Though a warm-up might seem like a waste of precious workout time, it can actually make your strength training session far more effective. Much like when you’re going for a run or jumping into a soccer game, your body benefits from being loosened up and having your blood pumping before you start lifting heavy weights. Research repeatedly shows that dynamic stretching (meaning, stretching that includes more active movements that get your heart pumping) improves athletic performance more than static stretching or not stretching at all.

That’s why for the most recent episode of Well+Good’s series “Good Moves,” we tapped Alo Moves trainer Roxie Jones to share a full-body warm-up designed to get your body ready for strength training. As she explains, this 11-minute series will “mobilize your joints and get your muscles activated so you can have the best training session possible.”

Jones starts off with a few mobility exercises to open up the range of motion in your back, shoulders, and hips. Throughout, she has you moving in a very careful and controlled manner. For instance, you start with cat-cows (which Jones says she personally starts every workout with) but very, very slow cat and cow movements. Jones says that quality is always better than quantity, particularly when you’re just starting to warm up. In cat-cow, you want to move slow enough that your back can arch each spinal joint, vertebrae by vertebrae. Now, that isn’t exactly how your spine works, but the mental image is helpful for going nice and slow.

Later, Jones has you move through circular “fire hydrants,” which are cheekily named after the way they resemble a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. She has you bring your leg up, out, around, and back while keeping your core engaged and back straight. No arched backs for this move—you want to isolate that hip and get a full rotation to loosen up the joint and increase blood flow. This is the kind of thing that helps you move better and lift heavier during your workout. “You’ll feel looser and more capable of getting better movement,” says Jones.

Next are a couple of muscle activating moves using isometric holds to get those muscle fibers firing and ready for bigger movements. And Jones ends with a couple dynamic plyometrics exercises to really get your heart pumping. “It’s great to have some plyometrics to get your tissues more elastic and ready to go,” says Jones.

All it takes is 11 minutes to loosen up and warm up your body so that you can get in a more effective strength-training session. So grab some comfy clothes, and press play.

If you’re someone who usually gets that white-hot ache in your wrists super easily whenever you’re on all fours during a workout, you’re not alone. But it might be a sign to work on your upper body strength so you can decrease the pressure on your wrists, Spencer explains. That’s why this Pilates for wrist pain workout includes exercises for the chest, arms, and shoulders.

“If you’re kinda wondering, Why we are doing so much shoulder work today?” says Spencer. “One of the main reasons for having a lot of wrist discomfort on all fours is the need to strengthen up those shoulders. When those shoulders aren’t super strong, your weight just gets kind of loaded into the wrist joint. So building up shoulder strength is a great way to reduce discomfort on your wrists.”

Expect a lot of repeated arm movements that involve reaching and using the full range of motion in your shoulders in this workout. There’s no move that Spencer doesn’t explain with a cheery, fun, and easy-to-understand delivery. As you’re extending your arms out, up, and around, with added hand movements to support strong wrists, he offers helpful visuals like “there are a million dollars on the ceiling that you’re reaching for.”

Doing this 15-minute series regularly can help you “go from wrist-pain friendly to wrist-pain free,” as Spencer cheekily puts it. Anything is optional, of course, and the best part? There are no vigorous, on-all-fours moves in sight.

Well, sorry to burst my own bubble, but it’s possible that I could be literally slouching off during this series, and not getting the most out of the moves. Maintaining core engagement and hip and pelvic stability throughout is crucial to actually working our leg muscles, and not putting too much pressure into our joints.

There are two ways you can set yourself up for success in these moves.

1. Align your elbow directly below your shoulder

When you’re up on your elbow (rather than lying all the way down with your ear on your upper arm), make sure that your shoulder is right over your forearm, says East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer. Sometimes people will put their elbows a little further away, which can make for some awkward curvature in your upper body during these moves.

“We tend to slouch down like we’re watching Netflix,” Spencer says. “We want to really get support from your shoulder so we can keep good posture and alignment of the spine and hips.”

2. Keep your top and bottom hips directly in line

The position of the other touchpoint of your body to the mat—your hips—can also make or break your form. The key is keeping your top hip wrapping forward, not sagging back, so that your bottom and top hip are directly in line with each other vertically. This can be difficult to maintain: It’s super tempting to lean back. But Spencer has a tip for ensuring your hips stay in line: “A great way to maintain pelvic stability is to find two different forces at once,” he says. “So a push and pull, or a press and a lift. That way one side of your hip isn’t doing nothing, and the other one doing a lot.”

What does that look like? Push down in the supporting foot or leg as you lift the working one. Or think of bringing the top hip forward whenever the weight your leg tries to pull it back.

These tips come to you from the side-lying portion of a new 20-minute lower-body focused Pilates series from Spencer for Well+Good’s Good Moves series. You’ll start with a thorough core, glutes, and thighs warm-up in a series of bridge poses. Then you’ll start the leg work in that side-lying position, before transitioning to kneeling, standing, and single-leg poses. You’ll end by coming back to lying on your side to work those inner thighs (and keep the work out of your hip flexors!), before ending in some scrumptious and much needed hamstring, hip, and quad stretches.

Unless you have the freedom to do as the Spaniards and Italians do and take a nice little siesta, it might be time to snap out of it. Are we talkin’ coffee, tea, energy drink, or soda? Nope! We’re talking about movement.

