Difficulty: Medium

Safety Warning: Warm up first, and work at your own pace to avoid over-stretching or pulling muscles.

Elly takes us through a great five minute core conditioning workout! Core strength is really important for any physical activity – it helps prevent injury and keep your body balanced and aligned. For circus skills, you’ll use your core strength to balance, invert, jump, land, juggle, throw, catch…just about everything!

You’ll be doing 10 exercises for 30 seconds each. You can download an exercise sheet to follow here, or use our list below.

First, warm up with the mobility exercises that Elly shows you.

Then, you’re ready to start your exercises, doing 30 seconds for each bullet point:

• Plank, making a nice straight line from your shoulders all the way to your toes
• Shoulder taps in your plank position, trying not to move the rest of your body
• Leg circles in tabletop position, on both legs
• Side plank on both sides
• Mountain climbers in your plank position, bringing your knee to the opposite elbow
• Arch hold, lying on your stomach and lifting your toes and shoulders
• Elbow plank to arms, going up and down and alternating your arms
• Reverse plank, pushing your hips up to the ceiling
• Dish, lying on your back and lifting your toes and shoulders
• Rowing boats, bringing your arms and legs in and out in a dish shape

Elly shows you some variations if you want to make each exercise a bit easier or harder. If you want to push yourself, do this core conditioning workout a few times with a few minutes’ rest in between.

To finish, Elly demonstrates some cool down stretches.

You can see all our videos and activities here.