Class #1097

Full-Body Wunda Chair

45 min - Class
266 likes

Description

Tom McCook teaches another wonderful workout, this time on the Wunda Chair. He uses clear cues to teach variations of many exercises including progressions of Push Ups and Swan. It's a great class to work and stretch your entire body.
What You'll Need: Wunda Chair

About This Video

Jul 08, 2013
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Hi, I'm Tom, a here at Claudia's anytime with Christie, Amy and Wendy. And we're going to do a chair workout and we're going to start with a an exercise called standing wave, which will follow into footwork. So like you to set up your machine with two heavy springs. We have it on a cactuses, two from the top two heavy black, just to make sure you're ready to go. And the first exercise you're gonna stand, putting your feet on the paddle with your hands on the back of the chair and come into a tabletop position with the body you're on. The balls of the feet, feet are in line with your hip joints. And now with your, with your back in a flat tabletop, just get a sense of having your hips directly over your ankles and just resist your arms slightly towards you legs. You feel your lats turn on. And also press your sit bones towards your front body so you feel your hamstrings and glutes turn on and bring your head up into a straight line.

Now on the x, just lower the heels below the bar. Now as you inhale, bend the knees, deepening your hip crease round the lower back. You're on your tail into your belly button. Then rise up to high heels and straight legs. Now wave back the straight spine and lower the heels with control. Yes, feel it like a wave Ben in deep in the crease, curl and rise, and then wave back to straight spine. As you lower the heels, do that five more times. Using it as a warm up for your hips, spine, shoulders, just to get the body prepared for what's coming nice and fluid. Feel that nice stretch through the back chain as you lower the heels, heel, that head tail relationship as you move through. That's it.

Nice and fluid. So you use this as an opportunity to come into your body, feel what's happening. So you can start to organize around getting the most out of your workout and just do one more. Everybody as you complete the one you're on, step off gently. Then you're going to turn around and come to a seated position preparing for footwork. So in footwork, you're going to put your heels on the bar in line with your hip joints, about four inches apart and makes sure you're more to the front edge of the seat and just do a little arch curl of your pelvis to feel where the center of your sit bones are. Just sense where that is. That's it. Now cross the arms into genie arms and on the inhale like you to press down and on the exhale pull up. So accent on the up for 10 reps.

Inhale down, exhale up. You're focusing on your sit bones being plugged into the chair. Your head is floating right above the pelvis and you're feeling that lift through your center line, pelvic floor, lower belly. Imagine the springs are being your assistance as your hip flexors, so the hip joints are soft. Three more. Very nice and one more as you get to the top slide onto the balls of the feet.

Heel slightly lifted. Same exact exercise just on the balls of the feet. Inhale down, exhale, draw up accent on the up. Notice when you're coming up, can you keep the lower back, preventing it from our, from roundings. See if you can stay right up on your sit bones as they widened a little bit on the up. Very nice and three more and two and one from there. We're going to go wide on your heels in second position and bring your hands behind your head. Now with your hands behind your head, just lightly press the head back on the hands so you get a little more length through the spine. On the exhale, we're going to change the breath on the exhale. As you press down, turn the spine to the right. Inhale back to center as they come up.

Exhale down. In turn, I feel like you're turning from the low waistline. The sit bones are anchored smooth with the pace of your breath. Both sit bones plug in. You have an equal press into both of your legs and the neck is long and supple. That's it. Feel like you're turning the spine, the attorney from the muscles close to the spine and from your waistline muscles, and again, one more to the left. Then one more each way, right and left and turn and rotate and one more.

As you come back to the center, come onto the balls of the feet in parallel and puts your hands on your knees and press the knees down so the knees are parallel with your hips. Now this is a movement for your calf with pelvic stability. As soon as you inhale, flex the feet, drawing the toes towards the shins, exhale the press down and see me. Keep the knees relatively still. As you do that, you just feel that nice glide of your ankle joints. Still staying aware of your posture.