Doing some afternoon exercise is a great way to re-energize and re-focus for the rest of your day. While digesting lunch and staying in one position for many hours might have slowed your heart rate and and blood flow throughout your body, a quick mid-day boost can send a message to your body and brain to wake up and get back into action.

“When we talk about exercising for energy, we are focused on introducing strain to the body with muscle activation, which gives us an increased heart rate, and enables the body to release endorphins,” Jonathan Leary, DC, a chiropractor, expert in exercise science, and founder of Remedy Place, previously told Well+Good. “Endorphins are those feel-good hormones that are released as a result of exercise and important components for an energizing workout. They are responsible for keeping you awake and also contribute to positive changes in your mental health.”

The way to get those literal good vibes flowing is with movement that introduces a constant amount of strain on the body. You can exercise for energy for up to an hour (after an hour, the reverse happens—you start to tire yourself out). But today, we’ve got a bite-sized workout designed to get you moving and wake you up in just 14 minutes.

In this new mid-day workout from East River Pilates teacher Brian Spencer, you’ll specifically work on activating the muscles that may have gotten shortened or inactive from a desk job. You’ll start with a series of hip hinges meant to open up your chest and lengthen your hamstrings—the perfect counter to staring at a screen (and potentially rolling your shoulders in) for hours on end.

Squats and side steps will help get your heart rate up next. Then you’ll do core and glute activation on the mat with a series of bird dogs, hip thrusts, crunches, and more. Round it out with some full-body stability moves, and just like that, your heart is pumping and your blood is flowing. Afternoon slump? I don’t know her!

“Skip that afternoon coffee and go ahead and get some Pilates!” Spencer says.

A reverse burpee, also called a half jackknife, involves lying down with your legs raised, rocking back onto your shoulders in a reverse crunch and punching your legs over your head, and then rocking back onto your sit bones while you lift your torso off the ground, ending with your torso and pointed legs in a V shape.

It’s advanced, to be sure. But there’s a secret to helping you get there, which is progressively working up to it, until, sure enough, you realize you’re in the full position.

That’s the structure of this new power Pilates workout from East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer. In a series of seated, hands-and-knees, and standing moves, Spencer builds you up to the most challenging variations of the exercises all by starting with the basics. This strategy lets you get your muscles warm and used to activating in a certain pattern before you attempt anything too tricky.

For example, before you try that reverse burpee, you’ll begin with some nice and friendly roll downs.

“We’re warming up our abdominals and our core from the top so she’s there for us for the rest of the class,” Spencer says.

The concept is similar to a weight lifting warmup, in which you practice with bodyweight before you attempt anything with heavy weights. It’s all about setting you up for success by avoiding surprises and snapping your muscles to attention, making moves that seemed like a total stretch just the logical next step. By the end of this 15-minute power Pilates workout, you’ll be amazed by everything you can do.

That’s right, the health of the connective tissues and tendons that keep our bones together depends on whether we’re over- or under-using our muscles. Weak muscles tamp down blood flow to the joints, while tight muscles prevent them from reaching their full range of motion and therefore causing undue stress. It’s all connected, people.

One common problem area is the knees. Approximately 25 percent of adults suffer from chronic knee pain. Ouch!

To take care of your knees, you need to take care of the muscles that attach to the joint. Which is why East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer has a new Good Stretch routine focused on the “muscles that tend to cause knee pain.” Namely: Oh, just basically your whole lower body. “If it surrounds the knee, it’s a good idea to try and release it,” Spencer says.

Spencer starts with a deep calf massage. In a hands and knees position, you’ll use the front of your knee of one leg to massage the calf of the other leg. This self-massage allows you to modify how much pressure you’re digging into those muscles.

Next, a series of lunges will let you open up your hips and your quads, moving through the range of motion that feels right for you with some “healthy knee bends.” Lying down on the floor, some hamstring and IT band stretches will help you get the backs and sides of your legs, which will support your knees from 360 degrees.

“As always with stretches, if you’re like, Oh, this is really deep, it means you should probably do it more,” Spencer says.

The solution in the moment is usually to call upon that core. Engaging our abs, back, and glutes encourages us to bring our pelvis more in line with our spine, so we’re not overly swaying our lower back. This posture also helps distribute forces more evenly throughout the body, rather than dumping the work into our low back.

But sometimes, no matter which muscles you’re trying to engage, it’s frustratingly difficult to find that sweet relief. There might be more to your ache than bad alignment: Tightness in multiple muscles beyond the lower back itself can contribute to lower back issues. And to address the pain, you have to address the problem.

“The lower back is one of the most common areas where people experience consistent chronic pain,” Brad Walker, chief stretch adviser at StretchLab, previously told Well+Good. “More often than not, a tight or sore muscle is caused by a problem elsewhere.”

Walker points to the hip flexors, which are the group of muscles that wrap around the front of your hips, as a common cause.

“When the muscles in the front of your body, around your hips and quads, become tight and restrictive, they pull your hips out of alignment, which puts a lot of strain on your lower back,” Walker says. So stretching your hips, quads, and hamstrings can actually help relieve lower back pain.

In this new stretch routine from Pilates teacher Brian Spencer of East River Pilates, he also points to other muscles that could be throwing your back out of whack: the muscles on your sides that can get compressed from sitting, and back muscles that connect the bottom of your ribs to your hips.

In less than 20 minutes, Spencer’s goal here is to hit all of the possible “culprits” to get you the relief you’re looking for. “There’s a lot of reasons why our low back might not feel very great, and we’re going to try to hit all those points today,” he says.

