Warm Up Exercise Routine

Fitness Instructor Estelle Matthews guides us through warm up routine which can easily be followed at home either alone or as a warm up to your usual exercises.

Estelle Matthews: Hi, I am Estelle. Welcome to my ten minute workout plan. Now if you are sitting at home on your sofa right now, it's time to get out and get motivated. You don't actually need to go down to a gym. Just stick with me and I'll take you through a program, ten minutes, that's all you need. If you manage to follow me today, you'll start to get fit. Are you ready girls? Okay. We're going to start with just warming up the necks, taking the chin down to the chest, down and up. Now you can stick to my timing or you can go to long. Just if this is too fast, slow it down. We will keep the music just for now, checking, you brought your chin coming down your chest and you don't go too far back. Now, one more of that, good. Now straight looking to the side, don't alter the position of your head, just take it straight way around and over, brilliant, and up you go, four more to go. It's quite easy if you try and thinking for most of these exercises, three more sets. Definitely don't try and do anything with your neck, no twisting. Two more, and one more. Now we're going to incline so taking it over to the right to incline over and to center. Incline. The aim of this one is try and work the ear down towards the shoulder. You definitely don't bring the shoulder up to the ear. Four sets again, so one set, up, up, down and up, down. Just do one lap more, up you go, one and up and over. Just opening the legs a little bit, shake the shoulders out. Neck should be warm but now you need to get the rest of the body warms up. So then a whole rotation, well, exactly it's a half circle but it's the neck coming down, chins to the chest again. That was two, this is number three, and this one you can afford to do a lot slower. Let's just try too slowly. One, two, three, four and back. Two, three, speeding up, down you go and round. And down you go to the side. Two more, down, try and keep your hands nice and loose, just the neck relaxing here and over. Chin to the chest, keep it there, just round the shoulders, good. Now, lifting the hands all the way up through the body, a big, big stretch, think of a yawn stretch out through the abdominals, fingers to the ceiling, good. Now what I'd like to do is lift over, right foot first, then lift the left, so you're involving your waist now, stretching out. Lift, lift and you can speed it out. Let's try just little bit fast again, you're moving now. Trying to get lean in, the hip downwards stay absolutely still, five, six, seven, eight. Now both hands up, look towards the ceiling, bend the knees; the knees go over the toes. You kind of crumble up for this one so you take the hands down to the shoulders, chin to the chest and you take the hands down to the floor. Now you'll feel a lot stretched through the lower back. You will also feel the hamstrings, back of the legs stretching out but not too dramatically to start with. Then you bring the shoulders back up right, that's it. Take your time and lifting up. Probably do about four of these. It's a big movement, it involves the whole of body. Hands to the shoulders, chin to the chest, reach down and trying really hollowing the abdominals. Let's try another two, lifting up. This is really needed to be done in your own time. If you don't want to go too fast, there is a lot of body parts you're stretching out here. The feet stay parallel on the way up, try and keep the weight through the heels. And once more, good continuous flowing movement, stretch right up. Now bend the knees, hands at the shoulders and relax over. Again, as you come up, try and increase the work in these hamstrings, good. Now the arms, so just shake out again. Shoulders loose, you might want to just work the feet, away from the floor for a few second. Now we're going to take little bit of arm work. So this is quite easy. Clasping the hands, going after the side, not all the way up here, that's it. Now working the right bounce, you can feel the triceps, the back of the arms squeezing, lots of contractions there, excellent. And again that was number four, three, two, one, up you go, one, two, three, four, and down. Number three, good, now you're really getting warm. Feeling your body warming up? Now this time stay after the side, the triceps squeeze up and over. Hard to target at the back of the arms. Squeeze, lift them up and over and you'll also feel the abdominals tightening up while you do this. Now we are warming the arms up, therefore we're going to stretch them a lot more now. We got it pulse. Now you really will start to feel some tightening there. Aching hips, that's it. Squeeze it nice and tight. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Now pulling up, resistance needed here. Imagine you've got some sheet weights in those hands, in and out. Number four, in and out. Four more squeeze it in and out, two and out, three. Last one, now then working the elbows and hands into get and that's a slow version, I am taking out to the sides. Speeding up on the beat, in and out. Now the aim is here to keep the elbows level with the chest, wherever that chest might be, keep it up, in and out, in and out, in. Not let's just get the knees working a little bit, for eight more, bend and up, bend and up. It's looking good. Don't forget that squeeze though, you're going to feel like it's an effort to bring the arms together, lovely. Eight more, one, two, three, so you done a double set of these, four, five, six, seven, looking more and more relaxed. Take the hands together, keep the knees bend. I am going to look over you this way. You squeeze up, good. Not everybody is made so that the elbows can squeeze together but that's the aim. You're feeling a good healthy ache there. Lift and lift, eight more, lift eight, seven, six, feeling any healthy pain yet? Four, three, two, one. Now last bit of effort on these hands, squeeze the palms of the hands together, drop your shoulders and pulse, pulse, that's it, squeeze six, seven. Eight more, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, hold it. Now grinding your teeth, look at me, let me the effort in your faces. You really got to feel it through the armpits to the shoulders, right across the chest, wide enough to right place, hold it, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one and drop the hands down, you'll need to shake those hands out, good. Just workout the legs, stretch them out, pick the feet out. Now in the session then we will do later, we're going to make sure we got more upbeats and more in the leg up. But before we get on with anything else, you have to bring the heel up, bring the right heel up. If you wobble about don't worry, use a wall if you need to or grab onto a friend. Then the supporting knee, squeeze that heel into the bottom and try and aim for the knee to be pointing towards the floor, holding it there. You need to do the same on the other leg. Hold it there good 30 seconds. No problem if you jump around, just need to find somewhere to grip onto. Holding it, good, now you'll warm, you warm? Good. So there you go, that's the warm up, just ten minutes, that's all it takes, ten minutes of your time, 1-3 times a week and you'll really be on the road to fitness. And what's more? It'll start to energize you and help you in everyday life and coping with the kids.