1 Lie on your back and rest your arms at your sides, palms facing up. Bend your knees and plant your feet hip-width distance apart, no more than a few inches away from glutes. Tighten abs and engage core as you prepare to lift your hips.
Bridge safely arches your back while strengthening your hips and core. This posture is essential for building stability in the spine and hips, especially for backbends. Do this exercise after a long day of sitting to balance your posture, or use this as a warm up to prepare the spine for a workout.
TARGET AREAS
• hips • core • spine
BENEFITS
• Strengthens spine, hips, core, and knees, and reduces risk of injury • Warms up spine for safe exercise • Restores balance to spine after prolonged sitting
1 Lie on your back and rest your arms at your sides, palms facing up. Bend your knees and plant your feet hip-width distance apart, no more than a few inches away from glutes. Tighten abs and engage core as you prepare to lift your hips.
2 On an exhale, lift your hips slowly but firmly away from the floor. Squeeze the hips, glutes, and core to form a straight line from shoulders to knees. Reach your tailbone toward your knees to lengthen the spine. Hold the posture, inhaling as you lift your hips higher, and exhaling as you tighten your core.
YOU SHOULD FEEL
• Stretch in fronts of hips and lower abdomen
• Engagement of hips, glutes, hamstrings, and inner thighs
YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL
• Lower-back pain; if so, engage core and glutes, and slightly lower hips
• Weight in neck; if you do, shift weight to shoulders
PRO TIP
Focus on engaging the correct muscles rather than lifting your hips as high as possible. Think about squeezing your hips in toward each other to maximize glute engagement and strengthen hips as much as possible.
NOT THERE YET?
