From enduring some serious physical prep for Baywatch to working consistently with elite trainer Patrick Murphy, Alexanda Daddario’s dedication to fitness is well-documented. She often shares insights on social media, and in a recent Instagram post, the White Lotus star gave an insight into how she trains her core with one powerhouse movement: the reverse crunch into shoulder stand.

Why is it so good? Most traditional ab exercises require repetitive spinal flexion – the process of pulling your chest down toward your knees, like in a standard crunch. This isolates only the upper section of your abs, and for women who spend hours sitting at a desk, it can reinforce a slouched, rounded posture.

Daddario’s movement flips the mechanics entirely since you actively curl your pelvis up toward your chest. In doing so, you target not only your upper abs, but the lower portion and your obliques (the sides) simultaneously, all while keeping your chest open and your neck unstrained. This translates into a much stronger core, better posture and crucial lower back protection. Research also shows that a controlled posterior tilt – the lower-body curl that initiates Daddario’s move – recruits a significantly higher percentage of deep core muscle fibres than traditional crunches.

Advertisement

Daddario then drives her hips directly up into a vertical shoulder stand. This completely removes momentum from the equation (meaning you can’t “cheat”) and forces your abs – particularly your obliques – to balance your body and prevent you from tipping sideways.

She then takes it one step further into a Pilates plow position with her legs overhead, before reversing the movement and, again, using her abs to control the lowering of her entire lower body as she slowly unrolls her spine down onto the mat. The plow portion is optional (and super advanced); the slow, controlled, lowering phase, which happens whether you move into plow or not, is where the magic happens, challenging your core through both lifting and resisting gravity. Inspired? Here’s exactly how to do the move with good form, and how many reps and sets to aim for.

How to do a reverse crunch into shoulder stand

1. Lie on your back (either on a mat, or on a reformer Pilates machine, like Daddario, with your arms anchored tightly to the floor.
2. Engage your core to curl your knees toward your chest, then fluidly press your feet straight up toward the ceiling, lifting your hips and lower back off the floor.
3. Slowly lower down, one vertebra at a time. Aim for 3 sets of 6-8 controlled reps.

Optional progression:

1. As you reach shoulder stand with your legs extended to the ceiling, slowly start to lower your toes toward the floor over your head. Your weight should rest entirely on your shoulders and upper back – not your neck.
2. Keeping your legs straight, use your core to extend them straight back up to the ceiling, then control the descent by rolling your spine down one vertebra at a time, with your legs remaining straight.

One of our most frequently asked questions here at Women’s Health? How to build muscle and burn fat at the same time. So, we asked superstar trainer Oyinda Okunowo exactly how to do it. In this 4-week plan – created exclusively for Women’s Health COLLECTIVE members – you’ll get the workouts and nutrition guidance needed to help you on your way to better body composition. Tap the link below to unlock 14 days of free access to Oyinda’s plan and start training today.

GET THE PLAN

As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism.

After earning a first-class degree in journalism and NCTJ accreditation, she secured her first role at Look Magazine, where she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!

Advertisement

Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red. Today, she oversees all fitness content across Women’s Health online and in print, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, which showcases the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise.

She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how. Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.   

Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Fa­thers of­ten share spe­cial bonds with their chil­dren. For 80-year-old Chanka Ram­rat­tan, that bond is a shared love for fit­ness and ex­er­cise with his 46-year-old son Nari.

The Rousil­lac res­i­dent re­called that he be­gan ex­er­cis­ing at the age of 14, lift­ing weights and tak­ing long walks, a pas­sion that re­mains with him to­day. Dur­ing his time work­ing as a clerk at Tex­a­co, he said he would walk from For­est Re­serve to his Rousil­lac home, a dis­tance of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 kilo­me­tres.

“I have done every marathon in Trinidad; you name a marathon, I could tell you. Mi­a­mi Marathon, To­ba­go Sea-to-Sea, which is the most dif­fi­cult marathon that I’ve ever done. I even have a tro­phy where I got the fastest speed walk­ing man, and I have all my medals,” he re­count­ed.

Chanka’s last marathon was a vir­tu­al one in 2021. Since then, his doc­tor has ad­vised him to slow down be­cause of his age. Now, he spends his time at the Health and Fit­ness Gym in Debe and South Oropouche about three times a week, walk­ing marathons of his own on the tread­mill.

