This post is brought to you by Kohl's. I've teamed up with them as part of their #MakeYourMove campaign, where I'll share little steps I'm taking to work on my spring goals.
Recently, I shared that I have some spring goals I'd like to work toward. Unfortunately, with last weekend's ankle sprain, I felt like I had taken a giant step back. I mean, how am I supposed to work toward any goals if I physically can barely move?
On the other hand, one of my goals is to manage my stress better and I suppose an injury is a good way to slow the heck down and learn to let go.
Another one of my goals was to deepen my personal yoga practice. One of the things I'd like to do is improve my core strength, so up until I was injured, I've been having fun playing around with a stability ball. Here are three ways I use it:
- Deep front body stretch: I always start and end my core work with this because it just feels so good. To do this, just lay back and let the whole back rest on the ball. You can then play around with shifting your weight distribution over the feet to explore a deeper or more shallow backbend. If you want to go even further, you can lift the arms up overhead and get an even deeper stretch in the chest. It's kind of like wheel pose with a prop.
- Ball exchange from legs to hands: I love this one because I really feel it nearly immediately. Start with the ball between the legs as shown in the video below. Use lower core strength to lift the legs and hips up off the ground, and then use upper core strength to take the ball with the arms. Extend the arms and legs away from you as you hold the ball, and then sit up again and exchange the ball back to the legs. Continue for at least 10 reps and see how it goes.
- Knee pull-ins: These are excellent for building not only core strength but upper body strength as well. Start in a push-up position and then double check your alignment. You want to be sure you're not collapsing in the upper back, so visualize a slight round in the space between the shoulder blades. From there, balance the feet on the ball and use your core strength to pull the knees in toward the chest. Great for working on crow pose! And if you want to switch it up, try pike ups: These are for my more advanced people. It's an awesome exercise for core and upper body, especially those working on handstand press ups. The trick here is to really engage the fingers and use the upper body strength as well as the core to pull everything in and up and get the hips over the head.
And here's a little video I made in partnership with Kohl's to demo these moves:
Do you have any goals for the spring? What little steps are you taking to meet them? Feel free to share how you'll #MakeYourMove on social media and tag me (@yogabycandace) and Kohl's (@kohls) to share!