, you are going to burn out! So pay attention to this not only in each workout, but also over the entire week.
And it is important to consider the exercises you are doing and the muscles and movements you want to work. These will influence how you design the workout, whether supersets or circuits or pyramids…Or what workout design is best.
You also aren’t restricted to rep numbers. You can also do timed intervals of work. And with both, you can not only adjust the work that you do, but also the time that you rest! (Remember not everything is about shortening rest. Sometimes longer rest plays a part too, especially if you are doing super intense sprint intervals!)
For instance you could do 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off. Double the work to rest. Or you could do equal work to rest so that you recover more and your 100% max effort stays closer to a true 100%…like 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
Or if you are really working on power and improving your speed, you may want to rest 3-5 times the length you work AND work for shorter so you can work at a true 100% max effort the entire time. For instance, 8-15 seconds of work and 24-75 seconds of rest.
You could even do endurance and work at a lower intensity for longer intervals of work with shorter rest in between.
There are so many variables you can play around with to get results!
And not only do sets, reps, volume, rest and weights matter, so do the muscles and movements you plan to work. A circuit that is full body will be different than one focused on just your legs. You can not only do body part splits, but also hemisphere splits (upper vs. lower), anterior vs. posterior splits (frontside vs. backside) or even movement splits (hinge, pull, push, squat)…
Depending on what your workouts work, you can play around with how many times you workout each week! And you can even play around with the length of your workouts.
While bodybuilders and fitness competitors tend to spend hours in the gym and do body part splits, and often workouts for maximal strength will take longer as you’ll need longer rest, you can get a lot out of a quick 10 minutes if you play around with rest intervals and intensity.
So you can easily design workouts to meet your specific needs!
Because most of my clients want to build lean, strong bodies so that they feel and look good in every day life, I often design workouts that give you the most bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time.
Below is one from my 6-Week Bodyweight Shred.
In this case, I go with a circuit style workout with higher reps, fewer sets and shortened rest. Because of the higher reps to really burn out the muscles, no weights are needed. See so many options!
WORKOUT
For this workout you will do 20 reps of everything. For one-sided or unilateral moves, you will do 10 reps per side. Complete 3 rounds of each circuit, resting only as needed. Time how long it takes you to complete and beat it the final week! If you are short on time, set a timer and see how much you can complete in the time you have and/or simply complete 1 round of each circuit!
CIRCUIT #1:
20 reps Squat Jumps
20 reps Alternating Front Lunges
20 reps Plank Jacks
CIRCUIT #2:
20 reps T Push Ups
20 reps Plank Hip Dips
20 reps Full Sit Ups
CIRCUIT #3:
20 reps Skater Hops
20 reps Dips Off Bench
20 reps Side Plank Oblique Twists
Ready for 6 weeks of workouts laid out so you don’t have to think about sets, reps, volume, splits…or anything else? Want to get the lean, strong body you’ve always wanted?
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–> 6-Week Bodyweight Shred!
by Cori Lefkowith | Nov 21, 2016 | Blog, Diet, Testimonial
I’ve done a ton of different diets in my life…And there are three things I feel are most important…
- It’s got to get results.
- It can’t make me feel deprived.
- It has got to be SIMPLE.
And of course, I want it to focus on whole, natural foods.
But those 3 things are key and actually WAY harder to find in a diet than you think.
So many diet want to overcomplicate things…It’s like the people creating them think the more complicated they make dieting seem the more you’ll want to “buy” their answer.
And so many diets cut out all enjoyment from life…Aka…all of the foods you love, which not only makes you feel miserable, but also makes you feel like a hermit that can never go out with friends.
(Can I just ask why she looks freaking happy!?! NO ONE is happy about cutting out foods they love and honestly…YOU DON’T HAVE TO! It isn’t a this or that situation people! You can have both!!!)
Overcomplicated while making you miserable…That sounds about right for most diets…And worst of all…You don’t end up getting results.
OR if you do get results, you quickly lose them because you can’t maintain the unrealistic standards set by the diet for long!
And potentially you end up even worse off than where you started.
This cycle has to end. I know I was sick of personally yo-yoing and seeing my clients struggle as well.
Which led me to first find Carb Cycling and finally develop my own Macro Cycling Plan, which not only helped me reveal my abs but helped my clients lose inches and tons of weight!
First let’s take a look at Carb Cycling vs. Macro Cycling.
Many of you may know Carb Cycling or the general gist of it. You cycle your carbs and have high-carb days and low-carb days during the week. There are many ways to do this, but you often also have to time your workouts with the different days so that you have certain workouts on certain high-carb days and others on low-carb days.
