FITNESS TIP: TAKE IT OUTSIDE.

With summer’s warmer days on the way, why limit your workouts to your home or health club? While you might associate the great outdoors with running or cycling, other types of exercise—like yoga—are great al fresco choices, too. First, find a spot outdoors that you enjoy, whether under a tree in your yard or on the sandy shores at your local beach. Then, take a deep breath of fresh air, feel the sun on your shoulders and the earth below your feet, and try this earth-conscious pose below.

Grounding Balance

• Begin in Mountain pose bringing hands into prayer position.

• Visualize breathing in the energy around you and breathing out love.

• Reach your arms as high as you can, with heels planted and feet flat. Next, try reaching higher on the right side, then the left, three times on each side.

• Round down into a forward fold. Hold this pose for five breaths with soft knees, hands flat on the ground.

• Bend your legs a little, lowering your pelvis. Exhale as the knees bend; inhale and straighten. Do this three times.

• Roll up slowly.

• With a gentle backward bend, look up at the sky. Hold this pose for several breaths, then slowly return to Mountain pose.

Learn more ways to ground yourself through Outdoor Yoga.

Question: What are your favorite outdoor activities?

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FITNESS TIP: GET A DANCER'S BODY.

Posted by Alanna Fincke

With the popularity of TV shows like Dancing with the Stars, it’s clear that hitting the dance floor isn’t just a fun way to spend an evening: It’s also a great way to get in shape and even lose weight. But your options aren’t limited to ballroom dancing. Other forms of dance, from ballet to belly dancing, burn calories, too. Like any type of aerobic exercise, dancing can protect the heart and arteries, strengthen bones and muscles, and boost your mood.

So get moving–whether that means dancing around the house with your kids (like in producer Christina Deyo's diary entry from January 29), hitting a club with friends, or doing a romantic waltz with your significant other.

Try this ballet-inspired exercise that challenges and improves balance, strengthens your ankles, and sculpts calves and upper thighs:

• Stand tall with feet together and parallel. Lift your heels up as you place weight evenly on the balls of your feet. "Releve," or rise up, and then lower down. Repeat 10 times, pressing your inner thighs

• Lower your heels, then bend at the knees, or "demi-plie," keeping your arms at chest level. Straighten your legs. Plie and straighten eight times, keeping your feet flat on the floor and pressing your inner thighs together.

Ready for more? Try out additional moves:
BalleCore Exercises

Read about Christina Deyo's dancing family:
Day 7 of the Challenge

Question: What type of music makes you want to get up and dance?

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FITNESS TIP: MIX IT UP.

Posted by Mary Tedesco

Getting bored with your workout routine? Don’t give up altogether! Instead, add some fun new exercises, like the Cross-Legged Reverse Plank described below. It takes the same-old plank position abdominal exercise (in which you balance on your forearms), and puts a new twist on it by spinning it around. This easy stretch will open and lift your solar plexus while working your abs.

• Sit in an easy, cross-legged pose with hands on the ground behind you, fingers touching the floor and pointing inward toward your body.

• As you inhale, raise your hips straight up off the ground, using your arms for support.

• Lift from the core rather than push with your arms.

• Do not drop your head but keep it aligned with your neck and back.

• Hold at the top for two seconds, and then exhale and gently lower your body back to the floor. Repeat five to 10 times.

Question: How do you add variety to your workout?

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FITNESS TIP: ENERGIZE YOUR WORKOUT.

The ancient Asian practice of qigong uses breath and fluid movements to increase the flow of energy throughout the body. Bring that sensibility to your workout today by trying the qigong exercise below to help energize your body and enliven your mind.

Knocking on the Door of Life

• Body: 
Brings circulation to the lower back, kidneys, and adrenal glands while firing up the central nervous system.
• Mind:
 Awakens inner vitality and helps you cultivate positive energy.
• What You Need: 
Enough space to swing your arms.

How to Do It:

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, arms and upper back relaxed. Slowly turn from left to right, rotating from the hips and waist. Allow the momentum to move your arms so they gently knock across the lower back and abdomen. Look over your shoulder as you turn. Continue the rotation for 30 seconds to a minute. Slowly unwind and bring your arms back to your sides.

Get a little deeper understanding of how to Energize with Qigong.

Question: Did you try this exercise? If so, what sensations did it make you feel?

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FITNESS TIP: GO FISHING—ON A YOGA MAT.

Posted by Alanna Fincke

If you’ve ever been impressed by acrobats but are sure you can’t do a back bend, try this fun exercise. Fish Pose gives you the invigorating experience of a back bend without an actual back bend. It releases and opens the solar plexus and also opens the body and facilitates breathing. Done after abdominal exercises, this pose will also help to open and stretch the core muscles while relieving tension.

1. Start by lying on a mat. Sit up on your elbows, bringing hands underneath your buttocks, palms down.
2. Slowly arch your back, pressing your weight into your elbows and buttocks (not your head), until the crown of your head touches the ground.
3. Breathe through your nose, with eyes open, for 30 to 60 seconds.

