Camel Drinking Water | Fitness Ep 07

🧘🏼 Get ready to strengthen your core and back chain with this fun and effective movement! In this episode, Carol teaches you "Camel Drinking Water" - a quadruped exercise that engages your triceps, abdominals, and entire posterior chain while improving spinal alignment and shoulder stability.

Learn how to properly set up in quadruped position and perform this deceptively challenging movement that will have your triceps shaking in the best way possible. Carol demonstrates how intentional movement creates flow throughout your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia to move your skeleton through space correctly.

Perfect for all ages and abilities, this episode continues Carol's weekly series of "unremarkable movements with remarkable benefits" that you can practice separately or add to your growing movement repertoire.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Introduction to Camel Drinking Water
00:59 - Setting Up Quadruped Position & Neutral Spine
02:34 - Performing the Camel Drinking Water Movement
03:20 - Forearm Variation & Back Chain Engagement

ABOUT CAROL BERINGER:
With 25+ years of experience, Carol combines expertise in brain-based functional movement, Pilates, and yoga to help clients achieve improved posture, pain relief, and lifelong wellness. Her compassionate approach has transformed lives of individuals aged 6 to 96.

TOOLS MENTIONED:
Exercise mat or comfortable floor surface

SERVICES OFFERED:
Private Sessions
Group Classes
Workshops & Retreats
Zoom Sessions

CONNECT WITH CAROL:
Website: https://carolberinger.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pilatesandmore110/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CarolBeringerMethod
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-amazing-movement-podcast/id1801483560

Subscribe for weekly episodes to continue building your movement repertoire!
#CamelDrinkingWater #CoreStrengthening #FunctionalMovement #CarolBeringerMethod #AmazingMovement

Transcript

00:05 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Hi, carol Berenger here and welcome back to another segment of Amazing Movement. Now, some of you may be listening to this on podcast, so if you are, you will get plenty of direction, but you can also find these on YouTube, and I'm hoping that the brevity of these are worth you adding something to your week without it being over complicated. We have enough to do, but each one of the things that we do can be done separately. They don't have to be done all together, and if you just practice one of these a week, the reason I called Amazing Movement is because they are unremarkable movements with remarkable benefits, and I hope you enjoy them. So today is a really fun favorite of mine called Camel Drinking Water. 

00:59
So we're going to come into quadruped position. So you're going to come onto all fours One hand under each shoulder for starters, one knee under each hip, and then we're going to reach the crown of the head forward and pull the tailbone backwards, and in your head you're going to envision that someone could see space between each vertebra. And we're not letting the belly sag or anything, we're just pulling that tailbone apart. So literally you're pulling yourself into neutral spine. We're going to reach the keeping the hip sockets over the knees. We're going to reach our arms out in front of us as far as they will go without the tailbone moving, and you're going to press the palms wide fingers, middle finger pointing forward and you're going to draw the elbows, the pointy part of your elbows, down towards the mat and when you do that you'll feel how it engages behind your armpit and into your shoulder blades, because in life we're rounded forward and this just connects. At some point in time you'll learn my steering wheel connection and that is fingertip to fingertip, through in the front to the breastbone and through the back under the shoulder blades. So here we're going to bend the elbows and bring them down to the mat, and this is why it's called camel drinking water. So the hips are going to stay right where they are this entire time and we're going to press into the hands and inhale, to come up and then exhale, bend the elbows and this actually most people shake through their triceps and as we're pressing and pushing, the abdominals are coming in towards the torso. 

02:34
When we're doing things in good form, the body will flow. The muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia will move your skeleton through space the correct way. But we mindlessly go through things. So each one of these things that we do, and we're just going for maybe eight or ten of these and you might feel your triceps tomorrow if you're really doing this well and with the intentional movement, and then when you can come up, you can bring your hands back closer and actually let's come on to our forearms and down onto our bellies and just plant your elbows right underneath your armpits. 

03:20
You're going to karate, chop your mat and then put your thumb inside your palms and wrap around, because we use these thumbs like crazy, so this is just a nice hug and then you're going to press the sides of the wrist down into the mat and the sides of the hands and then your belly is pulled away from your shirt, so you're supporting your low back and dig your elbows in and pull your breastbone forward, not just your elbows the forearm, the side of the hand. Just pull that forward and this is getting you in touch with the whole back chain of your body and lengthening, making it lengthened and strengthened at the same time, and then from there, put the hands down, walk them back, press yourself up, and that's this week's tip.