Hey there! And welcome to the FILI Basics Series! This series is designed to help guide you through three key moves you'll often see in FILI Classes: the plank, lunge, and jumping jack. This series is crafted with the intention of guiding you through each move, breaking down crucial alignment points, offering modifications, and giving you the chance to practice at your own pace. Due to the nature of our classes and the excitement of group fitness sometimes things move quickly so we hope this series helps build confidence and supports your practice with us. 

 The Plank

You will often see plank pose utilized throughout our fitness classes both on our online fitness library and in our Squamish fitness classes. The plank pose requires strong alignment to create a strong and stable shape. 

Key takeaways - wrists over shoulder, all ten fingers pointing forward, internally rotate the shoulders and press the mat away from you. For your legs, draw up your knee caps, press back into your heels. 

The Lunge

The lunge is another shape you will see often in our classes. In this basics video we show you two lunges. One lunge with a more stacked position (upper body stacked over the hips) and another where we tilt our upper body forward over our front thigh. The stacked lunge is utilized throughout our strength classes and HIIT classes and can be easily recognized by its 90 degree angles it creates with the knees and when the knees stack over the ankles - again the upper body is also stacked right over the hips.

Our second lunge is our tilted, Pilates-inspired lunge where we shorten the stance and tilt the upper body over the front thigh to engage the glutes.  

Key takeaways - Feet on train tracks, knees align over the ankles and long stable lines. When move in a lunge visualize pressing into the front heel to activate the glute and front leg to do the work.

The Jumping Jack

And finally the best one! The jumping jack is something you will see utilized in most of our classes from our HIIT to Core classes for a firey burst. In this video Jaimie will outline the jumping jack and modifications to modify the intensity and impact. One thing to note is the modifications (and the impact version of the jumping jack) will all raise your heart rate significantly since you are moving your legs and arms. As always, listen to your body and take whatever version feels best. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask your teacher or consult with a medical professional if you are returning from injury or have further medical questions. 

Stay tuned for more FILI Basics, as we're constantly looking to expand this series. If there's anything specific you'd like to see or explore, drop us a note.