Part 4: 15-minute Essential Core and Strength with MJ Gordon
At millionsteps.com, our vision was always to provide participants with a toolkit to reach not just the physical activity guidelines, but to also bring a broader meaning to our idea of “A Celebration of Movement and Well Being”
And we could actually have a toolkit IF we got some critical messages across:
Before gyms, we just got on with it. And we did it anywhere. And we did them everyday.
And for some people we remembered from our childhood, they did them every day. For life. Just 10–20 mins a day.
Same thing. Every day. For Life.
Repetition. Persistence. Habit
We have said in our sections on Habits:
“If it’s that important to you, schedule it!”
The number one rule for success is turning up. If you are late or miss your schedule completely, bring awareness to it, make adjustments and don’t make the same mistake twice.
And we all have to realise one important thing
Everything that you need for a fitter life is already within you and importantly, at home.
If those were our core beliefs, we at Million Steps realised we had a framework to develop that starting point. The basic essentials of a toolkit for life.
But before we proceed …
THE SAFETY AND HEALTH WARNING
Before we proceed, we want you to understand that these articles and the content we provide are based on simple daily increments and it is EXTREMELY important not just for understanding what success is but also how not to injure yourself. (i.e. it’s not success)
As a Million Step Participant, you have already agreed to our health and guidelines on safety. BUT we ask that you read them again HERE.
For anyone else reading this, again, we ask that you use common sense, do only what you can and also read our guidelines HERE.
15-minute Essential Core and Strength Toolkit for Life with MJ Gordon
So we looked at the 30 instructional videos we had and worked with MJ to discuss a routine that we felt best covered:
- as many of the muscle groups as possible
- with a constant rotation of positions.
We then agreed it should only be for 30 seconds each with 30 seconds of jogging on the spot to get the muscle group workouts and gentle cardio.
The 15-minute Essential Core and Strength Toolkit for Life with MJ Gordon covers the following: (NOTE — you may wish to begin with the 5-Minute Dynamic Mobility Warm Up we have already covered)
1 Lunge (standing)
2 Plank (Floor Exercise Face Down)
3 Squat (standing)
4 Push-ups (Floor Exercise Face floor)
5 Flutter kicks (Floor Exercise Face Ceiling)
6 Mountain climbers (floor Exercise Face Floor)
7 Burpees (Standing)
8 Donkey Kicks (Floor Exercise Face Floor)
9 Glute Bridges with a variation of single-leg glute bridge (Floor Exercise Face Ceiling)
10 Super Man (Floor Exercise Face Floor)
11. Side plank (15 seconds left/right) (Floor Exercise Face Sideways)
12 Bird Dog (Floor Exercise Face Floor)
13 Side Lunge (standing)
14 Bicycle Crunches (Floor Exercise Face Ceiling)
15 Star Jumps (standing)
There are two versions, with accompanying music and without.
We’ll be honest and say this rocks but it’s probably not going to be easy to start off with.
BUT we want you to understand that you don’t need to attempt it all as one, fail and give up.
Remember James Clear 1 push up a day? We want you to come to this every day and stop as soon as you are tired.
Read our article on Greasing The Groove to understand the principles of doing things incrementally
DON’T do a “no pain no gain”. Just stop.
Come back again tomorrow and start again and see how far you get. And stop.
And keep coming back to it every day until you finally get to the end in one whole session.
If you don’t like a routine or cannot do it. That’s fine, substitute it or just jog on the spot. Or just stop altogether
And then repeat. Until one day you get to the end again.
And come back to it again the next day.
And as the days go by, keep coming to it until you get to the end with no effort at all.
And then just keep at it. For life.
We hope you enjoy the 15-minute Essential Core and Strength Toolkit for Life with MJ Gordon. We had a lot of learning and fun putting it all together.
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