Spencer will lead you in stretches like roll down, runner’s lunges, twists, side bends, and more, to help get at the source of your lower back tension. He also emphasizes dynamic stretching over static movement in order to find the edge of your stretch and get deeper into the muscles. This stretch series is all about finding your boundaries, staying in tune with what feels good, and sinking into your body. It’s all for the goal, as Spencer says, of living “your best life.”

Strength training and mobility go particularly well together, and for good reason. Mobility, which is a joint’s ability to move through its full range of motion, is crucial for fully extending through a given exercise. Think about it: If you have tight hips or shoulders, you won’t be able to generate as much power when you’re doing something like a dead lift or shoulder press. According to Tim Landicho, CSCS, a coach for the at-home fitness platform Tonal, a shorter range of motion results in less force.

“Better range of motion [yields] better force production—that is, more strength!—during your lifts,” Landicho previously told Well+Good.

This connection is evident in a new 19-minute strength and mobility workout led by Kat Atienza, a trainer and the co-owner of Session in Brooklyn. For example, during a single-leg deadlift with a reach, Atienza instructs us to reach our hands towards the ground as a sort of guide post for how far to hinge forward (which should be parallel to the floor). Once the hand reaches to just above the foot, you’ll know you’ve hinged forward enough.

“We’re not tapping the ground, but it’s going to help be a reference for our range of motion,” Atienza says.

That allows you to engage your glute and hamstrings fully through the move as you return back to standing, which results in the maximum amount of muscle activation.

Other moves, such as alternating cossack squats and 90/90 hip extensions, will work your joints and your muscles at the same time, which means you’re doing double duty for your health. Looser hips and shoulders, stronger upper body, lower body, and core? Sounds like a classic combo in the making.

Your not-so-secret weapons are two moderate-weight dumbbells. In this new workout from trainer Kat Atienza of Session in Brooklyn, the weights will help you work your lower body, mid section, and upper body without having to worry about high-impact moves like jump squats.

The weights could give you a cardiovascular workout, too. That’s because lighter weights when done for a higher number of reps can raise your heart rate in a similar way to cardio, as opposed to the type of weight lifting where you’re doing fewer reps of higher weights. Of course, how fast or slow you do your reps is up to you, and depends on how heavy a pair of weights you go for—always remember to go as slow as you need to maintain good form.

The handheld dumbbells have another benefit: As you rack your weights in the front for squats, hold one out for single leg deadlift rows, or hang it by your side in a suitcase grip, you also have to engage your core, arm, and back muscles. So while a move might appear to be working your lower body, your upper body and mid section are at the party, too.

In this 19-minute workout that includes a warmup and a cool down, you’ll do two sets containing three moves each with two rounds of both sets. The warmup will help you rehearse the moves you’ll later do with weights, like hinges and squats, so that your muscles are nice and activated once you start adding the lbs to the moves.

Atienza will guide you throughout it all with cues to ensure good form, such as where your gaze should be or what muscles you should squeeze to help you stabilize. A cool-down stretch will help you feel nice and loose in addition to strong and powerful. That’s less than 20 minutes of time well spent.

Essentially, without our other muscles absorbing the stress they’re supposed to during activities like walking, the load gets dumped into the lower back (like mom with her jackets). Unfortunately, it doesn’t have muscles designed to handle that, which is how low back pain happens.

That’s why “lower back strengthening” is actually not about building muscle in your lower back itself. It’s about activating your core and your glutes.

This 16-minute workout from Kat Atienza, trainer and founder of Session in Brooklyn, is designed to do just that. It begins with a warmup that will gently awaken and send blood flow to the regions you’re going to be working, with moves including hamstring scoops, quad pulls, a plank to pike, and a kneeling hinge.

From there, you’ll step up the challenge with a few rounds of strengthening exercises. Some moves are designed to target one muscle group or the other, while others—like the plank to bear—will do double duty.

“Think core, glutes, quads, all those muscles that really help to support your lower back,” Atienza says of the plank to bear exercise.

She’ll also give you tips for how to make the most of these exercises, since a lot of this work is about learning how to find and activate your core and glute muscles, so you can do that in real life to avoid low back pain. For example, in “good morning” standing hip hinges, you want to make sure your tail is tucked and your glutes are in line with the rest of your back, so you’re hinging as one core-back-glute unit, and not over-relying on the lower back to do the work.

Do this workout on its own, or incorporate some of the exercises into other workouts, and you’ll be letting your low back finally share some of the load.

“One of the biggest factors to compromise mobility is poor posture from sitting all day, leading to muscle imbalance,” Emily Kiberd, DC, a doctor chiropractic at Urban Wellness Clinic, previously told Well+Good. “Weak muscles from sitting too much can lead to compensations in the body which can prohibit mobility, and cause joint degeneration, tight muscles, and headaches.”

To break out of this circular conundrum, you need to take a proactive approach. Enter: a workout that supports good posture by working your muscles and extending the range of motion of your joints. Kat Atienza, a coach and co-owner of Session in Brooklyn, has put together a 15-minute workout video for Well+Good’s “Good Moves” series that does just that.

This routine focuses on some of the majorly important zones for good posture. You need to have back strength and mobility to keep your shoulders pulled back. To train that, Atienza introduces a long loop resistance band which you’ll employ in seated rows, overhead presses, and lat pulldowns. (You can also use a mini-band, or stick with just your bodyweight.) These moves engage your lats and your mid-back while also mobilizing your shoulders.

