Fortified Foundation

Hi. I'm Misty Lynn Cotton, and I'm really excited about this workout today because it is a beginner mat workout. I'm ultra passionate about the beginner work because It gives us that opportunity to go back, refine our skills, look at the foundational exercises because those are the ones that we build upon to be really successful at the crazy circus tricks that we all aspire to get to. And if we don't aspire to get to those, hey, that's okay because we can be the best movers we can be with this work that we're doing in this workout. So we're gonna get started. Before we jump right into it, I'd like to warm up the hands and the wrist and the shoulders.

So let's start here, hands in prayer position. And all I'd like for you to do is bring the fingers together and then open them into jazz hands. Really think of stretching the fingers and the thumbs away from each other as far as they go. This is just to warm up the hands and wrists. And then we'll press one side to the other side, letting the wrists come into the party so that we give them the opportunity to know that there's planking in their future. And now here we'll bring the elbows together and then open them wide pressing across the middle back.

One more of these. Really lifting the elbows without lifting the shoulders. Now we'll do I call this wonder twin powers. Nuckles are together. We'll bring the elbows down toward each other.

Trying to keep the knuckles touching for as long as they can. And then when they wanna pull apart, that's when you lift the elbows back up. Pulling the elbows down, stretching the wrists will do two more of these. And here's the last. Excellent. Now bring your hands forward.

This is my least favorite. In fact, we'll do them one at a time because I really don't like them. Fifth circles trying to keep the upper arm as still unstable as we can. And I know again, this looks like basic stuff, but when we're getting into planks, now let the upper arm go with you. When we're getting into planks, it's really important that we've warmed up all of these areas reverse. Because if we don't, we get uncomfortable. Who should be uncomfortable when they're about to do such great things for their bodies.

Right? Second side here, I like to make sure I'm going the whole way around which means sometimes I need to hold on to stabilize. And when I go the other way, same idea. I'm going as far as I can to the side up around and down. The last in our warm up series, you're just gonna dolphin the arms and the shoulders loosening them up before we go into quadruped, which is coming up right here. So I use towels because I have a wrist that doesn't bend as well as the other one, and I wanna have as much symmetry as I can. I invite you to choose where your hands should be, but I would like for your wrists to be immediately beneath your shoulders.

In this position, flatten your back. Imagine it's like your dinner table. It's flat. And then we're going to rotate your armpits forward. Think of the inner elbow pit facing the wall in front of you. Your head and neck are long on spine. You'll bring your shoulder blades together, and you'll press your blades apart.

These are scapular push ups. And as I'm doing this, I'm maintaining that rotation of my armpits forward. I hope, and I'm not allowing my rib cage to fall forward. So my ribs are coming along with me. They're not leading the movement.

Return a neutral, Now I'd like for you to circle your shoulder blades. So they're coming forward up and around three times in each direction, keeping the elbows straight, two And one. Come off of the wrists for a moment. Enough breaking. We'll come back to Quadropad, rotate those armpits forward, make sure the knees are right under the hips, and now we'll do bird feeder.

As you bend your elbows to pull them back, your spine is staying long. As you press back up through your triceps, your spine is staying long. Four more. And three, breathing is fundamental, so don't give up on it now. And let's do one more coming off of the wrists, again, because we're going to add on to bird feeder here.

So pulling ourselves forward rearranging to find that neutral posture, and we may wanna bring the knees in a little bit narrower, but not all the way together. Rotate the armpits forward, slide your one leg behind you until the toes are curled under. Same idea, bird feeder. Three. Can you continue to stand into that back leg as you do your single leg bird feeder here.

Bring the leg under you. And then the other leg, slide it back, stretch through the heel, connect the heel to the sits bone, and three spreading energy through the hands, all the way up into your shoulders, one more. And we come back down, coming off of the wrists. Turning the palms up, taking a short break here, and the break is over, we're coming right back up. Find your quadruped.

Now from here, We're going to step our legs back. Just a bit. Keep your feet engaged with the floor. Bring the hips forward. We're just gonna hold this modified plank position. You may need to take your hands wider.

And even rotate them outward a bit. But we're checking in with the middle back to see what's going on. We're comparing the relationship between the front body and the back body, and we're figuring out where the balance of tension is. From here, we'll go prone. So If you're using a prop for your wrist like I am, you can slide that out of the way, though you may wanna keep that close by for under your head if you need it.

We're going to come down into what I call the cactus position. Your elbows and wrists are in a straight line. Your forehead is down and your legs are long behind you, hip width at the max. Now from here, Find the rotation of your armpits forward and feel how that allows you to let your head suspend up. We're just bringing the head to the level. And then we'll come back down and let the shoulders roll in.

And again, rotate find your middle back, lift into a head hover here, and bring it back down. Shoulders are the last things to return. One more. Rotate. Left and hold here, and will stay.

