Tone Your Body With This "Beginner-Friendly" Esther da Costa Routine

Esther da Costa is showing off her flat abs – and revealing details about the workout responsible for them. In a new social media post the fitness influencer and founder of Esther Marie Yoga flaunts her amazing body while unveiling her “beginner friendly total tone” workout. “This routine targets and tones the entire body especially the shoulders , glutes and core!” she write. “And it’s LESS than 20 minutes.” What exercises does she do and what other health habits are responsible for her fantastic figure? Here is everything you need to know.

The Workout Is Low Impact and Involves “Small But Powerful Movements”

“Low impact small but powerful movements are suitable and effective in my opinion for all levels / abilities,” Esther explains in the post, adding that “movements like this that are gentle, strengthening and toning are GREAT for restarting your fitness journey after time out.” She adds that the workout is great “If you’re kick starting your fitness journey , getting over a cold or restarting your fitness.”

Beginner Friendly Rotal Tone Workout

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Here is the workout:

• Wide yogi squat: Push “weight into heels and use your core,” she says.
• Side lying elevated feet clam shell: “Tone the inner and outer hip and improve mobility drill,” she explains.
• Single leg bridge lift, with twist tuck: The“core glutes and pelvis stability targeted with this one exercise,” she says.
• Kneeling shoulder push ups: “Honestly these transformed my shoulder strength stability and upper back muscles,” she explains.
• Lying toe dips: “Showing two different versions here one with more support taken hand back on to move onto too much,” she says. “You feel stable strong with the hand out to the side.” Then, adding on, “this time [do the exercise] with both hands supporting the head.”

Related: I Lost 25 Pounds by Doing These 3 Things

Tips for the Workout

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She also offers the following tips for the workout:

• Do each one of these exercises for 30 seconds
• Take a rest whenever needed
• Move slowly and with control
• Breathe with the movement ,make the exhale heard
• Move with love for your body.

Eating Disorder Issues

Esther battled an eating disorder, which is how she started her fitness journey. “I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa just before I turned 18 after an attempted suicide. Was I worried about my weight? No!!! I was feeling so low, incredibly lost and wanted to give up on life,” she said in a post, explaining that “eating disorders are not about food, wanting to look a certain way, wanting to be a certain size, to have a six pack, to be thin.”

Yoga Helps Her Relieve Stress

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On her website Ester explains that she discovered yoga in 2016 “during a time in my life of work related stress and intense anxiety,” she says. “I had been practicing mindfulness before 2016 and knew it helped me, but yoga I always thought wasn’t for me. At the time I liked HIIT exercise and was an avid gym bunny, but after tearing my knee and achilles heel in 6 months I took advice from physic and started yoga from home. I started practicing from home and have always predominately had a home yoga practice rather than class attended. Self practice eases my monkey mind, silences my inner critic and settles and soothes me from within,” she adds. Is has also strengthened her body.

Related: I Lost 100 Pounds at Home Before Even Getting Into a Gym. Here’s How to Start.

She Meditates

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Esther also meditates. “I’m not trying to create a whole new style of meditation. I’m trying to make meditation more accessible to as many people as I can,” she explains in a post. “In my experience with meditation, I found the posture away from the wall, straight back, always seated really hard due to my chronic pain.” She recommends the following posture options.

• Seated with your back against the wall with support
• Seated on a block to elevate the hips
• Seated back against the wall to support your back and a cushion under under the legs
• Reclined resting legs up the wall

💪🔥Body Booster: Low impact workouts can be just as effective at burning fat and building muscle as higher intensity workouts.

Do you want to do a full body workout with just six exercises? Grace Albin is a fitness expert and influencer who shares diet and exercise tips and tricks with her hundreds of thousands of followers. In a new post, she reveals some combo moves that work multiple muscles at once.”Six fun, #bodyweight combos for fat-burning and muscle-toning,” she captioned the post. Here are the exercises – as well as a few other of her go-to fitness and diet tips.

Here Is the Workout

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“Do each combo 10-20 times, then move to the next combo. Rest one minute at the end of the round. 2-4 rounds total,” Grace instructs.

• jump squat into triple-pulse squat.
• twist squat with knee lift.
• triple-pulse lunge into kick.
• cross cross squat.
• reverse lunge into plank.
• floor tap lunge into knee lift.

Do Pilates and Strength Training

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Grace encourages “a fusion of Pilates technique with traditional fitness,” she told Naluda. “So we use dumbbells and resistance bands and do squats and curls. But always with the underlying philosophy of posture strength, elegant movement, and muscle lengthening.”

