One of the best movements to practice every day is transferring from Downward Dog into Cobra and back.
It Involves:
Hip flexion & extension
Shoulder flexion & extension
Spinal flexion & extension
Trunk (core, lats, glutes) engagement
Inhale with Cobra
Exhale with Downward Dog
Performance of this movement should be a 2 / 10 in effort – so that it is easy to match your movement with your breathing.
Doing this every day will go a long way in keeping your shoulders, hips and spine health, mobile and strong! However you should switch up your exercises every couple weeks to continue receiving benefits for your workouts.
(def) : also known as the zone, flow is a mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
Interestingly, this is also a pretty good definition of Mindfulness.
‘HOW TO’ FLOW / be mindful
‘Anatomically‘ match your breathing with your movements : whenever you ‘get smaller’ (flex) let yourself exhale – and whenever you ‘get bigger/wider’ (extend) let yourself inhale.
Do not force anything (like ranges of motion or balance challenges) = 6 out of 10 in difficulty.
stay calm and clear minded (the breathing helps with this).
“CP-COBS”
-> Imagine a normal transition from ‘Childs Pose’ into ‘Cobra/Upward Facing Dog’ (A ‘prone press-up’ is also performed in the video = play with it! have some fun 🙂
-> Take this normal transition movement described above, BUT…. squeeze a Tennis ball between your feet / toes the whole time!
-> SUGGESTION: keep knees bent and the feet off the ground.
Play around with this movement for a week – AND PLEASE : give me feed back!
Let me know what movement issues you have, and I will suggest a ‘plan of attack’ in future video/Blog – & – if it helps YOU, tell anyone else you think it can help.