Maintaining your rotation will lift one arm up. Feeling the work across the middle back on that side, and then we'll bring the arm back down. Other arm, lifts and lowers. Now here's the tricky part. Your elbow and your wrist should stay at the same height. Rather than letting the elbow or the wrist lead.

One more each arm, lift, keeping your collar bones wide, and your shoulder blades wide. Let's lower back down. Now we'll lift again into that position keeping the arm pits rotated forward, both arms are going to come up. And we lower them down, palms, and elbows at the same time. And lower.

Two more. Keeping your head aligned and neutral. No flip top head. You are not a pez dispenser. From here, maintain this position, continue to rotate the armpits forward, and let's just start to press and lift.

This is not our conventional swan position, but I'm okay with that because again, This is about finding where the length comes from, finding how to keep the arms and the shoulders in a neutral position as we lift up into swan here. Think of the bottom of the breast bone leading you forward. As you come down, and my hands are really active here. I'm lifting up. I think of my hands as being like suction cups, so they're really working here, rotating my armpits forward, As I'm coming back down, I'm thinking of pulling myself dragging myself across the floor. Press back.

Quick child's pose? Just for good measure, let your head go to one side and stretch here. And as you're breathing into your back, see as you exhale if you can reach longer into that far side. And we'll go the other way. Reach, stretching, and come back to the center. Slowly roll up. In this roll up, bring your pubic bone towards your nose.

Everything above it is just draping. You're dragging it up slowly. See how much rounding you can get without forcing it. Use gravity as your guide. And now we'll lay on our backs.

From here, your heels will be in line with your sits bones ish If that doesn't feel great for you, feel free to take the feet a little wider, but try to keep them close towards your seat. From a neutral position, we'll take a big breath in, and then we'll exhale send your sits bones up the backs of your legs as your pubic bone tilts towards your nose. And we're staying in this low hover here for the next couple of reps. As you lower down, give each vertebra its flowers, allow them all to have their chance to roll and lift independently of the one at above or below it. So this is still just a low bridge.

We'll do one more here, scooping Go through that low bridge position, feel as if you're pulling your heels toward your seat as you continue up into your bridge. As you come down, feel your heart get heavy. And then feel the bottoms of your lungs get heavy, and then feel your tailbone melt into the mat and your pelvis return to neutral. One more, through the low bridge, Remember, pubic bone toward the nose. I wasn't thinking gripping my abs.

I was thinking pubic bone toward my nose. That's my mantra for this bridge. Now I'm up into my full bridge. My heels are pulling toward my seat. I inhale, my heart gets heavy, and that initiates my role down.

Feels so good to get out of that. Bring the hands behind the head and interlaser cup them. Find these armpits rotating forward once again. And in this position, feel your shoulder blades widening across the mat. Inhale first, exhale nod the chin to the chest to curl up.

And how high can you go without bringing your pelvis to the party? Hold inhale. As you lower down, keep your gaze fixed for as long as possible. It doesn't change until the back of your head is headed toward the mat. Let's do two more.

Big breath nodding to lengthen the back of the neck, then allowing your arms to assist in this curl. The armpits are rotated forward. Holding it here, big breath, exhale rolling back. Last one here, as you exhale and curl up, hold the position take a look at your pelvis, and if you're wearing toe socks, give them a little bit of a slide down because well, you'll see. Let's roll back down, find our neutral, Open the elbows, big breath in, rotating the armpits forward, allowing ourselves to curl up widening the back and holding here.

For your legs slide, let the friction, take your leg away, hold. Keep your hips level. Drag the heel back in and along your mat. Plant the foot and then the other foot slides away. I'm obsessed with leg slides because it tells me how much work I'm doing or not doing or having to do to maintain my neutral position.

And it also lets me know if I'm dropping my shoulders and chest back because I'm tired versus I'm not working from the right position. One more. I'm sliding the leg away. And as I'm dragging it back in, I'm really thinking pulling from the front of the leg and the back of the leg evenly. I inhale curl up a little extra. And I lower back down.

Now we'll do bridge rocking. One of my favorites, I'm gonna step my feet in a little closer, and I start from my pelvis sending my pubic bone toward my nose and my sits bones up the backs of my legs. I'm holding here. And then as I'm rolling down, I'm bringing my head up. And then I'm reversing it, rolling down as my pelvis comes up.

Never giving up the rotation of my armpits. Never giving up the levelness, the balance between the right and left pelvis, scooping as I lower, curling up as I scoop. Holding it up here widening your back a little extra, double leg slides. Hold, stretch. Feel the hamstrings activating into the floor. And exhale dragging the legs back in maintaining this slide.

