This balance workout comes with a few twists
Photo: Stocksy/Christine Love Hewitt
Living a healthy active life isn’t only about how many calories you can burn or how much weight you can lift. Living a healthy active life is all about balance, balance within life and balance within the body. Without finding balance you are sure to burn out quickly in one area over another. The same is true with the body. It is super important to keep balance within the body too. Well+Good knows a thing or two about balance.
It’s Week Five of Well+Good’s (Re)New Year Challenge, and here’s the third workout! Alicia Archer, a fitness instructor at Equinox in New York City, will be taking you through a workout that focuses on finding balance—with a literal twist.
“Typically a lot of people are limited in how much they can rotate,” says Archer. “Doing movements that involve a twist, especially in the trunk, helps to create more space and amp up mobility. Plus, it has a ripple effect. These movements help you do what you were designed to do.”
Twist and tone workout
Do 3 sets, without resting between moves. Take one minute between each set. You’ll need some space to get sweaty and a yoga mat.
1. Shoulder semi-circle
Start in tabletop position with your knees under your hips and wrists under your shoulders. Lift right arm forward, keeping palm facing in, then circle it up stopping directly overhead with arm extended and chest open to your right side. Slowly return to start for one rep. Do 10 reps. Repeat on opposite side.
Start in a forearm plank, with shoulders stacked over elbows. Place your left palm on the ground, rotate into a modified side plank (leaving your left knee on your mat and extending your right leg to straight, hips and shoulders stacked on top of one another, body facing toward the right). Then, raise your right arm into the air. Return back to start for one rep. Do 10 reps. Repeat on opposite side.
Start standing with feet together. Send glutes back while stepping right foot out into a side lunge, touching right toes with left hand. Push through left heel to go back toward start, lifting right knee up to waist height. That’s one rep. Do 15 reps. Repeat on opposite side.
Start standing with feet together. Place hands down on ground outside of feet. Step back into low runner’s lunge with left foot, while simultaneously opening up your chest by twisting toward the right side, lifting right arm into the air above head. Return to start for one rep. Do 10 reps. Repeat on opposite side.
5. Single knee crunch
Start in high plank position with shoulders stacked over wrists. Slowly pull right knee into chest, then return to start for one rep. Do 10 reps. Repeat on opposite side for one set.
Make 2018 your healthiest, happiest, and richest yet—with a little help from Well+Good’s (Re)New Year program! Here’s what you need to know to finish the five-week challenge strong.
