World Oceans Day Workout

June is World Oceans Month and today, June 8th is World Oceans Day. I just started my How to Eat Challenge last week. This tempted me to just sit back and repeat a workout from last year– Core of Conservation: Save Our Seas.

But as I lay awake, trying to focus on my meditation (trying is the key word), I kept thinking of all these fun sea animal and ocean themed exercises to play with. And instead of repeating a workout, I came up with three new ones.

Such is the life of a Positive Creator (one of my work identities).

So, as we celebrate World Oceans Day, take your pick of what workout you would like to do. All the workouts utilize exercises in my ZooFit Exercise Guide and my Animal Exercise Cards.

Riding the Wave

I typically call this style of workout a time ladder, but it can be sort of seen as a wave. I suggest getting a timer app such as Seconds Pro for this workout, although you can certainly do it with just a regular timer.

Each round is 5 minutes long. The first minute, you work for only 15 seconds, then rest for 45. For the second minute, work for 30 seconds and rest for 30. Third minute is 45 seconds work followed by only 15 seconds of rest. And the fourth and fifth minutes are 60 seconds of work followed by 60 seconds of recovery.

Do only one exercise each round. Then move to the next exercise and repeat the wave.

• Sea Turtle Swimmers: Lay on stomach, with your hands in a “w” at your side. Raise your chest off the ground and arch your back. While fluttering your feet, rotate your arms from a “w” to overhead and back.
• Whale Spy-hops: Stand with feet hip width apart. Squat to a low crouch, keeping your chest up and knees pushed out. Keep weight mostly in your heels. To return to standing, propel yourself to a jump in the air, landing softly.
• Rising Tide Planks: Start in a regular elbow plank position.  Raise up to your hands and walk your hands and legs to the right one length.  Lower onto your elbows.  Lift back up and walk your hands and legs to the left and lower onto your elbows.  Each time you lower onto your elbows counts as one repetition.
• On Thin Ice: Stand in a neutral position. Push off the ground with your right foot while jumping towards the left. Land on your left foot with soft knees and sweep the right leg behind and across (see photos). Reach right fingertips to your left toes. Quickly repeat on the other side.

Sea Goddesses Workout

Interesting while looking up some information about World Oceans Day, I stumbled across an article debunking the idea that the Ocean itself is referred as female while all mythological deities around the sea were male. Many cultures around the world honored both sea gods and sea goddesses.

In my early days, I was fascinated by mythology, particularly myths and stories around the sea. So, I felt on this day, it would be neat to honor the sea and the cultures who revered “her”, too.

Fate of the Die

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Roll a die as many times as possible during the 20 minutes to determine which exercise you perform next. Do 10 reps of the exercise you roll each time.

1. Amphitrite- Sea Stars: Lay on your back with arms over head and legs straight. Lift your right leg and crunch to meet your left arm in the middle. Return to starting position and repeat with opposite leg and opposite arm.
2. Sedna- Sea Lion Jacks: Stand with feet together and arms straight out in front of you. While jumping your feet apart, spread your arms apart. Jumping feet back together, bring arms in front in a clap.
3. Thetis- Dolphin Jumps:Stand up straight with arms to your side. Keeping body as straight as possible, and using minimum movement from arms as momentum, jump straight up into the air.
4. Brizo- Burpees: From standing, squat slightly to place hands on ground. Jump or step your feet back into a plank position, then lower your body to the ground or do a push-up. Step or jump feet back to your hands and then jump up to return to standing.
5. Keto- Stingray Shuffles (each way): Stand in neutral position and keep your feet perfectly pointed forward. Really focus on this as our feet tned to point outward during this movement. Step to the left, a little wider than your shoulder, and bring your right foot to meet the left. Repeat for 10 reps, then return the other way by stepping to your right for 10 reps.
6. Aphrodite- Aquarist Kicks (each side): Lay on your back with legs straight out. You can place your hands under your butt for extra support. Lift your feet a few inches off the ground. As if you are doing the back stroke in a swimming pool, kick your legs in a fluttering motion.

The Little Mermaid (Fandom Fitness)

The Little Mermaid is part of my Disney Princess workout, but to honor World Oceans Day, I feel she earned her own workout for the day. After all, the movie did launch the Disney Renaissance. And in my own realm, I watched The Little Mermaid so many times as a kid, I had the entire movie memorized from start to finish. So, of course it deserves its own Fandom Fitness workout.

Circuit- Set a timer to go off every minute for 20 minutes. You can also just use a timer for 20 minutes and look at the minutes. Exercise at each “station” for a full minute. When you complete the circuit, rest for one minute, then repeat for 4 rounds.

1. Fathoms Below Dips: Place hands on the edge of a bench or chair and feet firmly planted on the floor. Keep tailbone and back close to the chair and bend your arms to lower your body to the ground. Press yourself back up. To modify, bring your feet closer (easier) or straighten them out (more challenging).
2. Mermaid Twists: Sit on ground with knees in a 90 degree angle, one in front of you and one to the side. Place your hands on the floor and stretch your back (different from video, gives the “mermaid” stance). transfer to the other side by lifting the knee toward the rear up and rotating your posture so it is centered in front of you and rotate the other knee so it is now bent behind you.
3. Crab Toe Touches: Sit on ground with legs out in front of you. Put your hands on the ground at your sides and lift your hips up off the ground. Keeping yourself up with your hands and legs (butt off the ground), raise your left leg to straighten the knee out and reach with your right arm to touch the left toe.  Keep yourself supported with your opposite hand/leg.  Return the leg and hand to original position and repeat with the other side
4. Ursula Octopus Push-ups: Place hands under shoulders in a straight arm plank position. Lower chest to the ground, keeping elbows pointed toward feet (in toward the body). At the same time, bring one knee up toward your elbow. Come back to a plank position, then repeat on the opposite side.
5. Rest

Enjoy Your Journey

Which workout did you try? Which was your favorite? Let me know and enjoy our wonderful beautiful oceans. Connect to the sea in a healthy and positive way. Today. Tomorrow. And forever.