While Carb Cycling can be great, it does require you to plan a bit more so you can make different meals during the week and cycle between days. I found this to be too complicated for my personal meal prep as I couldn’t prep big dishes for the week and had to make sure to buy for both types of days.
I also found that it always happened on high carb days I wanted foods with more fat, which I couldn’t have and on low-carb days, I always wanted carbs…
Always seems you want what you can’t have!
Literally the second you say, “I can’t have a cookie.” That is instantly what you want and become obsessed with EVEN if you hadn’t wanted a cookie before you told yourself that!
So for me while I think the idea of basic Carb Cycling is great, the way you usually have to implement it with programs just didn’t really fit with two of my three most important dieting beliefs…
While it gets results, it wasn’t as simple as I would have liked to be able to stick to long term and it also left me feeling deprived too often.
Don’t get me wrong…I realize it isn’t possible to get ideal results and just binge eat all of the time..BUT that doesn’t mean I always have to feel like I’m missing out.
That is why I came up with Macro Cycling.
So what is Macro Cycling?
Macro Cycling is my way of SIMPLIFYING Carb Cycling. Of making sure I’m not deprived and that I’m still getting results!
Basically it was my way of getting myself, and my clients, KILLER results while creating a LONG-TERM LIFESTYLE!
So Macro Cycling…Basically you dial in your Macros and use those Macros and calories all week. No cycling. No making different meals day to day and matching your workouts or cycling your calories up and down whether or not you worked out…
You stick with 1 Macro Breakdown for 2 weeks and then switch every 2 weeks between 3 ratio breakdowns. That means right when you start to get “bored” or even “plateau,” I switch things up so you can start eating new things.
However, on all three ratios, NOTHING IS OFF LIMITS!
You can use meals you currently love making. You can indulge in that sweet treat or crunchy, salty snack.
The point is you just dial in the ratio of each macronutrient you consume. Which means making LITTLE tweaks to what you’re currently doing.
And most importantly, it means FOCUSING ON PROTEIN!
The first Macro Breakdown I use for my Macro Cycling Plan is 40% Protein, 30% Carbs, 30% Fat. (Just to give you a reference point for how different this is from what the average American eats and mainstream thought tells them to eat, the “default” ratio in most fitness trackers is 20% Protein, 50% Carbs and 30% Fat.)
My Macro Cycling Plan is focused on the Macronutrients or the food that your body requires you to get in large amounts from your diet (Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat).
This means you can eat carbs. You can eat fat. You just need to focus on protein!
And we focus on PROTEIN because protein is made up of amino acids which are the building blocks of muscle tissue. If you want to grow stronger and look leaner, you need to get enough protein to build, repair and even MAINTAIN your muscle tissue!
Plus, protein has a higher thermogenic effect than the other Macros, meaning you actually burn more calories to process protein, making it harder to gain fat when your diet is high in protein (studies have even shown it to have a thermogenic effect 5 times greater than carbs or fat!).
Studies of thermogenesis have also shown that one of the most important roles protein plays in body weight regulation is due to the fact that it increases feelings of satiety or feeling full!
So protein is not only key to us getting results from our workouts, but also feeling fuller and having an easier time losing body fat!
That is why I like Macro Cycling. It puts the focus on PROTEIN…not on carbs. And it allows you to still eat the fats and carbs and foods you love!
(Below is the Chipotle Chicken Loaded Sweet Potato I use in my Macro Cycling Shred as one of the recipes…It usually is a favorite!)
If you love chocolate…YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE IT UP!
If you love bread or pasta or WHATEVER, you don’t have to give it up!
If you’re gluten-free or paleo or WHATEVER, you can still dial in your Macros using my plan and improve your results!
The point is you aren’t depriving yourself of anything you love.
And you’re making things simple by being able to prep things you already love or by being able to prep meals for the week without worrying about cooking different meals for different days!
PLUS, if you want to go out, you can easily! It is easy to find meals focused on protein. You don’t have to skip carbs. You don’t have to skip fats! Heck, you can even get some extra protein AROUND the party or meal you go out to and save your carbs and fat to really use then!
I have lots of clients that have to eat out for work or travel and they’ve gotten great results using Macro Cycling!
Heck, I’ve even done cycling with lower-carb or higher-carb if you really have a preference.
The point with Macro Cycling is it focuses on PROTEIN and helps you dial in your ratios to get faster results without deprivation!