Why is Pilates a good workout? According to the Mayo Clinic there are lots of benefits to the workout, as it “strengthens the body's inner core while increasing its flexibility resulting in improved overall health.”

It can also promote longer, leaner muscles, injury prevention, relief from stress and back pain, enhanced athletic performance, and heightened mind-body awareness. And, the Mayo Clinic explains that strength and weight training help reduce body fat, preserve and increase lean muscle mass, and burn calories more efficiently. Strength training may also help you:

• Develop strong bones
• Manage your weight
• Enhance your quality of life
• Manage chronic conditions
• Sharpen your thinking skills

Stick to Workouts You Love

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What is the absolute best workout, according to Grace? One you will actually do. She recommends trying “a lot of different formats and you’ll find the one you love enough to stay motivated and keep going,” she told Naluda. “It might be something social and structured (and free) — like a running community training for a 10k that has each weekly jog planned out to the exact mile and meets at the same time every week. Or something flexible like joining a fancy studio that offers different modalities and allows you to toggle between yoga and boot camp. Keep experimenting and you’ll hit upon the fitness routine that matches your vibe and gets you coming back.”

RELATED:5 Exercises for Wrinkle Reduction

Snack on Protein and Fiber

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Grace snacks but keeps it healthy. “There are several bags of frozen edamame in my freezer at all times. It’s incredibly high in both protein and fiber. It’s quick and easy to fry or bake with a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper. You can also change the taste of it with any type of marinade or seasoning mix, so it never gets old,” she told Naluda.

Related: This Is Exactly How to Lose Body Fat This Year

Get Your Steps In

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Grace also recommends getting your steps in. How many should you aim for if you want to lose weight? According to a 2018 study published in the journal Obesity, walking 10,000 steps a day was linked to weight loss and weight management.

💪🔥Body Booster: If you don’t have a lot of time to work out, try doing combo moves to work multiple muscle groups at once.

Do you want to know the workout behind Jessica Alba’s famous backside? Her trainer, Ramona Braganza, unveils the “best butt exercise ever” in a new Instagram post that is “used by all my celeb clients, and you have to admit they have great Glutes,” she writes. Here is the workout – and everything you need to know about her method.

Use Dumbbells or a Barbell and Make Sure to Stay in Proper Form

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“Proper form is a must with this one to avoid injury and work your way from lighter weights to heavier,” she explains. “You can use dumbbells or a barbell for most leg exercises. We will be switching out to barbells on the next leg series.”

Romanian Deadlift

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The exercise she recommends is the Romanian Deadlift. Romanian DeadLift, or RDL, can do major damage to your back. “If done improperly with a rounded back, this exercise can cause major stress on the lower lumbar area of your back and result in a possible lumbar disc injury,” says Kendra Gamble, HIT Fitness Training, Huntingdon Valley, PA, NPTI Certified Personal Trainer and Nutritional Consultant. To do it safely, she suggests tightening your entire core “so that it helps brace your back, keep a neutral spine the entire time, and lift with your legs (like you're pushing them into the floor) instead of your back.”

Don’t Forget to Warm Up

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Braganza reminds us that you should always start with a “quick warmup cardio” and stretches. “For recovery make sure to do a stretch after, use foam roller or theragun if needed, Epsom salt bath helps too.”

3-2-1 Method

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Braganza created her trademark 321 Training Method while working with a blockbuster star. “I developed it when Jessica Alba and I were shooting many films on location, so I needed something effective, requiring minimal equipment, flexible whether you have 20 minutes, half an hour, or a full hour to train,” she recently told our sister site, Celebwell.

RELATED: The "Hot Girl Walk" Secret to Losing Body Fat Fast

Do 3 Cardio Workouts

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The first part of the method, three, stands for three cardio workouts. “An example of cardio could be either treadmill, spinning, or dance.

Complete 2 Circuits

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Then, you move on to circuit training. She recommends doing two circuit workouts. “Usually it’s three in a row exercises that train specific body parts on different days,” Braganza said.

Now, Do 1 Part Core

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The final part of the workout is the core. She recommends doing a short workout to flatten and strengthen the midsection.

RELATED: 7 Facial Exercises to Erase Wrinkles After 50

Meditation

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Sometimes her sessions with clients involve meditation. She maintains that Alba meditates before and after their sessions. “Our workouts have become more of a mind body spirit evolution as Jess is now in her 40s which includes meditation before we train that raises our vibrations to give us a positive mindset and finishes with a gratitude meditation,” she said.