Find step-by-step instructions to more Power-Zone Strengtheners

Question: What exercises have you surprised yourself by being able to do?

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FITNESS TIP: GET HIP.

Posted by Alanna Fincke

They can be the bane of our existence or proudly displayed in a pair of tight jeans. But our hips aren’t just for looks. The hip joints house a lot of physical and emotional tension—especially for women. The reason? Chalk it up to a combination of a sedentary lifestyle and nonstop stress. If you ignore the need for balance in this central area, you could wind up with low back pain, poor posture, and debilitating tension. Practice this exercise to stretch and strengthen your hips, increase flexibility, and stave off stiffness and injury down the road.

Crescent Lunge

This exercise opens the front of the hip while strengthening the opposite leg, helping you to stabilize the muscles around the bone and engage the core muscles.

• With your feet hip-width apart, step back with the right leg into a deep lunge—bending your front leg to about 90 degrees.

• Stay on the ball of your right foot and keep your hips squared.

• Extend the arms straight overhead, using the abdominal muscles to keep your upper body erect and stable.

• Take three to five deep breaths, imagining that you're breathing into your right hip and releasing tension there.

• Repeat on the other side.

Question: How do you feel about your hips?

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FITNESS TIP: FOCUS ON YOUR CORE.

Sure, a great ab workout can leave you with a bikini-ready body. But working your abdominals has other benefits, too. By engaging these muscles, you can improve the quality of your digestion and stimulate diaphragmatic breathing, which can relieve stress. Try the following exercise to tone your belly—and build a stronger, more centered you.

Core Balancer

• What it does: This stabilizing isometric strengthener works the upper and lower ab muscles. To stay balanced here, you'll use several muscles in concert, which makes more effective use of them.


• How to do it: Start by lying on your back, arms over your head and feet hips-width apart. Take a deep inhale and, as you exhale, pull your upper body and lower body upward so that you form a V. Reach your fingers toward your toes and keep your gaze upward, compressing your abs and drawing the navel toward the spine. Hold for 3 to 5 seconds, then gently lower down. Repeat 3 to 5 times. (To modify, leave your legs up and just lower your upper body, lifting up again to reach your raised legs.)

Learn more about Firming Your Core.

Question: Do you love ab exercises or loathe them?

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FITNESS TIP: BOOST CONFIDENCE WITH WEIGHTS.

Feeling and looking great have little to do with a number on a scale. In fact, you can make your workouts do double duty: Your confidence will soar when you tone your body and train your mind in the power of positive thinking. Today, try this weight training exercise, which not only works your biceps muscles, it helps give you the confidence to reach for your highest life goals.

Confidence Workout

• What You Need: 
A set of 2- to 3-pound hand weights (for a greater challenge, increase to 5 pounds).

• How to Do It: 
Stand with legs 3 feet apart, toes rotated out, knees pointing over the toes. Hold a weight in each hand. Engage your core and buttock muscles. Bend your knees to a challenging (but not painful) degree, keeping your spine tall and your knees aligned with your second and third toes, as you raise your hands to your collarbone. Hold for three breaths, and return to starting position. Repeat 10 to 15 times.

• How Often: Do three sets, three times a week.

More moves to help you feel more powerful:
Strengthen with Weight Training

Question: What types of exercise make you feel most confident?

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FITNESS TIP: FOCUS ON YOUR ARMS.

A tight, toned upper body is good for your appearance—but it’s also good for your health. Targeting your arms, back, and shoulders helps maintain bone density, which is a key consideration for women over 30. Bone strength can also help prevent injury. Today, try this yoga-inspired move to strengthen the entire front and back of your upper body, as well as your lower back and glutes.

Active Cat


• Start in a modified push-up position, knees on the floor.
• Inhale and lift your right leg up and back, opening up the hip and working the lower back.
• Exhale, lowering the upper body 3 to 5 inches above the mat.
• Inhale and return to push-up position, and then exhale, curling your body under and drawing your right knee into your forehead.
• Repeat with the other leg. Alternate, doing 3 to 5 reps on each side.

See more exercises for achieving sensational arms:
Strong Arms

Question: What are your favorite arm exercises?

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FITNESS TIP: GET ON THE BALL.

One way to make fitness more fun is to add some props. Today, try getting your hands on a stability ball. This inflatable globe is relatively inexpensive, doesn’t take up much space (you can deflate it for storage), and can be found at most department and sporting goods stores and health clubs. But those aren’t the only benefits of the ball. It helps you combine the three basic elements of fitness—strength, flexibility, and balance training—all in one workout. Plus, it’s easy to use and you can adapt ball-based exercises to match your ability. Get started with a simple and relaxing move that stretches your abdominal muscles.

Backbend/Arch:

1. Plant your feet hip-width apart and sit down on the ball.
2. Lean back slowly, draping your body over the ball.
3. Reach your arms up overhead.
4. Keep your eyes open and breathe calmly.
5. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds.

Stay on a roll! Try more stability ball-based exercises:
Well Rounded Workout

Question: What are your favorite fitness props?

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