Get Beach Volleyball Abs With This Pre-Season Pilates Workout
Pilates keeps Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings strong and limber year-round. (Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty)
While most of us are just starting to entertain thoughts of sand and surf, Olympic beach volleyball champion Kerri Walsh Jennings has the beach on the brain year-round. She and her new teammate, April Ross, just wrapped up a big pre-season exposition in Brazil (you know, where the 2016 Olympic Games will be held). And their 2015 season will officially kick off at the end of May. Jennings is obsessed with Pilates, and has been squeezing in as many studio sessions as she can before her competition schedule gets too crazy.
For the beach volleyball superstar, Pilates is a way for her to become a more efficient player, improve her balance and strengthen her core. (Not to mention, it’s also how she was able to get her abs back into shape after having each of her three kids.) For the rest of us mere mortals, Pilates is a proven and effective way to sculpt an amazing core. Luckily, we got her to share some of the moves behind those powerful abs.
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The Routine: Jennings works out three times a week on the mat as well as on a Pilates Reformer machine with instructor Kerry Wachtfogel, who owns Contrologie, a studio in Manhattan Beach. To really work out like the three-time Olympic champion, you’d probably follow these with some weights, beach sprints and stretching. As well as a smoothie made with Blue Diamond unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze milk (Jennings is Blue Diamond’s new brand ambassador) with mixed berries, a handful of spinach or kale and maybe some flax, oats and/or chia seeds. Jennings tells use she typically drinks two of these smoothies daily. (And now we’ll be having one too.)
The Moves
Pilates Hundred
What It Is: The classic Pilates version of a crunch.
How To Do It: Lie faceup, legs raised, knees bent 90 degrees. Inhale, then exhale, lifting head and shoulders off mat, arms extended at shoulder height, palms down. Inhale as you pump arms up and down five times, then exhale and pump five more times. Do 10 times, for 100 pumps.
Why She Likes It: “I always say that if I get stuck in a snowstorm I’m going to do Hundreds because they heat you from the inside out,” says Jennings. “If you’re doing the moves correctly, that’s the feeling you get: You’re like a furnace inside.”
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The Frog Stretch
What It Is: An amazing stretch to open the hip flexors and inner thighs.
How To Do It: Start on your knees and hands. Walk hands out in front of you and come to your forearms. Move your knees out wider than your hips. Press your pelvis toward the floor and pull your hips back. Hold for 10-15 seconds.
Why She Likes It: “Pilates is such an unassuming discipline. These moves look pretty simple but when you do them, you’re dying. I love that you’re fine-tune the lower intrinsic muscles that power all the big muscles. I feel like as an athlete, you’re bred to work on the big things, and the older I get, the more I appreciate how everything is connected.”
By Corrie Pikul
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