Hi and welcome. Today, we’re going through a core exercise routine for the muscle
surrounding your trunk. So we’re doing strengthening for the core, for the tummy,
trimming your waist and also through the back. These exercises are all pelvic floor
friendly, so they’re exercises you can do comfortably without worrying about your
pelvic floor. We’re starting with a warm-up, so we’re going to be lying on the back for the
first couple of exercises. Then we’re going to be doing our waist trimming exercises, and then
our more intense core abdominal exercises towards the end of the video. So stay with me for that.
So all you need to do is lie down, you don’t need any equipment for this little routine. As always,
to activate, bring your feet in, close, make sure you keep the inward curve in your lower back,
and bring your arms down by your sides. So just drawing in gently through your lower abdominal
area, just lifting up one leg, and taking it down. So we’re just doing a little warm-up here,
lifting the other leg and down. So just keep those abdominal muscles gently tensed throughout
and lifting and down. Let’s do four more here. Keep that inward curve in your back, keep
breathing normally throughout, and lift. I just like to use my fingers on my lower abdominal wall
to make sure that my tummy muscles are still engaged. One more time here, lifting and down,
and just bring your knees to your chest for a moment. All right, our second warm-up,
just for our back and bottom. Basic level beginners or intermediate, that’s your basic
bridge. But if you want to take it further with me, you’re going to do 10 of those,
otherwise we’re going to do five single leg lifts or more advanced in that way on each leg.
Now, when you do this, you imagine you’ve got a ruler across your tummy, and that ruler is
staying level, so your pelvis stays flat. Keep the inward curve in your back throughout. So this
is the more advanced version. We’re going to lift up, drive down through your heel,
and lower down slowly. That’s number one. Slow and steady lift up and
down. And it doesn’t really matter too much about the position of that leg, maybe at right angle,
whatever feels comfortable for you. That’s number three. Make sure you drive down through your heel,
inward curve, so you really feel that buttock muscle working hard. And one more time, lift up
and lower down slowly, and take a breather. So if you’re doing your doubles, you’re halfway through,
otherwise the other leg. Make sure the heel’s in fairly close here so you don’t want it right out,
heels are in fairly close. Arms are up, shoulder blades back and down,
let’s go. Lift up, breathe out and down. I was a bit wobbly on that one. Try and keep stable.
It’s because I’m on a soft surface here, and it’s much harder to balance rather than being on
the ground. This is number three, lifting up high, keep your pelvis stable and down, activate through
that left glute, so really turn your buttock on forward and down. And one more time lifting up,
and again, you don’t lift through any back pain, just keep it at a comfortable range and bring both
knees into your chest just to stretch out. Now, we’re going to move on to our waist trimmers,
our side muscles. So what I’d like you to do is to roll onto one side facing me,
and we’re going to bring the elbow directly underneath the shoulder there, so not out there,
you won’t have good stability, bring it right in, that way it’ll protect your shoulder. Now, your
basic side bridge you might already be aware of, is that lift up position there, so the hip’s going
to the ceiling. So that’s your basic side bridge. If you want to take it further, you can take both
feet down. Some people lift that way, I find that puts a lot of pressure on my pelvis. I prefer to
take my feet apart and lift the side bridge into that position. So we’re going to hold that here,
just for the count to one, two, three. Pull your shoulder back and down, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10. And that really works the underside muscles here that surround your waist
and down. Now, we’re going to make that a little bit harder, so what we’re going to do, I’ll do the
kneeling exercise first of all, so I’m going to lift up and you can then lift the leg up and
take it down. So remember keeping your hips towards the ceiling, resist the temptation to roll
forward. So lifting up and taking it down, keeping that shoulder blade engaged. This is number three.
And if you’re really strong, you could be doing this on both feet together. This is number four.
And down, hold stable, and number five, and down, and come down and have a breather. Now, our final
one on the side is called thread the needle, and this is how you do it. You lift up, and again,
in that side position, the arm is high, and you rotate through and around, reach through,
and come back up. So this is strengthening the whole core trunk, all the muscles that support
your spine, and it won’t overload your pelvis. If you need to do it in kneeling,
that’s absolutely fine, reaching through and take it back. We’ve got two to go this side.
I’m working fairly hard here, I hope you are at home too. One more time, reaching through
and back and take it down. Other side, so we don’t want to get uneven, do we, unbalanced?
Coming onto our side, so remember your shoulder – your elbow is directly underneath your shoulder
here. You’re going to go into your side bridge, lifting up hip directly towards
the ceiling there and holding that, otherwise you might be on feet. Feet apart that way,
and holding there, if you want to, you can extend an arm as well. But just making sure
that you’re not rolling forward, keep that top hip to the ceiling for 10, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one, and come down. Now, we’re going to go into our side lifts.
Again, you could be doing this double leg with the lift up. I’m going to do it on my knees.
Here we go. Engaging through the shoulder blade, lifting up through the side, and we’re going to go
lift and down. So the underside waist muscles are the muscles that are working the hardest,
but we’re also getting some glutes strengthening as we lift and lower the leg as well;
plus, not to mention, your shoulder blade control too. This is number four, and this is number five,
and take it down and have a breather. Now, tummy area. This is what we’re going
to finish off on. I’ll come up this end. So we’re going to start with the plank,
and I’m going to take you through a progression series of the plank exercises. Stay with what
feels comfortable for you. If you’ve had prolapse surgery or got a severe prolapse, don’t do the
intense core exercises I’m about to show you here. Or if your pelvic floor’s particularly weak,
stay at your level of comfort. So we all know the basic plank in this position. So remember
that your elbows are directly underneath your shoulders, you’re not sagging through your tummy,
you’ve got your pelvis lifted and you’ve got a gentle abdominal in draw there. So that’s
always your basic plank. Now, you can actually progress that, as many of us know, onto the feet,
or you could take it into a full plank which is that position there with hands underneath
the shoulders. So whichever one you choose there, we’re going to hold that for 15 seconds, holding
it for one, two, keep strong through the core, three, four, five, six, how you’re going at home,
you’re right – eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, nearly there, hold on, 14, 15, and let’s take it down,
and just have a breather. And we’re going to progress on that, so you can just give your
tummy a bit of a stretch in that position there now. Now, our progression for this is coming
onto – we’re going to go outside on the knees first of all, and what I’d like you to do is, with
one arm, reach forward, and take it back. Other arm reaches forward and comes back. Go again,
reaching forward and taking back, you’re making sure you’re not dropping through your pelvis
and back, let’s do two more each side, reaching forward and back, and reach and back. I can feel
my tummy working, I hope you can, out and back, one more time reaching out and back and come down,
and you could have been doing that on your feet if you were really advanced,
I’m just showing the kneeling level here. Now, our final progression here, coming back up again,
so we’re lifting up, and this time we’re going to do a straight leg, lift up
and back and lifting and down. So you also get some lovely glute or buttock strengthening here
with this exercise as well. We’re going to do five each side. So holding strong through your core,
shoulders are back and down when you change sides. And when I say strong for your core,
I don’t mean pulling your tummy in hard, I mean, activating gently through your lower tummy,
but not letting your back sag down. Keep it going, three, and here comes the last two,
lifting and down, use your buttocks, use your back and shoulders to support, and down,
and let’s bring it right back now, and we’ll take it into a child’s pose just to stretch out.
Nice big breath in and out, and again, breathing in and out and coming
up. If the video has helped you today, please give it a like below, because then other viewers can
find it as well. Thanks so much for watching today. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.