By making little tweaks or changing up little things, you can hit your ratios and get results! And as I mentioned, with my plan, you’ll cycle through 3 different ratios, switching up every two weeks!
So you can get dialed in and make meals you love, but still get to change things up so you don’t get bored!
Don’t waste time trying to deprive yourself and make things overly complicated.
Remember, the key is getting results. And CONSISTENCY is key to getting results. So a program, like Macro Cycling, which will allow you to BE CONSISTENT because you aren’t being deprived or having to do anything crazy complicated, is key to getting results!
by Cori Lefkowith | Nov 8, 2016 | Blog, Bodyweight, Exercises, Functional Fitness
Often we feel limited when we workout at home, especially if we don’t have any exercise equipment.
We think we can’t really challenge ourselves at home.
But not only are there TONS of challenging bodyweight exercises you can do, BUT there are even some great household items you can use to add variety and extra challenge to your home workouts.
And one of those household items is a TOWEL!
Using a towel you can reduce traction and make some basic bodyweight moves even more challenging. Below are 5 of my favorites to combine into a full-body workout. (And if you don’t have hardwood or tile floors, you can even do these on carpet with paper plates or furniture movers!)
5 Towel Exercises For A Full-Body Workout
Towel Burpees – Get your blood pumping and whole body working with this core-intensive Burpee variation!
To do Towel Burpee, start standing tall with your feet close together and the towel/towels under your feet. Then squat down and bend over to place your hands on the ground. As you place your hands down on the ground, slide your feet back on the towels until you are in a plank position with your hands under your shoulders.
Then quickly slide your feet back in toward your hands and stand back up, squeezing your glutes at the top. You can reach your hands up overhead as you stand up. Quickly repeat the move, placing your hands back down on the ground as you slide back into a plank position before sliding back in and coming back up to standing.
This is a great core-intensive burpee variation that is super challenging, but also low-impact.
To make the move harder, perform a push up after you slide back and before you slide back in to stand up!
Fly Push Ups – If you want to smoke your chest, shoulders, tricep and core, you need to try the Fly Push Ups! Beginners will want to start by sliding only one hand out to the side before performing the push up OR they may want to do the variation below from their knees instead of toes.
To do the full Fly Push Up, place a towel under each hand with your hands close together under your chest and your body in a nice straight line from your head to your heels.
Keeping your body in a nice straight line, slide both hands out wide to perform a fly and lower down to the bottom of a push up. Do not shrug your shoulders as you slide your hands out. While you want to slide out wide, do not go so wide that you really shrug or tuck your chin.
Then slide your hands back together, pulling your hands back in using your chest as you come back up to the top of the push up. Feel your chest and shoulders working to pull your hands back in and together as you come to the top of the push up. Make sure your body moves as one unit and your core is braced. Do not tuck your chin or let your butt go up in the air or your hips sag.
Repeat the move, sliding both hands out as you lower back down.
Alternating Side Lunges – This is a great move to not only get your blood pumping but also really target your glutes AND your inner thighs.
To do Alternating Side Lunges, place a small towel under each foot. Start standing tall with your feet together.
Then slide one foot out to the side, bending your standing leg as you sit your butt back. You can lean forward slightly to hinge at the hips and sit your butt back, but don’t round over. Slide out as far as you can. You can also reach your opposite hand down toward the foot of your standing leg to help yourself load your glute.
Drive back up to standing and slide your leg back in. Feel the glute of the standing leg work to drive up as you pull your foot in with the inner thigh.
If this is your first time, just make sure you don’t slide out too far or you may end up in the splits!
2-Way Plank Wipers – I love both Towel Plank Jacks AND Towel Plank Wipers so I figured…Why not combine them into one movement. Therefore we now have the 2-Way Plank Wipers! Beginners can break down the move and just do one or the other or even do this move without the towels.
To do the 2-Way Plank Wipers, set up in a plank from your forearms with a towel under each foot. Keeping your core braced, slide one leg up and out to the side. While your hips may rotate a bit, you don’t want them to sag or let your butt go way up in the air.
Slide the foot out and up then slide it back into the plank position. Then slide your other foot up and out to the side. Bring that foot back in.
Then after performing a wiper to each side, perform a plank jack sliding both feet out at the same time. Once you slide both feet back together, repeat the movement, first sliding out to one side then the other!
Glute Bridge and Curl – Whether you sit all day, want to lift more, run faster or simply want a nice, strong and sexy backside, the Glute Bridge and Curl is a must-do move!
