The New Year is the perfect time to release a challenging core workout. After the holiday season, class members are anxious to get back on track. Core Suspense with Shelley Owens is 30-minutes of deep-water core training with a flotation belt and a pair of hand buoys.
About Shelley
Subscribers will recognize Shelley from Sharlie Peterson's debut Fitmotivation videos earlier this year. Shelley is Sharlie’s mom and was featured as the "water terminator" student in her videos. She is also the inspiration behind Sharlie’s introduction to water fitness. Shelley has been leading aquatic exercise classes since 2012. She began teaching in Wichita, KS, at Genesis Health Clubs where she obtained 3 in-house certifications for teaching aquatics, including aqua arthritis. Shelley also expanded her teaching skills to land fitness where she taught in the Silver Sneakers program and continues to offer chair exercise to this day. Sharlie started taking Shelley’s water fitness classes and then decided she wanted to become an aquatic fitness instructor. Shelley currently resides in Topeka, KS, where she helps run Shockwave Aqua Fitness with her daughter. According to Sharlie, she is fondly referred to as Machine Gun Shelley by class members who have dared to take her popular aquatic boot camp and HIIT classes.
Advanced Workout
Core Suspense is a 30-minute pool workout that features a warm-up, cool down and three working segments. This workout is categorized as advanced for two reasons. First and foremost, while Shelley is super strong in the water and makes the moves look easy, when in fact they are rather challenging for beginner to intermediate class members. A strong core and back is required to perform many of the moves in this video. Instructors may want to skip this workout if they have a lot of beginner or less fit students in their class, or at the very least modify the moves. Many of the exercises in this workout occur in modified supine position, which resembles a letter “L.” In this position, the cervical spine should be vertically stacked to avoid strain on the neck. Hand breaks are also advised anytime an aquatic fitness routine involves the use of hand buoys.
Each of the working segments includes some of Shelley’s favorite core exercises. Below is a video that provides more details about this workout, as well as some additional input from Sharlie regarding her mom’s legendary ab workouts.
Oh no! It’s Ab Day!
By Sharlie peterson
Not many people enjoy getting down on the floor and doing 100 sit ups a day to reach their goals of a more toned and chiseled abdomen. It’s for this reason that so many abdominal machines and programs have been sold and marketed throughout the years to help people achieve their goals of strengthening the area of our bodies that can often be the hardest to get rid of stubborn belly fat. But many don’t realize just how important your abdominal muscles really are.
Core Suspense was created because Shelley Owens knows that the reason our “core” muscles are oh so important is because our abdominal muscles help us in more ways than just looking better physically. The abdominal muscles support the trunk, allowing movement in general and actually hold all of our organs in place by regulating internal abdominal pressure. Together, our deep abdominal and back muscles make up the “core” muscles, keeping our bodies stable and balanced to protect the spine.
Core Suspense can be performed in the deep end with a flotation belt, or in the shallow by using the aid of water dumbbells. Although we do recommend a flotation belt in order to keep proper form and stabilization. Besides a belt and pair of dumbbells, all you need to complete this workout is to SUCK IT IN! Keep your core tight and you will have an ab-tastic time!
Fitmotivation extends a big thank you to Shelley for sharing her popular core moves with subscribers. Below are two of Shelley’s favorite abdominal exercises in the pool. The Heart and the Figure 8.
HEART
FIGURE 8