And three more push, curl up a little extra, and pulling back down without sinking into the low back. Two more. Push, stretch up and over as the legs come in. And here's your last one. Sliding the legs away. Reaching the arms long, hold it here, inhale, exhale lift one leg, exhale lift the other leg, lower both legs down, everything else comes down.

We're gonna do two more of those. Big breath in. We nod in me curl first. So unsupported head nod, reach the arms long, lift one leg, lift the other leg hold, lower the legs, lower down, one more each leg, big breath, curl, One leg lifts. Keep stretching it away as if someone's pulling on your big toes, legs, and torso. Last one.

Not in curl. Arms are floating from the back. Lift one leg. Lift the other leg. Hold.

Pull your legs in, readjust your socks by pulling them up and over your heels, stretching into the belly. And lowering everything back down. Now let's do something nice for ourselves. Something gentle. We'll let one knee fall open.

The other knee is gonna sway toward it, allowing the hip to come across the body, but keeping the ribs weighted, and then lead from the knees, the hips, the ribs to come center. Open your arms a little extra so you've got room. One leg, second leg, roll. And as you roll here, it may feel good to let the head go in the opposite direction. That's okay.

But what we don't want to do is take the spine over to the side. We're staying long on our axis here, returning back to the center. And good. So taking the legs away, maybe about a third of the way up. Arms are gonna come up to the ceiling when we take a big breath in. Naw the chin, and we'll exhale curl up to the shoulder blades, stay.

Take another big breath inhale. How high can you come before the pelvis has to join you. Stay, this breath will take us all the way up. Big breath in, exhale rolling all the way up to sit tall without dropping the breast bone. Keep the breast bone. Lifted and slide the pelvis beneath it. Now your hands are gonna come behind you.

I don't know what this position's called, but we used to do crab walks in school. So I call it the crab. Because we're going to scoop and lift our hips up, up, up, and we're holding it here. For this rep, the fingertips are pointing away, and then we'll scoop the belly to roll back down. The challenge here is to maintain the rotation of the armpits forward and keep the elbow straight.

Again, here we go. Scooping, rolling, lifting up. And again, this looks different on everyone, but they don't want anyone in a backbend rolling back down. This time, the fingertips will point east to west, rotating, Think of your suction cup palms being active here. So no relaxing into the hands. The palms are active and doming.

We're scooping rolling and lifting as you lift this time, feel your back widening. Your collarbones are staying broad here too. And we're scooping to roll back down using the breath, big breath in, exhale scooping, rolling back up. Are your elbows still straight? Hold. Inhale, exhale rolling back down.

Full breaths. And on this last one, this is my least favorite position in the Hawaii world. Returning the fingertips to point toward us, my elbow is bent because my wrist doesn't bend that far. So I'm going to have to make an adjustment as I'm going up to get my elbow as straight as I can get it. And then as I scooped to lower back down, I worked to keep it straight, and you will probably have less trouble with that than I do. One more, exhale scooping and rolling and lifting and pushing through the tricep. Hold, inhale here, exhale scooping, rolling back down to release.

From here, we're going to go over onto our side. You have options. Option one, when you get down, you'll be palm facing up. This is the most stable option. Option two, You can be up on the forearm, but the ribs have to be lifted if you're choosing the forearm option.

So I'm gonna come all the way down because I'm modeling good behavior. So Couple things I wanna point out, this finger this hand is pointing straight ahead. It's not this way because we wanna keep the shoulder open. This hand is palm facing up. Again, because we wanna keep the shoulder open. Knees are in line with the hips ish, and then we're going to lift the leg up in parallel and pull it back down.

So if you had a sack of flour on the shin, you would be lifting the leg up and down. Keeping that sack of flour from falling off. So you're not lifting too high. Let's do three more. And two, and as you're doing this, really think about what's happening at the bottom side, it is suspended is not smooshed to the floor. From here, we're extending the leg.

It's going to be hip height, and let's flex the ankle, like the heel is pressing into the wall, and then we're gonna turn the knob. Internal and external rotation maintaining the stack of the pelvis is returning, and hopefully also maintaining the height of the leg. Let's do one more here. Good. And then we'll bring the leg in. Bring the legs slightly forward.

And now we're gonna come up onto the elbow because we're going to do side sit ups. Very basic side sit ups here. Pushing up and then coming back down. And again, two and and one and down, down, down. Come flat onto your belly?

Arms will go straight ahead for a stretch first. Let the shoulder blades shrug up by the ears. And then we're gonna pull them back down into the sides here, finding your floated position, bend your knee and flex your ankle as if you have a pizza box balanced on it. We're lifting the thigh. And as we lift that leg, I'm bringing the opposite palm and giving it a little extra pressure.

