Detoxing your body isn’t all tablets and teas, and while they help, summer’s on the horizon and it’s time to get down to business.
Get moving with our favourite workout to eliminate toxins and whittle your waistline.
5 Ways Exercise detoxifies the body:
- Moving the body helps to circulate both blood and lymph. The more they circulate, the more the liver and lymph nodes can do the job of cleansing and purifying.
- Up the efforts of your digestive system with regular, consistent exercise. When you exercise you breathe deeply with your lungs, the oxygen that you breathe in travels though the blood to the brain and muscles.
- The skin is cleansed from the inside out by the toxin-releasing process of, yep, you guessed it – sweating.
- Exercise reduces the body’s fatty tissue where toxins are stored. Through exercise, the toxins are released and eliminated through the cleansing organs.
- Gentle, low-intensity aerobic exercise such as running, walking, bicycling, dancing, swimming, yoga and pilates are beneficial for detox since the lungs breathing deeply but within the fat-burning zone.
So how do you circulate the blood, sweat, reduce fatty tissue and get your dose of gentle, low-intensity aerobic exercise all at once?
Rescu. Recommends: Pilates
The creator of Pilates, Joseph Pilates calls this the internal shower and describes it as the effect of the exercises having “discharged through your bloodstream the accumulation of fatigue products created by muscular and mental activities”.
Joseph Pilates believed the combination of controlled breath, continuous flow of exercise and the addition of water helps the body naturally release unwanted toxins, fats and waste and increase the effectiveness of your digestive system.
Kirsten King, co-founder at Fluidform Pilates says, “Moving the body creates the conditions for the body to breathe, stretch, circulate and sweat. An added benefit, and one not often discussed, is that exercise actually helps your body to detoxify itself not too mention releases pleasurable endorphins.”
The below exercises have the ability to stimulate detoxification through massaging the internal organs responsible for the detox process. It is important to remember to breathe and keep the movement flowing.
Kirsten King’s Top Pilates Exercises to Detox the Body
Pelvic Curl
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.
- Make sure that your feet, ankles, and knees are aligned hip distance apart.
- Inhale to begin and as you exhale tilt the pubic bone back towards the belly button, as you begin to lift your bottom of the ground, peel one vertebrae off at a time in a sequential movement while keeping your abs engaged and gentle pressure through the heels of your feet.
- When you are at the base of your rib cage, inhale to hold and then on the exhale return the spine back down to the start position.
Roll ups
- Lie on your back with your arms long behind your head and your legs long out in front.
- Inhale to raise your hands towards the ceiling, exhale to lift your head and chest and roll your spine off the ground up into a seated position with your legs still long.
- Inhale to prepare, now exhale to roll the spine back down onto the floor vertebra at a time.
Single leg stretch
- Lie on your back with your chest raised and abdominal muscles pulled in.
- Exhale and extend one leg away while bending the other leg and pulling the knee into your chest.
- Change legs on each exhale and do 10-20 repetitions
Rolling like a ball
- Sit upright on the floor pulling your legs into your chest and creating a ball shape (spine in C curve) with your body (Chin tucked into your neck and hands on the outside of your ankles.
- Inhale to commence and as you exhale roll back of your bottom towards the top of your spine, now roll back up to the seated position balancing your feet of the ground.
- Repeat 10 times.
The Deep Cleanse series is sponsored by Clinique Sonic System Purifying Cleansing Brush
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