Get fit with Gwen

Get fit with Gwen Nurse and functional wellness leader passionate about movement, healing, community and empowerment. All levels group exercise

05/26/2026

Standing trunk twists with the elbows bent and “leading” the movement are really effective for mobility and stability.

Bending my elbows helps me focus on opening through my lats, rib cage, and thoracic spine.

Some of the biggest benefits:
- Improves thoracic spine mobility. Most people are stiff through their mid-back from sitting, driving, lifting, or working at a desk. Your body is designed to rotate. So do it, purposefully.

- Opens and lengthens your lats. Leading with your elbows encourages your shoulder blades and lats to move through a bigger range of motion. Tight lats can limit your overhead movement, posture, breathing, and even hip mobility.

- Enhances rotational strength and control. Your core’s job is rotating, resisting rotation, and transferring force. Controlled twists train your obliques, deep core muscles, and spinal stabilizers together.

- Improves your posture and chest openness. When you rotate with the chest open instead of collapsing forward, you encourage better shoulder positioning and reduce that rounded-forward posture.

- Builds body awareness and coordination. This movement teaches your upper and lower body to work together while maintaining balance and alignment.

- Can help breathing mechanics. Rib cage rotation and lat mobility influence how well your ribs expand. Try this exercise and see if you can breathe deeper and move more freely afterward.

- Great for athletes and combat sports. Rotational mobility is huge for activities like BJJ, golf, tennis, throwing sports, and even running. Better thoracic rotation can improve your movement efficiency, so you don’t have to compensate by using your low back.

- Low-impact way to warm up or movement break. It increases circulation and prepares your spine, shoulders, and hips for more dynamic movement.

Try it!!! Let me know how much you love it!

05/25/2026

Being able to get up and down from the ground is everything.

It takes mobility, strength, balance, coordination, and core control.

This movement pattern/variation trains real-life strength:
- Ankle mobility
- Hip mobility
- Core stability
- Knee control
- Balance + coordination
- Lower body strength
- Ability to move efficiently through different levels

This is the kind of movement that carries over into real life. For me, that means:
- BJJ/grappling transitions
- Playing with my kids on the floor
- Athletic movement + agility
- Healthy aging and independence

Bonus: your feet and ankles are working overtime here too — something most traditional gym exercises completely miss.

Try it!

05/24/2026

We prayed for this and planned for this!!!

My hubby and I had a vision - 16 years ago. I could have a career I’m proud of 🩺, and flexibility in my schedule to be there for nearly everything for our family.

Having our twins was well worth the work, sacrifices and wait.

This is the life!!!!

Thankfully, we all kinda found our way to jujitsu, and it’s been super fun sharing it with our boys.

05/23/2026

Saturdays with the lady tribe is where it’s at!!!!!

05/22/2026

Take it up a notch and try bear plank jacks with a band to build your:
- Core
- Shoulders and chest stabilization
- Glutes (and outer hips from the band tension)
- Quads and hip flexors
- Cardiovascular endurance

Try it in a high plank as well. Modify by taking the band away and/or stepping out/in instead of jumping.

Love me some time with my Karly!!!!

It’s been a really good week of training! My tribe is my vibe - love my ladies 🦈🥋💙Yes, I made this face on purpose 😆
05/21/2026

It’s been a really good week of training! My tribe is my vibe - love my ladies 🦈🥋💙

Yes, I made this face on purpose 😆

05/21/2026

High plank
Low plank
Cross-body knee drives

Try this movement pattern! Core strength - Crossing your knee toward the opposite shoulder uses your deep core and obliques, helping improve rotational strength and control.

Shoulder stability - Moving between high and low plank challenges your shoulders in multiple positions, builds endurance and joint stability.

Functional movement - The cross-body motion mimics real-life movement patterns and sports movements that require balance, rotation, and control.

Hip mobility + coordination - Driving your knees across helps improve your hip mobility and trains your body to move across different planes of motion.

Cardio + strength combo - Your heart rate climbs while your muscles stay under tension. This is a full-body exercise.

BJJ + mom-life ready - Strong shoulders, core control, and the ability to stabilize while moving? Useful for everything from rolling on the mats to carrying groceries, kids, backpacks, and all the chaos in between 😂

05/21/2026

Push up + straight leg lift
(Repeat other side)

Try this push up variation for:
core stability, upper body strength, glute activation, balance and coordination, hip stability, and postural strength.

05/18/2026

This full-body exercise builds power, coordination, and balance.

Each catch challenges your core to absorb force, while each throw trains your body to generate power from the ground up. It’s all in the rotation! Add the split stance and lateral movement, and you’re working:

- Explosive rotational power
- Hand-eye coordination and reaction time
- Core stability and anti-rotation strength
- Single-leg balance and lower body control
- Functional strength for sports like BJJ

For BJJ ladies like us - this can help build stronger grips, more powerful sweeps, a better base, and the ability to generate force while staying balanced under pressure.

05/15/2026

RETRO RUNNING
Running backwards (retro running/walking) offers lots of physical and mental benefits.

1. Builds different muscles
Backward running shifts the workload on your muscles compared to regular running. You’re working your quads more going backwards vs regular running which uses more hamstrings and calves. This helps balance your muscle development and can improve overall leg strength.

2. Lower impact on joints
This backward movement places less stress on your knees. Because your stride is shorter and you land more softly on the forefoot, it can reduce the impact on your joints.

3. Improves balance and coordination
Moving backward forces your brain and body to work harder to stay stable. This builds your proprioception (your sense of body position), agility, and coordination.

4. Burns more energy
Your body has to work harder to move backward, so you’re using more energy. This can mean higher calorie burn over the same distance or time.

5. Boosts cardiovascular fitness
Because it’s more demanding, even short bursts can elevate your heart rate quickly. Yes, I do this during my work day - gotta get my steps in!!!

6. May help prevent injuries
When you strengthen underused muscles and reduce (or do the opposite of) stressful receptive movement patterns, you can lower the risk of overuse injuries in running or other exercise.

7. Mental engagement
You have to stay focused to avoid running into things or people, so this adds a cognitive challenge too.

Tag me if you try it!!!!!

05/12/2026

This movement is so good!
- Mobilizes your spine in every direction
- Opens your lats, obliques, hamstrings, and shoulders
- Improves your thoracic rotation and side bending
- Decompresses your low back
- Encourages better posture and body awareness

Stand a few steps away from the wall and imagine your entire back is pressed flat against it. Lean to one side while keeping your chest open and ribs stacked, like you’re tracing the wall with your body. Move into a ragdoll fold, then slowly finish that circle to come back up and repeat on the other side.

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1120 White Horse Rd Ste 300
Voorhees, NJ
08043

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