Strong posture also calls on your glutes, hips, and core, since these muscle groups form a column of support for your whole spine. So Atienza programs moves like single leg hip thrusts to activate your backside and open up your hips.

“[There’s] lots to work on here with our posterior chain, but our anterior muscles—the muscles on the front side of the body—are really going to help support that healthy body just as much as the muscles on the back side,” Atienza says.

From top to bottom, and front to back, training strength and mobility for good posture is really a whole body endeavor.

And these muscles are actually part of a much more complex system, which is why glute strength does more than just give you a strong butt. Because your glutes are actually—wait for it—part of your core.

Wait, what? Yep, the more technical term for your core is the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex, and it encompasses all the muscles that connect your trunk to your hips—including the glutes. Your glutes are essentially the base of the core, and if that base isn’t sturdy, it can compromise the whole thing.

“Decreased strength in the glutes can alter your optimal postural alignment and the pelvis’ position in standing or when exercising,” physical therapist Laurence Agénor, DPT, previously told Well+Good.

The good news is that strengthening your glutes can have ripple effects throughout the rest of your body. A strong backside can relieve knee pain, and even help reduce lower back pain.

“Many times, I have seen clients and athletes with general low back pain, and their low back pain decreases when they work on strengthening their glutes,” Gene Schafer, CSCS, owner of ARC Athletics in New York City, previously told Well+Good. “Doing something as simple as engaging your glutes when standing may actually take the stress from your low back and decrease back fatigue and low back pain.”

Because your core and your glutes work in tandem, it makes sense to work on your rear using a method like Pilates, in which maintaining a strong core throughout the workout is a necessity.

Give it a try in this 15-minute glute workout from Chloe de Winter of Go Chlo Pilates. In every set, she emphasizes the position of the core to make sure you’re engaging your glute muscles properly. For example, while lying on your side for clamshells, she instructs you to create some space between your ribcage and the floor, which keeps your torso stable and strong, and not balancing precariously. Later, while raising one leg while on hands and knees, her cue to engage your core will keep you from sinking into the opposite hip.

This keeps all the work focused in the right places, which results in a stronger butt—and truly, a stronger body.

“When I lose balance, its my ability to fire my core muscles and stabilize my body that keeps me from falling or becoming injured,” Erin Gregory, Gold’s Gym national group exercise director, previously told Well+Good.

This requires strengthening your tiny foot and ankle muscles, as well as the core and large lower body muscles, to keep yourself grounded.

This week, Chloe de Winter of Go Chlo Pilates has put together a 10-minute standing workout specifically designed to improve stability, and help you stay confident and injury-free as you move about the world.

The series involves “lots of strengthening work through the lower body to help you move better, walk better, run better, jump better, dance better,” says de Winter. “Whatever you do in your life, it’s to help you do it better, with more control.”

In just 10 minutes, she packs in essential lower body movements like lunges and squats, but with stabilizer-challenging twists. For example, you’ll pair shoulder strokes (moving your arms like you’re swimming freestyle) with side step squats that add an extra balance challenge to the classic move.

You’ll also work those stabilizer muscles in your feet and ankles, which Gregory says are essential for stability.

“When you relevé, or lift to toes, during your workouts, you will improve muscle strength as well as balance,” says Gregory. “You will strengthen the muscles that provide stability and protect joints—essentially, injury prevention.”

To do this, de Winter closes out the workout with a series of calf raises and holds that she says “are going to strengthen through the muscles obviously in your calves, but also around your ankles and in your feet.”

Spend 10 minutes on stability today, and have a more stable future tomorrow.

It’s actually a circular conundrum: Poor posture can negatively affect your mobility, and decreased mobility will affect your posture, which will cause your muscles to shorten and weaken—and make it harder to hold yourself upright.

“One of the biggest factors to compromise mobility is poor posture,” Emily Kiberd, DC, a chiropractor at Urban Wellness Clinic, previously told Well+Good. “Weak muscles from sitting too much can lead to compensations in the body which can prohibit mobility, and cause joint degeneration, tight muscles, and headaches.”

How can we stop the cycle? By practicing exercises that strengthen our upper back and shoulders, as well as integrating lengthening stretches, and mobilizing rotations. This new workout from Go Chlo Pilates founder and teacher Chloe de Winter does just that.

“So many people always tell me that they want to improve their posture because they spend so many hours at their computer typing away,” de Winter says. “So this class is for you.”

De Winter starts with some upper back and spine mobility exercises. She encourages students to make these movements as big as possible to get that maximum joint rotation.

Next, you’ll do a series of exercises based on the Superman position. These are meant to activate your whole back body, and strengthen “those important postural muscles that support our upper backs and strengthen through the shoulders,” de Winter says.

Finally, a finisher set of push-ups and push-up variations will both strengthen and open your chest. You’ll add in arm reaches to help mobilize those shoulders. Cap it off with some chest openers, and in under 10 minutes, you’ve set yourself up to walk tall and strong.

Whether you’re a first-timer or a more experienced Pilates practitioner, teacher Chloe de Winter of Go Chlo Pilates is here to bring it back to basics.

“Pilates is everywhere at the moment,” de Winter says. “I’m going to tell you what it actually is and introduce you to some of the main Pilates exercises you will do in class.”

