Wellness Workout For Your Body, Mind & Soul

Want a Workout that takes care of mind, body and soul all at once? This workout is for you!

This workout takes the best of Dance, Functional Fitness and Mindfulness Techniques to ensure you feel good from head to toes, inside and out!

Start with a 5-10 minute warm up that makes you feel warm and limber before jumping into this routine. 

I suggest you run this like a circuit, one after the other and then repeat the circuit from the top. Always allow at least 60-90 seconds between sets to let the body and mind recharge. Enjoy!

Plie`: 12 Reps/ 3 sets

1. Separate your legs slightly wider than hip width apart, turn your feet out like a Ballet dancer, place your hands on your hips, engage your core by lengthening your torso and feeling your belly button draw in towards your spine.
2. Imagine there is a wall in front of you and behind you as you bend your legs and keep your bottom tucked underneath you. This will help keep your upper body straight and ensure the workout happens in the right area.
3. Go as deep as you can go. If your legs buckle in towards each other or you find your bottom sticking out, then don’t drop into this movement quite as low.

This exercise used by Dancers and Footballers alike, works your Glutes, Hamstrings, Quads, Lower Core, Hips and Heart!

Kneel to Stand: 10 reps/ 3 sets

1. Start by standing with feet hip width apart.
2. Kneel down one knee at a time to the ground until you are doing a double-legged kneel, then one leg at a time bring your body to a standing position without using your hands or arms to support you.

This exercise asks the body to lift its own body weight and due to the lowering and standing it changes your blood pressure, making it a very effective cardio exercise that also teaches the body to stabilise the core, as well as strengthening your quads, hamstrings, calves and glutes.

The “Fancy”: 20 reps/ 3 sets

1. Lay on your back with your arms down by your side.
2. Lift your legs up to 90 degrees and point your toes.
3. Cross one leg in front of the other at the ankle, then swap legs. Remember to breathe as this exercise gets tougher as you go!

This exercise is amazing for your core and uses the weight of your legs to create resistance and strength within the calves, hamstrings and quads, hip adductors and abductors.

A great exercise if you are often in heels or working at a desk, and will certainly make you sweat! Feel fancy with your pointed toes as you define your legs muscles to be lengthened, lean and toned.

Walking Hands Plank: 8 reps/ 3 sets

1. Start with your legs hip width apart, feet parallel. Inhale deeply.
2. Using your chin as your guide, roll your body down so that your hands touch the ground in front of your feet, exhale and bend your knees when you reach your maximum flexibility.
3. Inhale and using your hands to walk your upper body forward, away from your feet until you engage in a plank position.
4. Hold this for a count of 5 as you exhale.
5. Inhale and begin walking your hands back towards your feet.
6. Exhale as you bring yourself up to a full standing position, working through the spine, rolling up with your chin being the final body part to lift.

Using the power of the breath during this exercises increases the flexibility of your spine and safely engages the core around your rib cage. This exercise works everypart of your body and also begins to calm the sympathetic nervous system at the same time through deep breathing.

Bicep Burn-Out: Rep till burn/ 3 sets

1. From a standing position, legs hip width apart and torso lengthened and core engaged, bring your arms out to your sides.
2. Palms should be facing up to the sky, clench your fist and keep your shoulders down and relaxed.
3. Bend your arms at the elbow into a bicep curl.
4. Keep the speed of your reps high, but ensure that you can feel the bicep flex and engage each time.
5. Continue to do this till your muscles feel tired or you ‘feel the burn’, then drop the arms down and relax them between sets.

It’s amazing how much toning can occur without the use of weights when you bring the muscles to a burn point through isolated repetitive action! As a bonus this also stabilises the core and works the upper lateral muscles!

Stretch

Stretch for 5-10 minutes at the conclusion of this physical workout to ensure your muscles recover quickly. It will also prepare your body and mind for some mindful activity!

Mindfulness Time

1. Lay on your back, hands gently sitting over your diaphragm (just under the base of your ribs), eyes shut.
2. Start with some deep breaths in through the nose an out through the mouth keeping your focus on the sensation of the rise and fall in the diaphragm under your hands.
3. Count your breaths, inhale is a 1 and exhale is a 2, all the way up to 100.

At the conclusion of your counting open your eyes and take a moment to register how you feel physically, emotionally, mentally.

You are now ready to tackle anything your day or night throws at you.

Well done you beautiful soul on doing this Wellness Workout!

Flic Manning is a PT + Fitness Instructor, Dance Teacher, Choreographer, Wellness Coach and Meditation Guide as well as Founder of Corethentic.

Flic’s aim is to make Wellness simple to understand and simple to apply to life. That is how Corethentic was born!