To do the Glute Bridge and Curl, you can use one larger towel or two small towels. Beginners will need two small towels so they can do a single leg variation, sliding one foot out at a time.
To do the Two-Leg Advanced variation, place a towel under each foot and start in the glute bridge position with your knees bent and upper back and arms driving down into the ground. Make sure to engage your glutes and your abs to protect your low back as you do this move.
Keeping your glutes engaged, slide your feet out away from your butt. Straighten your legs out in front of you as far as you can, letting your butt lower down toward the ground. Your glutes may touch the ground, but you shouldn’t let your hips sag or release tension. They should lower because your legs are extending.
Once you straighten your legs out fully, curl your heels back in, bringing your hips back up again into a glute bridge. Really pull your heels back in with your hamstrings by driving your heels into the towels and dragging them back in.
When you pull your heels back in, make sure you bridge up. You should perform the curl and bridge back up as one movement. It should’t be curl in then bridge up, but actually bridge up as you curl back in. Then repeat the movement. Make sure your abs are engaged. You do not want to feel your low back taking over. In the bridge, make sure you don’t arch your low back as well.
Using these 5 Towel Exercises, you can get in a great full body workout!
by Cori Lefkowith | Nov 6, 2016 | Blog, Travel Workouts, Workouts
When we get busy, have family obligations, don’t have easy access to a gym, we tend to make an excuse and skip our workouts.
And I get it.
All of these things make fitting in workouts difficult.
They give us an easy out and we take it because most of us really are strapped for time and pulled in a bazillion different directions.
The problem is…Once we skip one workout, it is very easy to start skipping more and before we know it, our routine and health and fitness goals are completely forgotten.
But we need to take care of ourselves!
That is why it is important to have quick bodyweight workouts you can do anywhere on hand. It helps eliminate the excuses and keep you on track even if it isn’t exactly what you’d be doing at the gym.
Remember, something is always better than nothing.
Plus, you don’t need an hour at a gym to get in a great workout.
Honestly, 15 minutes and your bodyweight is all you need to keep moving forward toward your goals!
So when life tries to get in the way and derail your progress, eliminate the excuses and make your fitness a priority with these quick workouts you can do anywhere!
#1: 1 Minute Max Out
Time: 15 minutes
Set a timer for 1 minute intervals. Complete 3 rounds of the circuit below. Do as many reps in that minute as you can. I recommend counting and recording what you do to not only try to beat it in the next round, but also so you have something to shoot for next time you do the workout!
CIRCUIT:
1 minute Bulldog Burpee
1 minute T Push Ups
1 minute Alternating Side Lunges with Hop
1 minute Spiderman Plank with Knee Drive
1 minute Butterfly Sit Up
#2: Bodyweight Quick Cardio Circuit
Time: 15 Minutes
#3: Bodyweight Core Blaster
Time: 15 Minutes
Ok you know I couldn’t resist giving you a glute activation and core stability workout too…
CIRCUIT #1:
30 seconds per side 3-Way Hip Circles
30 seconds Frog Bridges
30 seconds Glute Bridge with March
30 seconds Rest
CIRCUIT #2:
30 seconds per side Side Plank Clams
30 seconds Spiderman Plank
30 seconds Roll to V-Up
30 seconds Rest
#4: 50 Burpee Burnout
Time: As fast as possible, shoot for 5 minutes.
Sometimes a workout can be simple, brutal and under 5 minutes. Here you go! Complete 10 reps of each of these 5 burpee variations. Try not to rest if you can and do them as fast as possible!
BURPEES:
10 reps Basic Burpee or modified without push up
10 reps Jack Burpee
10 reps Mountain Climber Burpees
10 reps Burpee Sit Thru
10 reps Side Arm Balance Burpee
For all these Burpee Variations, click here.
#5: The Isometric Killer
Time: 12 Minutes
Even when you are short on time, you can’t forget about workouts that will improve your mobility while building stability and strength. Honestly, the more you sit, the more workouts like this are key even though we want to skip them in favor of workouts that “destroy” us. Isometric workouts are challenging but in a different and IMPORTANT way!
Complete 3 rounds of the circuit below.
CIRCUIT:
30 seconds per side Warrior III
30 seconds Scapular Wall Hold
30 seconds per side Crescent Pose
30 seconds Handstand Hold (Downward Dog to modify)
30 seconds Banana
30 seconds Glute Bridge
For all the Isometric Moves, click here.
Use these 5 quick workouts over the week to stay on track even on your busiest days!
