DAY 2 – CORE BASICS

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What Is One Stone

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1 Stone = 1 round of the following:

• Holding Boat for 45sec

• Holding Bridge for 45 sec

• Holding Plank for 45 sec

 

THE BOAT

• Come sitting on your butt on the floor.

• Bend your knees and on an inhale, engaging your core for support, lift your feet off the floor.

• It is perfectly okay to round your lower back, but not your upper back.

• Keep your shoulders down, away from your ears.

• For more of a challenge, keep your arms reaching forward.

• For less of a challenge, you can support your thighs with your arms, or place your hands on the floor, just behind your hips.

• Make sure there is no pressure on your lower back.

• Our Boat targets mainly the belly area of your core. So, to feel it there, adjust how much your legs are raised and your knees bent.

• To make it more intense keep extending and raising the legs.

• To make it less intense, bend the knees and lower the feet.

• Keep the chest out and your gaze up towards the horizon.

• Hold for 45 sec, breathing in and out through the nose.

• To get out of the boat, on an exhale, lower the feet on the floor, lie on your back and get ready for Bridge.

 

THE BRIDGE

• Lie on your back.

• Bend your knees and set the feet on the floor, at hip distance apart, so that your knees are in line with your heels. Keep the feet completely parallel, toes forward.

• Bring your arms along side of your body, palms facing the floor.

• Squeeze your glutes, and on an inhale, lift your hips as high up as possible towards the sky.

• Our Bridge pose is all about the glutes, not the hamstrings. If at any point, you feel the hamstrings taking over, drop the butt on the floor, squeeze it and raise it up again.

• The more you push your heels and the outside of the feet on the floor, the more you engage the glutes.

• The more you engage the glutes, the less pressure on your lower back.

• Keep your knees from rolling in or out. They should stay inline with your heels.

• Hold for 45sec, breathing in and out through the nose..

• To get out of the pose, with control, lower your butt on the floor and hug your knees into your chest, gently rocking from side to side.

 

THE PLANK

• Bring your hands underneath your shoulders and your feet as far back as you can creating a plank-like formation from your knees to the top of your head.

• To make it more intense, lift your knees off the floor, making sure that your butt stays about 1″ higher than the rest of your body to protect your lower back.

• If your need to keep your knees on the floor, make sure they are behind your hips, not underneath. If your knees are underneath your hips, you are in table-top, not in plank.

• Your hands should be right underneath your shoulders, not behind or in front.

• If you feel any pressure on your wrists, make fists with the knuckles pushing on the floor and your wrists straight. Otherwise, spread your fingers as far apart as you can pushing into every single finger, pushing through both hands. This should relieve pressure off the shoulders.

• Focus at the area below the belly button and starting there, use it to tighten your whole core as if your are pushing the floor away from you. Remember that the butt is part of our core.

• Lift the heels as high off the floor as you can for more of a challenge.

• Keep your shoulders away from your ears.

• Look about half a foot in front of you, breathing in and out through the nose.

• To make it more intense in terms of balance and strength, keep your feet closer together. For less of challenge, separate your feet further apart.

• Hold for 45sec, breathing in and out through the nose.

• To get out of your pose, lower the knees on the floor, if they are not already.

 

The Day 2 Assignment Summary

 

Perform 10 Stones, i.e. 10 rounds of the following:

• Holding Boat for 45sec

• Holding Bridge for 45sec

• Holding Plank for 45sec

 

While performing the daily assignment, please keep in mind that part of the 10-Stone™ Series is teaching us the art of persistence. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

 

You can perform all 10 Stones (rounds) in one series or throughout the day if need be.

 

At the end of the day, you will have held Boat, Bridge and Plank for 7.5 min each! Congrats!!

 

Disclaimer

Don’t do anything a medical doctor has told you not to do.

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