“I do car­dio walk­ing for one hour, and I do weight train­ing for one hour. Then, I go in the sea and I swim and dive for one hour,” he not­ed.

Chanka firm­ly be­lieves reg­u­lar ex­er­cise has con­tributed to his longevi­ty and said he plans to keep go­ing.

“Ex­er­cise is very im­por­tant, and I like ex­er­cise. You go to Mi­a­mi, and you’ll see 90-year-olds and 100-year-olds in the gym, walk­ing, and even go­ing to marathons. That’s be­cause if you don’t ex­er­cise, you feel lethar­gic, you feel down. And you al­so have to read a lot. So, you ex­er­cise the brain, and you ex­er­cise the body,” Chanka ad­vised.

His son Nari be­lieves that per­se­ver­ance was one of the most im­por­tant lessons his fa­ther passed on to his chil­dren, along with a love of fit­ness and ex­er­cise.

“When you are look­ing at your dad, and your mom, and you are see­ing them ex­er­cis­ing and you are see­ing them fit, why would you not want to do the same thing? So, it was in­stilled in all of us, my­self and my two sib­lings. That ex­er­cis­ing be­came a rou­tine. My big­ger sis­ter, she would run, and my small­er sis­ter would do car­dio,” Nari ex­plained.

The en­gi­neer and busi­ness­man re­called start­ing to ex­er­cise and lift weights with his fa­ther and un­cle from a young age, cred­it­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence with shap­ing the dis­ci­pline and fit­ness mind­set he still fol­lows to­day.

How­ev­er, in 2016, he faced a big ob­sta­cle af­ter he hit his head dur­ing a div­ing ac­ci­dent, dam­ag­ing his C6 and C7 ver­te­brae and spinal cord.

“I was 37 at the time when I got in­to the ac­ci­dent. I lost all feel­ing in my body. The per­son that you see in front of you now is not the per­son I was three years ago. I ac­tu­al­ly couldn’t move at all; I could on­ly move my toe. It took a lot of hard work and will, to come out of that sit­u­a­tion. Even­tu­al­ly, I start­ed to trans­fer from my wheel­chair to a bed, to a car. I even built a ma­chine for me to stand up with a har­ness, and it pulls me up in the air so I can stand up straight. So, I used that for two years to get my body back to where it is,” Nari ex­plained.

Nari, who is cur­rent­ly a quad­ri­pleg­ic, said he was on­ly able to make progress through per­sis­tence and sup­port from his loved ones. Chanka ad­mit­ted that pe­ri­od was one of the most dif­fi­cult ex­pe­ri­ences of his life as a par­ent.

“I wouldn’t like to ex­plain that, that is a dif­fer­ent thing al­to­geth­er. He was in Mount Hope for six months, we had to go every day. It was a re­al try­ing thing, but you know, he is on the way to re­cov­ery. His moth­er wants to see every­thing good for him. For me, she will treat me sec­ond class and she will treat them first class, and she is right. Be­cause the ones that are able to walk, you give them less at­ten­tion be­cause they are tend­ing to them­selves. You have to give more at­ten­tion to the one that needs at­ten­tion,” he ac­knowl­edged.

But their bond through ex­er­cis­ing didn’t change. Dur­ing COVID-19, Nari said his fa­ther re­turned to weightlift­ing un­der his son’s guid­ance.

“When my dad was trapped in the house and he couldn’t go any­where, he was very mis­er­able. So, we had a sched­ule where he and I would use the weights that I have at home, and I would tell him what to do. He ac­tu­al­ly got a six-pack dur­ing COVID. So, we stayed home and ex­er­cised with my wife and all too. Af­ter, I re­alised now I could start back to go to gym,” Nari re­flect­ed.

Chanka said his son’s de­ter­mi­na­tion con­tin­ues to in­spire him.

“When you see some­body who is a bit in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed and they’re ex­er­cis­ing, they give you in­spi­ra­tion. Like if that man could do that, I could do that too. I wish Nari all the best. He is ad­her­ing to all his ex­er­cis­es, and he has a will that you won’t get in your next life. It’s prob­a­bly my genes passed on to him,” Chanka shared.

Nari said none of that would have been pos­si­ble with­out his fa­ther’s in­flu­ence.

“Dad, I just want to tell you, thank you very much for be­ing in our lives. You give us the en­cour­age­ment to go day to day, and just keep be­ing who you are, be­cause you have a strong will, strong mind, and that is what keeps us go­ing every day,” he said.