Dear Friends,
Are you ready to get toned abs and a tight bum? Today, we're speaking with Evan Ruiz, author of the course 10 Day Booty Core. She shows how to activate key foundational muscles in the core to shape our glutes and improve our posture. Using targeted exercises and a strengthened mind-body connection, anyone can sculpt the body from head to toe. Let's hear more from Evan!
- Receive a new lesson every day for 10 days (total of 10 lessons).
- Have lifetime access to the course for reference whenever you want.
- Select the amount you can afford, and get the same course as everyone.
- If you are not 100% satisfied, you may request a refund.
DailyOM: Tell us about the connection our glutes and abs have and the benefits of strengthening them.
Evan Ruiz: The core and the glutes work together on many levels to protect the spine, prevent injury, and allow for proper muscle activation. These two muscles are often overlooked because our bodies can easily compensate without even a thought. The common compensation for glutes are the hip flexors and the lower back. When we become more aware of how to get both the core and glutes firing, we begin to feel the muscles we are attempting to target even more; we feel more stable, and we can easily begin to notice when we are lacking in proper activation. If the core is firing and the glutes are turned off, you'll notice the hip flexors taking over. When your glutes are firing and you are not engaging the core, you'll feel the lower back stabilizing you. It's very easy to go through workouts and break out in a sweat, not realizing that your body was not fully engaged properly.
Over time these compensations can result in low back pain, shoulder pains, knee pains, etc. These pains are often passed off as usual wear and tear that happens during the aging process. But what fitness goers do not know is that, if only they were aware of the lack of proper glute and core engagement, they could have been fully aware of the stress they were putting on the opposing muscles and joints and could have begun a program like this one as a preventative. Strengthening them together leads to better posture, decreased chances of exercise-induced low back and knee pain, and overall stability in our daily lives.
DailyOM: Who should take this course? Is it appropriate for anyone at any fitness level?
ER: Yes, it's amazing for all levels, from beginners to athletes. As we make our way through our fitness journey, it is imperative to check in with the body and make sure it is working cohesively as a team to get the job done. As a beginner, this is a great foundational course, as you'll learn to be completely open to your mind-body connection and be able to build from the strong foundation you'll receive from this course. The knowledge presented in the course will allow you to evaluate how well you are engaging your body properly. As a beginner, you're a clean slate ready to build the habit of optimal mind-body awareness!
As a more experienced fitness goer, this course will help you realize where you can maximize that burn we all love so much! This course helps you to get the most out of your workouts by making you even more aware of when you are not engaging to your full potential. Optimal engagement helps the body focus on the muscles you are aiming to target as opposed to compensating in some way or form, and as a more experienced athlete, you may even find that proper engagement makes the moves harder. This is because the body naturally takes the path of least resistance to conserve energy for fight or flight mode. It is up to us, beginner or advanced, to keep our bodies in check and make sure we are engaging the correct muscles. This course keeps you in the moment and gives the "why" behind every move.
DailyOM: How could someone make the workouts more challenging if they wanted to? Could they use equipment in order to add variety?
ER: Once you have your strong foundation and your engagement is becoming second nature to you, you can add resistance to stimulate challenge within those same movements and ultimately test your new found skills! Dumbbells and mini bands are amazing ways to add external challenges, as it makes it easy for you to revert back to bodyweight if you feel like you have lost activation or you are promoting compensation in any way. Pay attention to any and every progression your body is capable of taking. No matter how small the progression, it is worth your praise! Every win, no matter how small, is a win! With that said, listen to your body as you choose to progress with resistance -- and your body will thank you!
DailyOM: Tell us how the lessons are organized and the types of workouts you teach.
ER: The course begins in the planes of motion we are used to seeing on a daily basis (i.e. front to back and side to side) in order to hone in on how the core and glutes need each other in order to get the most out of each exercise. Lesson 1 is our foundation and each workout progresses off of those moves and adds a new plane of motion and rotation. Regardless of whether we are primarily focusing on the glutes or the core during a particular exercise, you will quickly discover through friendly reminders and proper cueing that without core stabilization or glute engagement, you are just going through the motions. Every lesson adds a little spice to the base moves found in Lesson 1 by adding additional pauses, partial repetitions, and bigger ranges of motion. As we get closer to the end of the course, some of the moves are progressed by standing up, which requires us to focus on the initial stabilizing cues from the beginning lessons while we move through each exercise.
Each day adds variety and new challenges, and in the last lesson we go over many of the exercises that were presented throughout the course in order to test our mind-body connection. This course is the definition of training with a purpose! That purpose is to build a strong foundation and add to that foundation step by step. You will notice in every lesson how each exercise is slowly progressing in even the tiniest way, and how that simple difference forces you to tap into the moment. In every lesson you will be asked questions like: where are you feeling it? Is your back straight? Are you breathing? This is because we're trying to make this awareness become second nature as we progress to bigger moves.
DailyOM: What are your two favorite moves in this course?
ER: My favorite moves are the dead bug knee press and the hamstring curl! I love these moves because they are two exercises whose difficulty is extremely sneaky and completely up to you! The dead bug knee press is a very safe and effective move that triggers the core and can be extremely difficult depending on how active you choose to be in that moment. The knee press takes focus as you have to simultaneously move your leg and arm at the same time while pressing against the knee with the other palm. The key with this move is that without glute activation, the core will not fire and the move will be very easy. We are waking up the brain by focusing on our coordination and our entire core! With the proper pausing and engagement, this simple-looking move will have even the most advanced athlete shaking!
The hamstring curl variation we utilize in the course is my favorite way to show our hamstrings some love. We elevate our feet during a bridge and use our body weight to go through the motion in order to really focus on the backs of the legs. This move is amazing for the "perk" we look for when it comes to any booty influenced workout! This move can be challenged even further with mini bands or dumbbells, but we'll keep to body weight in order to focus on giving the hamstrings as much attention as possible.
Thanks, Evan! Who doesn't want that backside perk? You can have that (and more) from this highly motivating course that energizes and strengthens your core and glutes. You'll have fun and love the way your body responds. Until next time.
Be well,
DailyOM