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by Cori Lefkowith | Nov 5, 2016 | Blog, Diet, Recipes
When coffee shops start advertising their Pumpkin Spice Lattes, you know fall, and the endless array of seasonal treats, are back!
And our waistlines don’t thank us haha
That is why I always like having some healthy seasonal recipes to bust out, including the Pumpkin Spice PROTEIN Latte.
This is a great seasonal protein shake you can treat yourself to that won’t have the sugar and fat overload of the traditional variations.
So bring on the Pumpkin Spice!
Pumpkin Spice Protein Latte
Servings: 1
Ingredients
12 oz cold-brewed coffee
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1-1/2 tbsp organic pumpkin puree
½ tsp pumpkin pie spice mix (can make the one below)
1 tsp honey
Ice
To make Homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix:
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp cloves
1 tbsp all spice
First make the Pumpkin Spice Mix and save the rest for later. Add all of the other ingredients to a blender.
If you are less of a coffee fan, you can sub in some milk of choice for a few ounces of coffee.
Blend everything together with ice until mixed throughly and serve!
MACRO BREAKDOWN:
Calories: 138
Protein: 25 grams
Carbs: 9 grams
Fat: 1 grams
AHEM! The perfect high protein treat since many of you have heard me harp on the importance of making PROTEIN a focus of your diet…Especially those of you doing the Macro Cycling Shred!
by Cori Lefkowith | Oct 28, 2016 | Blog, Butt, Pain Relief
We’ve all know that we sit too much during the day and that sitting may be killing us.
And while moving more is important, your movement needs to REVERSE the effects of sitting.
You’ve got to make sure that you loosen tight muscles and get those muscles that become weak and inactive from sitting activated and working correctly again.
This is why I constant harp on improving hip mobility AND working on glute activation!
If you sit a lot during the day, your hips are tight from being in constant flexion (aka bent!). This tightness causes your glutes to often shut off, which means all of that squatting and lunging and deadlifting may not actually be working those butt cheeks!
It may mean you’re actually potentially risking pain and injury because other muscles are engaging and working so that you can squat and deadlift and lunge. Muscles that SHOULDN’T and CAN’T really handle the load!
Wonder why your low back so often hurts? Or why you only feel your quads during some of these compound moves?
It may be because your glutes aren’t actually working and engaging because they aren’t activated! And why aren’t they activated?
Because your hips are locked up!
To unlock your hips and activate your glutes, I like to do these 3 moves basically DAILY!
(And if you are looking for a complete program to unlock those hips and activate those glutes check out this AMAZING one – Unlock Your Hip Flexors!)
Half-Kneeling Hip (and Quad!) Stretch – I do this stretch as often as possible. It is the perfect way to reverse the effects of sitting and even start to activate your glutes. You can do a few different variations and hit your hips from a couple of different angles and even really stretch out your quad as well.
One HUGE key though to getting this stretch to actually work though is ENGAGING YOUR GLUTE! Too often people do this and don’t ACTUAL extend their hip because they lean forward or simply arch their low back.
If you don’t engage your glute and actually focus on extending your hip, guess what?! You don’t actually unlock your hips and you don’t really reverse all of the effects of sitting!
So no matter which version you pick, make sure to truly engage your glute and extend your hip and not simply your low back. If you are starting out, the version below is a great place to start! From there you can add in the quad stretch by grabbing your back foot or placing it up on a bench.
To do the Basic Half-Kneeling Hip Stretch, start half kneeling on the ground. Flex your back foot and squeeze your glute as you drive your back hip forward. Reach your hand up overhead so that you feel a nice stretch down the hip of the back leg. You can reach both hands up or simply the hand on the side that is back.
Squeeze the glute of your back leg so that you are actually fully extending your back hip and not simply arching your back. If you just hyperextend your low back, you will just be perpetuating the problem. Make sure you are truly extending your hip.
Breathe as you hold and reach your hands backward overhead or turn this into a dynamic stretch by releasing and then repeating the stretch.
You can also reach your arms to the side over your front leg if you want to hit your hip from a different angle and stretch your TFL and even the muscles of your back that help you bend to the side.
Leg Swings – If you ask any of my in-person clients, they’ll tell you I make them do this one basically daily along with the Half-Kneeling Hip Stretch. I LOVE this one because it not only works on balance and activates the muscles that stabilize your feet and lower legs, but it also wakes up your core, activates your glutes AND opens up your hips.
And it does all of these things in different planes of motion, which means you’ll be mobilizing your hips so you can move well in every direction!