It makes me feel like I'm working to keep my hips stable by finding the opposition of my back. Two more like this? One more trying not to let the knee turn out, extending the leg long, rotating those armpits in case we lost it, planting the opposite arm, and lifting five four, three, two, and one. Extending the leg long will stack the head on the hands and we'll bend both knees. These are open.

So before we go into the single leg diamond lifts here, I'm rotating my armpits forward again, and For some of us, it may feel better to keep the head floating at the level. What's most important is that we're not putting strain on the neck. We're lifting one leg. And the other. And as you're lifting, Think about what it's taking to keep the opposite side stable as you lift the leg.

One more each leg? Last side. Good. From here, we're coming up onto the forearms. What's most important to me is that the back is wide and that the forearms are in the number 11 shape parallel. So if you have to go a little bit wider to make that happen, I'm okay with it. From here, breastbone is up and forward.

One leg is gonna kick the rear. Kick, kick, stretch away. And kick, and stretch. No compression in the low back as you're kicking. One more each leg, stretch last side, stretch and come back to your knees, quick child's pose, if you need it. And if you don't, we'll come over onto the second side.

Again, you have the option of the forearm. Once you get down here, the top hand points forward, the hips are forward in line with the knees, and the fingertips on the front hand are straight ahead. Rotate the armpits forward. Top leg is gonna lift up, and pull down. And two.

As we're lifting, feel as if the lift is coming from the outer hip rather than from the foot or the knee. Three more like this. And as you lift, also think of keeping the hips stacked. That's the last one. Top leg is gonna extend.

Hip height and flex the ankle. Turn the knob, we're externally rotating and going back to parallel. And as you're making these rotations happen, think of the rotation happening in the hip joint first. That's where the impetus of the movement comes from. We have one more of these.

Turn and go back to parallel and bring the leg down. We're going to stack the legs once again, bring the hand beneath the head and really find this lifting of the ribs. This is my tough side, so I don't know what you're gonna see. Side sit ups. We're pushing up and back down. And two side bending And I'm really working the back of my shoulder here, my top shoulder.

And then from there, you'll come back down to come up, and we'll be seated, and the legs will be extended I would say about hip width, ankles will be flexed, and you have a couple of options for your arms. They can either be straight ahead, or you can be in genie position. Whichever you choose, remember the shoulder blades are flat to the back and the armpits are rotated forward. This is the partial rollback, so we're going to start from the pelvis inhale, exhale scoop sending your sits bones under you to roll back just to the tailbone ish. And then when you roll back up, let it start low and stack up to sit tall at the top. Let's do it again.

Exhail scooping back rounds fine. Holding how much tension is in your neck chest and shoulders rolling back up and sitting tall. One more like this, scooping your pelvis under you without overactivating the glutes. Hold inhale, and we exhale roll back up to sit tall. Let's add. We'll inhale to rotate to one side.

And let's do the other side before we do the whole shebang twist and exhale center. Now as you twist, if your wrists are in line with your breastbone, they stay in line with your breastbone as you turn. Staying on your sits bones, scoop your belly, roll back, and work on keeping those feet nice and even. We're going back to our point of control. We're rolling back up, stacking bone on bone, finding that center, turning to the other side, breastbone and wrists, scooping back, rolling down a longer central axis, not the one side, hopefully, rolling back up.

And center now will all go to wide arms here. Same idea. Rotate, scoop. And this time the hand comes down. So we're adding more weight in this direction.

How do we manage this in our lower half? Coming back up, rotating through the center, scooping back on your axis reaching for the rear corner, scooping back up, sit tall, find your center, and then from here, we're gonna come into a z sit. Simple side bending. Right? What could possibly go wrong? Nothing. We'd love to side bend here. We're gonna take three side bends to the same side.

We come back up. Arms are wide. As I'm side bending over, I'm making sure that my opposite hip is staying down and that this bottom shoulder and armpit are rotated forward. I have one more to do here up and over, and then I come back up. To go to the second side, let's make it pretty.

Hands will go behind, send your legs over and around. Fancy. Same idea. Find your center. Find this hip as heavy as it gets.

And we're side bending over, up and over, like a rainbow. Come back up. Two more side bending up and over, and we come back up. So the bottom arm is buoyant. Right? It gives us a little bit of a press to come back up. So we're not just hoisting from the top side.

Push and come up. And hold. We're gonna end with one more thing. I know I said beginner, yada yada, but we have to do a full plank. Right? So let's find our plank position. I will grab my towels here. Now, in this position, we've already done a lot of shoulder work, so I want you to challenge yourself to keep the armpits rotated forward.

Slide one leg back. And then you're going to bring the other heel back to meet it or the inner thighs together. Your spine is long. Your abs are deep, and we're just gonna push back into the heels. And push forward over the toes.

Two more keeping the armpits. AWaking alert. One more. Back. Spring forward. Lower down.

And release. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Thanks.