Stay Strong - Shoulder Bridge
In these times when we're so limited in what we can and can't do - how can we keep moving, stay strong, and even build some inner strength at the same time?
This time: shoulder bridge! Because when you feel a bit like lying down on the floor and staying there you might as well work whilst you are there ...
Hi, I'm Caroline. I'm a fitness Pilates trainer and this is Staying Strong. In the current situation when we're self-isolating, how can we keep our bodies moving? How can we stay sane and how can we build some inner strength?
So today we're gonna look at shoulder bridges, sometimes known as a glute bridge. It's gonna work the muscles, particularly in the bottom, the legs, the core and the back. We're gonna start on our backs.
So come onto your back when you're ready. And just kind of get comfortable. So relax your shoulders, relax your back. Have your legs bent, feet on the floor and have the feet fairly close to the bottom and hip width. Okay? And then you want your legs to feel sturdy, so kind of strong. Then we're gonna tuck the tailbone under and start to lift our bottom and our lower back a little bit off the floor. Relax your arms and then slowly bring it back down.
So I would start small and just see how your back's feeling. If your back feel fine, you can start to lift up a little bit higher.
So lift up through the back and the back of the ribs, shoulders stay down. And then slowly bring it back down again. We'll do that a few more times. So tucking under, lifting up. Push through your feet. Using the legs, using the glutes. Back of the arms just relaxed. Slowly bring it back down.
Okay, you can add some arms if you want to. So as you tilt, you lift up, keep the ribs tucked in. You're gonna float your arms up and then lengthen them behind the head. And then slowly bring that back down again. Okay, so we'll do that again.
As soon as you add your arms, you're having to work a little bit harder because the shoulder stabilisers are not working as much. So your body is having to work a little bit more.
I sometimes travel up the mat. You might need to shuffle a bit back down again and then let's do two more here. So shoulders are relaxed, working the legs, you should be working the back a little bit as well and the core.
Good, let's do this next one. Okay, do you wanna make that a little bit harder? If you want to make that harder, what we're gonna do is come up, stay up and then lift one heel or one foot off the floor. Take that down and then do the same on the other leg. So you're walking through your feet. If your back is not liking that, don't do it. Just keep both feet down. You're still working hard. But if you can, you can lift one foot and then switch. Good, we'll do another four. Three. Two. And one.
Brilliant, come all the way down, take a quick stretch. You might just wanna hug your knees in, have a little stretch there.
Brilliant, so that's the shoulder bridge. Another great exercise to keep us strong through this time of lockdown. Take care. Bye.