De Winter explains that Pilates is about working both internal stabilizer muscles and the larger, more visible muscles. To do that, you’ll want to pair your breath with your movement, so you’re engaging deep internal core muscles that support your lower back and hips, and then you’ll build on that with bigger movements like leg raises. By squeezing your abs as you exhale—and placing your hand on your stomach to feel that tautness—you’ll begin to understand how to work your core, which is the foundation of most Pilates moves.

One of the most common phrases you’ll hear in Pilates classes is to find a “neutral spine.” De Winter explains that that means you’re resting on your back with just enough space between your lower spine and the floor so that you could fit a blueberry between them. As you go through core moves like leg lifts and tabletops, your back will want to overarch or flatten. The key to doing the move the right way is by not squishing the blueberry, and not letting it roll away.

In just 10 minutes, you’ll go through these and a few other Pilates basics that will have you ready to hit the mat. Remember to breathe!

On this week’s episode of Good Moves, East River Pilates trainer Brian Spencer shows you how to loosen up your muscles and joints when you’re in a time crunch. “Today, we’re going to be doing a nice lunch break stretch—a perfect little stretch snack to tag in in the middle of your day whenever you have a moment,” he says at the top of the video. “We’re really going to be targeting those muscle groups that get tight when you sit or stand all day, so this is perfect if you’re in the middle of your workday.”

Specifically, the hamstrings, quads, thoracic spine, pecs, and hips suffer the most from all that desk work, so Spencer takes care to guide you through stretch and mobility work to hit “Edit Undo” on all that tension. Downward dog, pigeon pose, seated side bend, spinal twists, and bow pose are all on the menu (and you can even add a short, yummy savasana at the end if you so desire).

So, before you get back to work, go ahead and do one more thing that’s just for you. Find a yoga mat or a rug, put on some stretchy pants, and press play on Spencer’s mid-day reset.

But if you’re looking for more reformer-like exercise in your life without that hassle, have we got the hack for you. You can actually mimic the same sort of resistance and engagement you get from a reformer with the help of an inexpensive object you probably have at home: a foam roller.

While it’s usually used for self-massage and recovery, the foam roller is actually quite a versatile tool for working out, too. You can use it to introduce some rolling movement into an exercise, like by turning a static plank into a moving one that works your shoulders and core. Or you can fire up your muscles to keep it from rolling away, like you would in a bridge pose with your feet on the foam roller.

East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer makes full use of this technique in Well+Good’s latest Good Moves video, a 23-minute at-home “reformer” workout—that’s actually a Pilates foam roller workout. After anchoring the beginning of the warm-up by connecting with your Pilates breath, you’ll do a series of moves to both strengthen and mobilize your muscles.

“With this foam roller today, we’re going to be really challenging stability and range of motion,” Spencer says.

With base poses including bridges, hands and knees, lunges, and planks, you can expect to get a full-body workout in just over 20 minutes. It’s also low impact, with no jumping or other moves that are hard on your joints—just like reformer exercises.

Though that doesn’t mean it will be easy. “It is gonna get a little spicy,” warns Spencer, since some of the exercises—hello, single-leg bridge marches elevated on a moving object!—are tough. But you’ll also get some delicious spine opening and mobilizing moves. A well-rounded workout, indeed.

On this week’s episode of Good Moves, Kat Atienza, co-owner of Sessions, leads you through a lightning-fast strength training class you can tack onto a run, bike ride, yoga flow, or climbing session to reap those aforementioned benefits. (It’s also great if your schedule is jam-packed and you just want a little workout snack.)

After a short and sweet warm-up, you’ll get right into a few rounds of muscle-strengthening movements. “We have two sets of work with three exercises in each one. Our work time is going to be 30 seconds of work, 10 seconds to rest, and you’re just going over everything two times,” says Atienza at the top of this workout.

In order to put your whole body through its paces, you can expect moves that work your legs (like lunges and good mornings), core (like push-ups), and arms (like side planks). And don’t worry about building in extra time for a cooldown: Atienza has you covered with a little stretch session as soon as your last rep is done and dusted.

So if you’re ready to get moving, go ahead and slip on your sneakers and grab a mat. Follow along to the full video here, and—as Atienza notes at the end—you can take your favorite movements and slot them into your other workouts to continue strengthening your muscles and bones with every sweat session.

Compound movements are highly beneficial for working both your strength and cardiovascular system.

“Compound movements improve how all the muscles in the body work together to produce and control force and stability,” Andrea Somer, a former trainer at Equinox in West Hollywood, previously told Well+Good. “You’ll get your heart rate up since these exercises require the heart to pump more blood to keep the muscles fueled and active.”

Building a more harmonized body, a powerful heart, and strong muscles? Compound movements sound good to us! And they make up the majority of this 10-minute workout.

For example, the fourth move in a series of five, 30-second exercises (that you’ll do twice over), works your whole body. You’ll start in a high plank position, then lower yourself into a forearm plank, then twist open to a side plank. Reverse back up to the high plank, and do it all again on the other side. Shoulders? Back? Abs? Check, check, and check. Plus you’ll also be squeezing your glutes and legs to keep your body stable.

Even in one exercise that seems like it’s a single move—kneeling tricep raises—Atienza stresses how the entire body is working together.

“Your core is strong and working with you here, trying not to flare open in the rib cage every time we lower, push, and extend the arms,” Atienza says. At the same time, she emphasizes the importance of keeping the glutes involved. “I know we’re working our core, our back, our arms, but we’ve really gotta make sure our glutes are really engaged here to support us in this position so we can isolate in our triceps.”