There are three main variations of the Leg Swing I use; however, you can really swing in any direction. Just make sure to really engage the glute of the standing leg to help you balance and even use the glute of the other legs to swing, especially on the rotational one!
To do the 3-Way Leg Swings, start standing on one foot. Feel your foot gripping the ground and engage the glute of the standing leg to help you balance. Brace your abs and stand up nice and tall.
Keeping both legs fairly straight, but not locked out, begin to swing the other leg forward and backward. Swing from the hip, don’t just bend your knee and kick your lower leg. The bigger your swings are, the more your standing leg will have to work to balance.
Do not hold on to anything as you do this move. If you need to at the beginning, just perform smaller swings and tap your foot down as needed to reset and stabilize. You can hold onto a wall if you want to remove the balance element and instead just focus on mobilizing the hip, but remember that you are then taking out balance work and even building some extra core stability.
Complete all reps of the forward/backward swing then, still balancing on the same leg, switch to lateral swings. For the lateral swings, swing the leg up to the right and then to the left in front of your standing leg. You may even feel the outside of that glute working to raise the leg up as you swing it. The bigger your swing, the more you will open up your hip and force your standing leg to work hard to balance.
After performing the lateral swings, bend the knee of the leg you’ve been swinging to 90 degrees and perform rotational swing.
To do rotational swings, bring the bent knee in front of you and then open it out to the side. Bring the knee back forward, keeping the leg bent the entire time. Really focus on opening from the hip with this move. You should really feel the glute of the standing leg working as you rotate. The more your rotate, the harder the move will be, but also the more you will open your hips and get your glutes activated.
Once you complete all three swings, switch to the other side and do all three swings.
If you do this move correctly, you will feel your foot, calf and even your shin muscles working to balance. You will also feel your glute and core engaging as you swing your leg to open your hip.
Again start with a more basic balancing pose if you can’t maintain balance or perform smaller swings. The whole point of this move is to improve your mind-body connection and get things activated so you can balance.
Bridging – I don’t care if you do a Camel Bridge, Tabletop Bridge, Basic Glute Bridge or any other variation of the Bridge…If you aren’t doing some sort of bridge almost daily, you are missing out on a great chance to not only improve your hip extension but also activate your glutes!
Unlocking your hip flexors and keeping them unlocked isn’t only about stretching. Because if you stretch and then go right back and sit, you’ll simply tighten everything back up.
BUT if you actually get the muscles activated and working and STRENGTHEN through the range of motion you’ve established, you can actually improve your mobility, unlock your hip flexors and prevent and alleviate low back and hip pain (as well as even knee pain among other things!).
No matter how advanced an exerciser you are, you should always include a Basic BODYWEIGHT Glute Bridge in your routine…I know I do.
A. Because it is important to always return to basics and establish/maintain your mind-body connection.
B. Because with bodyweight exercises we are often actually able to contract our glutes harder AKA really make sure they are activated and working correctly!
Just a refresher on that Basic Bodyweight Glute Bridge…
To do the Basic Glute Bridge, lie on your back and bend your knees and put your feet flat on the ground. Your feet should be about hip-width apart. You may need to adjust your exact foot positioning based on how tight or mobile your hips are. You can move your feet slightly away or slightly closer to your butt, but just make sure you don’t move them so far away that you feel your hamstrings taking over.
Bend your elbows to 90 degrees so that only your upper arms are on the ground. This will help you really be able to drive down with your elbows, upper arms and back to help you bridge straight up instead of pushing yourself backward.
Then bridge up, driving through your heels and upper back and arms to lift your glutes up off the ground. Drive your hips up as high as possible, squeezing your glutes hard as you brace your abs. Keep your belly button drawn in so you don’t hyperextend your back. Focus and consciously squeeze your glutes at the top.
When you bridge, do not push backward off your heels. Make sure you are driving straight up and that your knees aren’t caving in. Even think about driving your knees forward over your toes to help extend your hips and prevent you from pushing yourself backward.
Squeeze your glutes for second or two at the top and lower all the way back down to the ground before repeating. Do not rush through the move.
OH and I also want to mention…Glute Activation and unlocking your hip flexors not only means reversing the effects of sitting so you prevent and alleviate injury and can lift more and run faster…
But it can also help with that LOWER BELLY POOCH!
Did you know that tight hip flexors can actually contribute to that hard to get rid of lower belly pooch!?! Well they can!
All the more reason to unlock those hips and get those booty cheeks working correctly.
For some essential flows and movements you NEED to be including in your workout routine, check out this program – Unlock Your Hip Flexors!
