When it comes to getting into shape for summer, you don’t nescessarily need the fancy equipment or even a gym membership. All it takes is determination and a little bit of time.
Cleveland Clinic Health and Wellness Center Manager Melissa Hendricks shows us a 10-minute total body workout for a great summer bod.
Workout No. 1: The Woodchop
What you’ll need: In this exercise, you’ll be using a basketball.
What to do: Stand with your feet a little wider than shoulder-length apart. Bend your knees slightly, holding the ball to the right side of your knees. Then move the ball from the right side of your knees to the left side of your body, raising the ball well above your head. Continue this motion. You’ll move this up and down through your core. Hendricks says to do this exercise for 30 seconds, then switch sides.
“You’re working a lot of shoulders with the ball, core and obliques, which is great for trimming that waistline,” she said.”
Workout No. 2: Lunges with a bicep curl
What you’ll need: In this exercise, you’ll hold weights. If you don’t have any, Hendricks says it’s OK to improvise with something like a can of soup.
What to do: Stand with your feet shoulder-length apart. Step back with your right leg, then dip into a lunge. Then, lift your right leg forward, bending it at the knee and curl the weights toward your chest. Hendricks says to do this exercise for 30 seconds, then switch sides.
“Keep things nice and steady, nice and slow,” she said. “Work on the quality on the exercise, not the quantity.”
Workout No. 3: Single-leg balance
What to do: Stand on your right leg. Then, with your right hand, reach until you touch the floor. Continue this exercise for 30 seconds, then switch sides.
“Be sure that you’re using that glute to lift up that leg, and then bringing in the core, pulling in that belly button to hold yourself nice and straight.”
Workout No. 4:The push-up side-plank.
What to do: Lower your body into a push-up. Then, as your raise your body up, you’ll rotate your left side into a side-plank position.
“This exercise focuses on the upper body, especially the triceps, the core and the obliques,” Hendricks says. “You’ll want to get your hips up off the ground and extend (your fingers) as high as you can.”
Workout No. 5: Yoga stretches
What to do: Get on your knees, with your palms touching the floor. Then, lift raise your right arm at a level position. At the same time, lift your left leg. Raising both of them will keep your body balanced. This workout allows you to work out your back, something Hendricks says many people overlook. It can help tone your body. Do this for about 30 seconds on each side.
Then, you will put yourself in the same starting position and do a “cow” yoga stretch, where you arch your back as much as you can. Then you invert your back, dipping it in, to stretch it out. You will do thise exercise for about 1 minute.
Hendricks says it’s best to do each of the five workouts for two minutes each for a 10-minute total body workout.