So much for it just being an arm workout! Grab some dumbbells and give that body the all-for-one and one-for-all treatment it deserves.

On this week’s episode of Trainer of the Month Club, Baini dreamed up a five-move everyday yoga class that unwinds the muscles of your neck, side body, shoulders, hips, hamstrings—you name it. In total, this bite-sized class comes out to be about five minutes long—so it’s easy to slot into your morning ritual, lunch break, or pre-bed routine.

Pretty soon, you’ll know these stretches by heart. But for now, go ahead and grab your comfy clothes, queue up the video, and start moving.

Baini’s 5-move everyday stretch routine

1. Seated cat-cows

Come to sit on your shins (or on a block, if that’s more comfortable for you). Lift your arms up overhead. Interlock your fingers at the top of your neck and gently drop your head into this makeshift cradle, lifting the chest as you do. Look up at the ceiling and breathe. Slowly, come back to the center and tuck your chin towards your chest, curling your back like a cat as you do so. Move back and forth between opening and closing off your chest.

2. Seated side stretch

Staying seated, walk your left fingertips about a foot away from your hips. Reach your right arm up alongside your right ear, gently bending toward the left without letting your chest spiral toward the ground. Feel the stretch up your entire right side. Return to center and repeat on the other side.

3. Thread the needle

Come onto your hands and knees. Take a moment to double-check that your hips are directly above your knees and your shoulders are directly above your wrists. Reach your right arm up to the ceiling on your right side, allowing your gaze to follow. Then gently thread that right arm underneath the chest. Place your right cheek and right shoulder onto the mat. Spiral your right chest to the right side. Breathe. Come out of the pose slowly, and then switch sides.

4. Downward-facing dog

Come back to all fours. Tuck your toes and lift your hips up to the sky, keeping a generous bend in the knees. Do what feels good here: Shift your weight from side to side, bend the knees to touch the chest, or lift one leg at a time to open up the hips. You decide.

5. Standing forward fold

From your downward-facing dog, walk the hands back to meet the feet. Keep your knees bent enough that your chest drapes over them, and you feel the stretch in your hamstrings. Let your fingertips graze the floor or grab your elbows with each hand.

Superman is the exercise that caps off a five-move sequence, repeated three times, in this workout. You’ll begin with a warmup and end with a cooldown, but the meat of the session involves doing five moves for about 40 seconds each, with a 20-second rest in between. You’ll use a resistance band for all of the moves, though Copeland notes that they can also be done with just your bodyweight.

But if you don’t have an elastic workout band, you might want to invest in one anyway. Resistance bands are a gentle but still challenging way of adding a strength component to any exercise.

“Resistance band training has tons of advantages,” trainer and founder of the DE Method, Dannah Eve, previously told Well+Good. “With resistance bands, the resistance increases as you move through the exercise range of motion, while free weights and weight machines stay the same during the full range of motion.” That makes them a gentler, lower-impact form of strength training than lifting with machines or free weights, which “can put unhealthy strain on your spine, joints, ligaments, and tendons.”

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You can also adjust the amount of resistance you’re putting on your muscles by playing with different bands and grips. Take the Superman: If I just want something to help activate my shoulder and back muscles a bit, then I would use a lighter resistance band. But if I wanted something that would really challenge me to pull that band apart using my upper body, I could go for a tighter band.

With a resistance band workout, the power is in your hands. Literally.

“Our bodies and brains are constantly accepting feedback from multiple systems to produce what looks like one unified movement,” Molly Frankinburger, DPT, PT, CSCS, previously told Well+Good. The result may seem simple, such as taking a step. But in truth, coordination is intricate work. It’s the ability to control your speed, timing, and direction. It involves taking in all sorts of information from your body and environment and translating that into actions, which are sometimes complex and involve multiple steps.

Having good coordination is worth the effort, though, because it helps us move smoothly (and without injury) through the world. So improving yours has benefits felt both immediately and long-term. Despite what you may have learned as a child, coordination exercises are not just about tapping your head and rubbing your belly at the same time, either. They can involve combining footwork with strength, activating muscles you didn’t know you have, or twisting and bending in ways that may originally make you go “huh?” Hence why they’re a workout for your body and mind.

And that’s exactly what Traci Copeland delivers in this 15-minute coordination workout. You’ll begin with a warm-up that focuses on activating your legs, shoulders, and core. The main series involves doing three sets of five full-body exercises. But they all contain a little something extra. For example, one move combines a warrior 3 pose that shifts forward into a knee drive, which will help you “strengthen those tiny muscles throughout your feet and your ankle” that promote balance. A “grapevine squat” will have you practically dancing, and Copeland challenges you to increase the speed as you become more comfortable with the movement. Don’t even get me started on her bear plank variation.

This video is challenging, but after just 15 minutes, you’ll feel satisfied that you’ve truly gotten a total-body workout from head to toes.

Basically, flexibility is the range of motion through which your muscles or groups of muscles can stretch. The larger this ROM is, the more flexible you are, and the more you’re taking pressure off of your joints and tendons, which get put under strain as you exercise or simply go about your day.

That would be reason enough to focus on flexibility training, but it also happens to feel really good. And the flexibility flow from Nike master trainer and yoga teacher Traci Copeland is no exception.

“I’m giving you some tools you can use on your own so you can help your body feel great and move better,” Copeland says of the individual components in this 15-minute routine. One thing to keep in mind about flexibility training: “This is less about speed and more about control,” Copeland says in the video, “and allowing yourself to get deeper every single time.”

