Feel Good From Head To Toe

With these 4 Moves

A healthy body is fluid, inside and out. Feeling 100% alive requires the freely circulating flow of movement and energy and fluids in the body. Anything that promotes circulation, promotes life.

With more than 230 moveable and semi-movable joints, our bodies have tremendous fluid potential — potential we could reclaim if we had a specific system for stimulating it.

Find time each day this weekend to loosen up your joints with the following four fluid movements from my NEW Healthy Back & Abs Set.

1. Loosen up your hips – Circle Dance

Movement Focus: Circles with hips and pelvis.

Time/Reps: Ten in each direction.

Start in raised Bridge position (page 172) with your arms out to the sides.
Keep your shoulder heads and feet pressing into the floor evenly.
Trace an entire circle with your hips. As you make the bottom part of the circle, bring your lower back close to the floor without touching it.
Keep your buttock muscles firm around your sitbones as you synchronize your movement with your breath. Try to keep your movement smooth.
Relax your jaw and breathe deeply.

Advanced Modification:

Lie down on your back and place your heels hip distance apart on the edge of a chair seat.
Tilt your pelvis up off the floor as you root your shoulders and inner and outer arms into the floor. Keep your arms out to the sides.
Circle your pelvis. As you make the bottom part of the circle, your lower back should come close to the floor without touching it.

Mental Focus: Enjoy the sensation of your hips swaying and dancing.

Imagine that you are painting a circle in the air with your tailbone.

2. Loosen up your shoulders – Butterfly Wing Flap

Movement Focus: Semicircular wave movement in upper back.

Reps: Twenty.

Stand with your feet hip distance apart.
Place your hands on top of your shoulders.
Inhale and take your elbows back, arching your upper back.
At the same time, move your pubic bone to your tailbone, open your chest, and lift your chin.
Exhale and draw your elbows together in front of you, while rounding your shoulders and upper back and drawing your chin to your chest.

Benefits: Increases range of motion in upper spine.

3. Loosen up your knees – Knee Dance

Movement Focus: Circles in hips, knees, and metatarsals.

Reps: Ten circles in each direction.

Start in chair pose with your big toes, inner ankles, and inner knees touching.
Place one hand on each knee and reach your sitbones toward your heels as if you were sitting down into a chair.
Keep your knees together and make ten complete circles in each direction with your knees touching.
Move your weight to the front of your feet as your knees come to the front of the circle. Take your weight back into your heels as your knees trace the back side of the circle.

Benefits: This helps safely condition and lubricate the connective tissue in the knees.

4. Loosen up your wrists – Wrist Circles

Movement Focus: Circles in wrists.

Reps: Twenty in each direction.

Begin in Mountain Pose (page 234).
Extend your arms out to each side, parallel to the floor.
Keep your arms still and rotate your wrists in complete circles.
Focus on extending a line of energy through each arm, from the center of your chest out to your middle finger.