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 | | IMAGES: JENNY SATHNGAM FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL | | |
| | | Boost your joint health with mobility and stability drills | | |
| 🏅 Welcome to Week One of The Wall Street Journal Workout Challenge! Our bodies are like cars. They need maintenance to run smoothly. For years, I pushed my body nonstop, running marathons, taking boot-camp classes—and never doing maintenance work for mobility and strength. I could get away with that in my 20s, but not my early 40s. Injuries and muscular imbalances started to affect my performance and day-to-day activities. This week emphasizes upper-body mobility and stability, which we need for daily tasks like putting on a seat belt or changing a lightbulb, as well as athletic movements like swinging a golf club. Shoulder mobility improves posture, reduces back and neck pain, and is good for anyone who hunches over a laptop all day. (Guilty!) Your form matters. If an exercise feels really easy, run through a checklist to make sure you're maintaining proper form. (Are you arching or extending your back? Are your elbows bent?) Don't get discouraged if some exercises feel challenging. Instead, identify where your body feels tight, which exercises are particularly tricky, and then set a goal of improving. Change takes time. If you put in the work, I promise you'll make progress. One of the secrets to sticking to a routine is being flexible and forgiving. There are weeks I only did one round versus two or three, but something is better than nothing. As long as you aren't feeling sore, it's OK to do these workouts back-to-back days. —Jen Murphy | |
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| This 30-minute workout—including warm-up and cooldown—was developed by Samantha Campbell, owner of Deep Relief//Peak Performance Athletic Training Center on Maui, Hawaii. She is a strength and conditioning specialist who designed these workouts to boost your functional fitness and improve cardio, balance, core strength and upper-body stability and mobility. Aim to do this set of five exercises two to three days this week. | |
| 🎵 First, get in the mood to work out. Pro athletes like NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Women's Tennis Association phenom Coco Gauff, big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton and Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin shared with us the songs they play when they need a boost. We created a Spotify playlist to keep you motivated. Our coach Samantha's go-to pump song is The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights." Press play and let's go. | |
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| 🤸🏾 Warm-Up Start with a dynamic warm-up of five to six exercises for one minute each to raise your heart rate, increase blood flow and range of motion. Here's an example. If any of these drills feels too challenging, march in place instead. | |
| | The Workout With Samantha | | |
| These six exercises should take no more than one minute per exercise and will activate and challenge your muscles. Depending on your fitness level, performing two to three rounds of the circuit with little rest between sets should take 12 to 15 minutes. Challenge yourself to attempt three rounds for your final workout of this week. 1. Kneeling wrist mobilization
10 to 20 pulses | |
 | | Samantha demonstrates kneeling wrist mobilization. | | |
| Start on your hands and knees, fingers facing forward. Maintain straight arms and a flat back as you slowly shift your weight forward over the fingers. Spread your fingers wide and press palms into the ground. Shift the weight forward so your hips are over your knees, with shoulders moving toward fingers. When you find a tight spot—in the front crease of the wrist, say—slowly pulse forward. 2. Quadruped liftoffs
10 to 20 reps | |
 | | Samantha demonstrates the advanced version of quadruped liftoffs. | | |
| Start on your hands and knees. Beginner: Reach your opposite arm and leg while maintaining level hips and a straight spine. Switch sides.
Advanced: Hover the knees a few inches off the ground, weight balanced on your hands and toes, hips over knees and shoulders over hands. Reach opposite arm and leg. Switch sides. | |
| Tip: A maximum one-minute time mark means you stop the exercise when you reach your rep count or at the one-minute mark. If in one-minute I have only completed 11 reps, I stop. If I finished 20 reps in 40 seconds I would also stop and move to the next exercise. | | |
| 3. Single-leg balance vector taps
One round per leg | |
 | | Samantha demonstrates single-leg balance vector taps. | | |
| Stand on your right foot, with your left leg hovering off the floor. Imagine the floor as a compass. Maintain your balance as you extend your left foot to tap north, northeast, east, southeast, south and as far behind the body as possible. (Can you get southwest?) And then back in front and across your body to a northwest and west direction. Your right, or standing, knee will bend and you can hinge at the hips and rotate the spine to attempt maximum reach as you stay balanced. Return to center after you reach in each direction. Perform on each side. | |
| Tip: Sneakers with a thick, cushioned heel make balance exercises more difficult. Try performing them barefoot (or in a minimalist sneaker) to engage more of the small muscles in your foot and ankle. | | |
| 4. Line drill
20 seconds, two times Stand behind a line at least 3 feet long. Put a belt across the floor or perform this drill outside and use the line of a parking space. Starting with your right foot, step each foot in front of the line, then behind as you move to the right down the line as fast as possible. At the end of the line, reverse directions leading with the left foot. Continue for 20 seconds. Make sure you are completely clearing the line. Increase speed. Samantha demonstrates the line drill here. This video also gives a preview of variations to the drill coming in future weeks. 5. Inchworm walkouts
Five reps Start in a high plank with your hands on the floor. Slowly walk the hands toward your feet and back out. It's OK if you need to bend your knees to get your hands closer to your feet. You can also do this exercise with your hands pressed against a wall at shoulder height and walk the hands up and down the wall. Stop when you can no longer keep the hands pressed flat into the wall. 6. Scapular controlled articular rotations
Five rounds in each direction | |
 | | Samantha demonstrates scapular controlled articular rotations. | | |
| This drill takes the shoulder blade through its full range of motion. It helps to perform these drills in front of a mirror. Beginner: Stand and imagine slowly drawing a box with your shoulder blades. Shrug your shoulders up. Pull them back (think about squeezing the shoulder blades together). Pull them down. Roll them forward and feel them spread apart on your back. Finally, elevate them again. This movement should only come from the shoulder blades. Avoid movement in the back or elbows. Perform clockwise and counterclockwise.
Intermediate: Perform with hands pressed into a wall.
Advanced: Perform on hands and knees. | |
| ❄️ Cool down You did it! Pay attention to your breathing—slow, deep breaths in and out—to optimize recovery while performing this cooldown. | |
| ❓ Your questions answered Got a question about how this workout regimen works? We took some of the most common queries and answered them here. | |
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| Now: Celebrate! 🥳 That's Week One! Nice work. Which exercise did you enjoy? Which was the most challenging for you? | | |
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| Next week: Learn why athletes train in three dimensions. | |
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| By participating in this workout challenge, you acknowledge that the workout could be strenuous. You should consult a physician before proceeding. By submitting photographs, video, text, or other material ("Content") to Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, you agree that Dow Jones has the perpetual right to use, publish, and modify the Content in any medium now known or hereinafter developed and that Dow Jones can credit you by name if it publishes your Content. You represent and warrant that (a) you own the rights to the Content you submit, (b) the Content does not infringe any third party's rights, (c) the Content has not been altered and does not convey a false impression, and (d) any information you submit about the Content is accurate. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Subscriber Agreement and Terms of Use. | |
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