Taking time to start your day with this yoga routine would certainly be a helpful way to wake up your body, but as Copeland also notes, these moves are “great to do anytime, especially after a long day of sitting where you’re compressing your spine, or if you’ve been on your feet all day. Throughout the class, Copeland will help you stretch your inner thighs, hips, hamstrings, and lower back, as well as your shoulders—all areas that tend to be tight with tension from lifestyles that involve a lot of sitting.

When you’re ready, grab a mat, and press play on the video above. Don’t forget to breathe, center, and enjoy.

On this week’s episode of Good Moves, Nike master trainer Traci Copeland leads you through a 12-minute workout that you can easily keep in your back pocket for years of workouts to come. “Today is all about mobility,” she says in the video. “We’re going to do a mobility flow that’s going to feel sort of like yoga. It’s perfect to do before or after a workout.”

Copeland kicks off the workout with cat-cows to warm up the spinal column and get your blood flowing. Then, you’ll move through the body limb by limb, mobilizing and stretching the hips, spine, and shoulderss until your time runs out.

Below, find the first three moves of Copelands’ fully-body mobility routine. Make sure to schedule a little extra time for your next workout so you can warm up or cool down with this sequence.

3 full-body mobility moves for your next workout

1. Cat-cows

Come to your hands and knees. Make sure your shoulders are above your wrists and your hips are right over your knees. Inhale and press your chest through your arms, arching your back, and engaging your belly as you lift your gaze and tailbone toward the ceiling. Exhale, round your spine toward the sky, drawing your navel toward your back, tucking your tailbone under, and gazing toward your thighs. Continue alternating between these two positions for 30–60 seconds.

2. Bird dogs

From the same position (shoulders over wrists, hips over knees), engage your belly to keep your back flat like a table. Then, without moving your torso, stretch your right leg back and your left arm forward until both are parallel to the floor. Then draw the elbow and knee of your extended limbs together beneath your stomach, as yor round your spine toward the ceiling, gazing toward your navel. Return to full extension and repeat four more times before switching sides.

3. Downward dog to upward dog

From your kneeling position, tuck your toes and lift your hips back, keeping your arms straight and lowering your chest toward the floor. On an inhale, roll forward into plank pose with your wrists directly below your shoulders and your knees off the ground. Keep your core engaged as you drop your hips and legs to hover above the ground and press your chest through your arms, arching your back. Use the strength of your midsection to press back into downward dog. Repeat for 30–60 seconds.

As such balance work, which so many yoga poses require, builds core strength. So it makes so much sense to do yoga for core stability training. In our latest Good Moves workout, yoga teacher Alicia Ferguson of BK Yoga Club leads you in a 28-minute flow that challenges your fitness on both levels.

You’ll begin in a child’s pose (mmmmm), but things ratchet up from there. You’ll immediately start activating your core by getting into a tabletop position and then lifting your knees off the floor. After they return to earth, you’ll start to challenge your balance by lifting your arms and legs. (Pssst, this is also a core workout!)

Next, you’ll move into standing poses that pull double duty. (Yes, you can work your core while standing up.) Downward dogs and chatarangas get you warm before you engage your whole body in a series of lunges and balancing poses like warrior III and half moon.

The end of the video adds in just a few more core strengthening moves on your mat, like bicycles, before cooling down your system. The workout is challenging, but with all the stretching and breathwork Alicia includes, it feels like a treat.

While you can do Pilates on a reformer (a machine that challenges your strength, flexibility, and balance by adding resistance), in this video, de Winter guides you through a mat Pilates workout. Meaning, you’ll only need a mat and a set of hand weights—de Winter opts to use wrist weights, but you can grab dumbbells, water bottles, or whatever is accessible to you.

To get started, de Winter leads you through a ladder-style core workout that slowly builds up to a serious muscular endurance challenge. Below, you’ll find the instructions for the ladder, but if you’re ready to watch the full workout (and really put those tiny muscles to the test ), make sure to watch the full video.

Try out de Winter’s 4-move Pilates core ladder workout

1. Lying arm raises

Grab your weights, and either strap them around the wrists or grip them firmly. Come to lie down flat on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Stretch your arms straight up toward the ceiling, palms facing away from you. Slowly lower your arms back and down, bringing biceps by ears, then return to start and repeat. Keep your mid-back from arching and ribs from lifting up as you do this.

2. Lying arm raises with knees in tabletop position

Keep your starting position exactly the same as the first move, apart from one little thing: Lift your feet into the air, and bring your shins parallel to the floor. Make sure your knees are directly above your hips and begin that same movement pattern from the last exercise: Lower your straight arms back and down, bringing biceps by ears, then return to start and repeat.

3. Lying arm raises with single leg extension

Okay, adding on. As you lower your arms, extend your right leg forward (a straight leg is a longer lever, and more load for your abdominal muscles to manage), then slowly draw it back into tabletop as you raise your arms. Repeat on the left side, and continue alternating. Do your best not to pull your opposite knee toward your face as you extend one leg because doing so offloads your core, and you want to keep those muscles firing.

4. Lying arm raises with double leg extension

For the last rung of the ladder, squeeze your legs together and extend both of them straight forward as you lower your arms back and down, so both arms and legs are moving away from your center simultaneously. Lift your arms at the same time as you bend your knees back over your hips, returning to your start positon and repeating. If you find that your lower back is popping off the ground, don’t lower your legs as far toward the floor when you extend them.

