Exercise of the week!Everyday life with a lot of hours in front of a laptop or computer and usually no free time for ourselves, lead us in search of “multifunctional exercises”, which train and relieve a lot of muscular groups at the same time at the minimum time….
1/2 Roll Down & Oblique Twist with Toning Balls focuses in arms, upper back and obliques, decompressing the thoracic spine and stabilizing the hips on the sitting bones. How does it happen?
Starting position:
Sitting position, legs with bent knees and feet flex hip width apart. Arms overhead, palms facing one each other holding the toning balls.
Execution:
Inhale, lengthen your spine. Exhale and roll down your spine vertebrae by vertebrae , pulling your navel in, creating a C curve with your lower back. Turn your torso to the right side and at the same time lower your arms at shoulder level, palms facing upwards. Inhale, come back to starting position and repeat to the other side.
Cues:
-Keep your shoulders over your sitting bones at starting position
-Keep your spine straight
-Keep your feet flex maintaining a stable position with the quads engaged
-Avoid dropping your knees left or right
-Start rolling down by tucking your pelvis. Imagine the coccyx melting down and forward
-Plant your sitting bones to the mat. Do not lift the glutes off the mat. Create an opposition, while turning your torso to one side, by stabilizing the opposite sitting bone.
-Remember that the thoracic spine turns while twisting the torso. The arms follow the thorax.
-Engage the PH in and up
-Keep your chest “open” and shoulders sideways and back, slide your shoulder blades towards the pelvis, elongate the neck creating a “military stance”Κρατήστε τους ώμους πλάγια και κάτω, σε αντίθεση με το Power House.
-Keep your face and your lower jaw relaxed and exhale with a small round mouth
Variation:
-Palms facing downwards while lowering
-Sit on a pillow , blanket or folded mat in case you can not keep your back straight
Maximum reps 12….
…Haven’ t you started yet?
Amprazis Demosthenes, Pilates & Yoga Instructor, AthensTrainers® Associate
