Try This Kayla Itsines Mobility Routine to Get Your Best Stretch Yet

Kayla Itsines.Don Arnold/Getty Images

The key to a good workout—and consistently good workouts, for that matter—isn’t simply a high fitness level or a regular workout regimen. In part, it relies on giving your body the tools and care it needs to recover.

It’s easy, when you work out on a regular basis, to get into a routine that stunts your recovery. It doesn’t always feel like a productive use of time to take a lower impact day or spend a few minutes at the start and end of your routine to warm up, cool down and stretch. Though it may not feel this way in the moment, these simple additions to your fitness regimen will not only prevent injury and overworking your body, but they will make a huge difference in your level of performance.

Australian fitness instructor Kayla Itsines knows this. That’s why, in addition to her workout classes—which can be found on the Sweat App, a platform she co-founded—the 32-year-old likewise shares a lot of dynamic stretching and mobility content.

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Hitting the mat isn’t simply about getting a good sweat on. It’s about full-body care, which has to include stretching and mobility work. And the instructor’s latest video is a quick 8-minute routine that promises to promote your recovery and get you ready to hit the ground running the next time you head to your mat.

The simple set, which Itsines recommended repeating twice, is as follows:

1. Hip flexor to hamstring stretch (30 seconds on each side)
2. Cat cow (60 seconds)
3. Glute stretch (30 seconds on each side)
4. Butterfly stretch (30 seconds on each side)