Mobility basically describes your range of motion, and it affects how easily you can perform tasks like climbing stairs, picking up groceries, and generally moving throughout the world. “Mobility is important because it allows you to function normally through your daily activities,” Vinh Pham, PT, physical therapist and founder of Myodetox Clinics, previously told Well+Good. “If you don’t have good mobility, you will not be able to perform activities to your fullest potential.”

Combining strength training with mobility is one of the best ways to improve your flexibility. “[Both] aspects enable you to move all of your joints and soft tissues through their full ranges of motion, and this is crucial in order to build a strong body and to avoid pain and injuries,” Renee Pickett, a Strong Nation master trainer, previously told Well+Good. And that’s just what this 16-minute workout with Kat Atienza delivers.

During the workout, you’ll begin with a warm-up featuring movements designed to lubricate your joints and activate your muscles. But the stretching doesn’t end there. In two sets with three circuits each, you’ll do exercises that both strengthen your muscles and extend your range of motion. Take YWs, the first move in the first set. For them, you’re engaging your lats and other back muscles, as well as your arms, but also opening up your chest and shoulders, all of which contribute to good posture.

Other moves include figure four crunches, which open up your hips while working your abs, reverse lunges with a twist to build lower body strength plus spinal mobility, and push-ups to downward dog toe touches, which will strengthen and mobilize your shoulders, while stretching your hamstrings, calves, and ankles. And of course, you still get the pleasure of a cool down with stretches that feature a lot of twisting and spine opening. Mmmmm.

A workout can do so much more for you than strengthen your muscles. Sink into these movements and know that you’re doing something amazing for your body, your heart, and your longevity. Now that’s 16 minutes well spent.

You don’t need any equipment to lay down the foundation of your yoga practice. So whether you’re looking to increase your mobility, get stronger, or experience the brain-healthy benefits of this age-old tradition, you’re ready to get moving. Below, learn how to move through a trio of beginner yoga movements. Then, make sure to flow through the whole video. Just like that: You’re a yogi.

3 foundational yoga poses to practice today

1. Downward-facing dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Come down onto your hands and knees to start. Place your knees directly underneath your hips; your wrists can be directly beneath your shoulders. On an inhale, push into your palms and lift your hips toward the sky. If your hamstrings are tight, keep a generous bend in your knees and step your feet back a few inches. Spin your bicep to the front of the room and engage your belly to keep your ribs from flaring out.

2. Child’s pose (Baslasana)

Come to your hands and knees once again. Spread your knees, so they’re about as wide as your mat, and bring your toes to touch. Press into your palms to gently guide your hips back to your feet. If your head can’t quite reach the ground, that’s totally okay! Grab a block, pillow, or sweatshirt and place it beneath your head for support. Breathe here, energetically pushing your hips toward your heels.

3. Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II)

Start standing at the front of your mat. Take a big step backward with your left foot, bringing the outside of your left foot parallel to the back of your mat. (For reference, the heel of your right foot should align with the inner arch of your left foot.) Deeply bend your right leg, but keep the ankle directly below the knee. (You may need to widen your stance to make this happen.) Raise your arms parallel to the floor, engage your core, and tuck your pelvis forward slightly. Look gently over your right shoulder if it feels comfortable for your neck. Take several deep breaths here before switching sides.

If you’re in the mood raise your heart rate, this recent episode of Good Moves with Chloe De Winter (founder of Go With Chlo Pilates) and East River Pilates instructor Brian Spencer offers a cardio-based routine that may just change your perception about what’s possible in a Pilates class.

De Winter introduces the workout by sharing that viewers will be doing a total of 10 Pilates exercises in 10 minutes. So if you’re looking for a workout that’s varied and vigourous— you’re absolutely in the right place. Not only are the moves super different from each other, it also goes by in a flash.

You can expect to start out by side lunging left and right to open up your hips and inner thighs because De Winter wants to get you limber and ready for more challenging moves to come. From there, you’ll move on to more dynamic movements—even a deconstructed burpee that is much kinder to your joints. The workout slows down with easier exercises at the end to allow your heart rate to return to normal.

If you’re ready to sweat, grab a mat and press play on this fun, cardio Pilates workout.

This routine targets your legs, glutes, and hips via lunges, squats, and fast transitions between different exercises. You can add weights to build more strength or you can keep it body weight-only to focus on muscular endurance. Either way, this workout really packs a punch. (You may want to have a sweat towel nearby.) The best part about this workout is that it is information-packed, and Atienza guides you through every move with a lot of patience and explanation.

There are two circuits with three exercises each in this routine. Atienza begins with a simple dynamic warm-up of jumping jacks, hamstring scoops, lunges, and good mornings in order to prevent injury and allow you to get the most out of the session.

The first circuit includes exercises that require you to move your legs forward and back in space, testing your balance and single-leg strength. They include seesaw lunges (a combo of forward and reverse lunges), bear plank to full plank (which requires walking your feet back and forth while maintaining level hips and pelvic stability), and glute bridges to hamstring bridges (during which your slide or step your feet out and back one at a time without letting the rest of your body rock back and forth).

Some other exercises included in the video deadlifts, which target the entire backside of your legs, from ankles to glutes, and side planks with a leg raise that’ll get into your core, as well as out outer hips and side glutes, as well as inner thighs.

The video ends with a relaxing cool-down, rewarding you for all of your hard work.