Might feel a little good. Good, good, good guy. The ankles at first, which takes jazzy, we don't use, they're moving into this web as to really helpful exercises for the fluidity of your ankle. When you walk, run, move through space puts less pressure on the lower back and the spine when you walk in. Transfer load. Let's do three more and one more. From there. Press the paddle all the way down. Put your hands on the seat and turn around and stand on the paddle with your hands on the seat for standing heel lowers. So I'd like you to do is with your heels in line with your sit bones around your lower back and on the exhale, lower the heels below the bar and now rise up and feel like you're lifting through the whole back chain of the leg, the gluten hamstring, the belly, the neck is long and you're feeling that control is coming from the middle of the body. You're feeling the lift is coming right up through the pelvis, the back of the legs and abdomen.

Okay, that's it. Do One more in round back and then transfer to flat back and do the same thing. You're going to have a bigger stretch, but still work through the back of the legs all the way up to glutes and abdomen. Oh, that's it. Nice and smooth. Let's do three more and one more. Now from there, you're going to bring the heels together. Bring your hands to the front, outside edge of the chair for Frog Front.

Now Frog front, you're actually gonna. It's exactly just like Christie just shifted her hips forward to show the blades of depressed on the Xcel. You're going to pull the paddle up, inhale down and say hello to the back of your hips. That's it, and you can be, you don't need to be touching the chair. You can be a little back if you need to is find that range where you can use the hip rotators, the shoulder depressors and the abdomen and let's do that for four more. Feel the lift through the midline. Beautiful. You guys two more and one back to parallel.

Gently help yourself off and we're going to change the spring tension for hamstring stretch one. Now for the paddle, if you have a wonder chair, what I recommend you do is you take one black off and then you take the other black and you go across to the other side, which will bring the paddle closer to the seat, which is kind of cool if you have another chair, if you, if you're fine where it's at, so it's relatively light. We have one black across at the top, cactus or second the top casts. Now it's on the top. Cactus. Here we go. So now we're going to do hamstring stretch one, which is where you're facing the chair. Your feet are about a few inches out in front of the chair and we're going to do it in parallel for one set and we'll do it in turnout. So first thing, get right up on top of your legs. And on the inhale, take the arms up overhead on the exhale spine stretch forward and right when you get to the paddle, leave the hips against an imaginary wall and take the pedal all the way to the bottom, even if you have to bend your knees to do so. Now as you inhale, keeping the paddle on the bottom, bend your knees, but draw the front ribs away from your thighs. As you do that, Xcel does straight and do that for four as your straightening. Feel like you're taking the pelvis more forward over the seat.

Yeah, that lift through your center line. Beautiful. One more and now it's straight. Arms and legs. Inhale, bend the elbows high and wide. Exhale the straight, and as you lift through the belly back of the neck is long and relaxed. That's it. Via able to lift through the abdomen, feel the lift through the arches of your feet and the pelvic floor. Two more and one long arms. Long legs. Take a deep breath into your back body. Exhale, stack the spine. Draw the sit bones down in a row right up to standing, floating the arms up overhead and down by your side. Bring your heels together into a small v. Feel that connection to the back chain. Take the arms up again. Peel down again.

Take the paddle all the way to the bottom. This time when you do the play, the knees are going to open out over the toes to keep the paddle down. Inhale, small leg. Bend the ribs drawing away from the legs. Exhale the straight. Feel the work through the back of the hips, your upper inner thighs. Long supple neck. Two more and one from the straight leg position this time. Inhale, bend the elbow straight back towards your hips in line with the wrists. Exhale, the straightens to feel that a little more through your Serratus, your Scapula, muscles and triceps and the belly pulls away from the floor as the arm. Straighten. One more time from that straight arm position. Breathe into the back body.

Exhale, stack the spine. The head is the last thing up into aligned posture. All the way up. Arms come up overhead and exhale down. Very nice. Now we're going to do side arm press. You're going to face sideways to the chair and this is a single arm. It's just like you're just doing, but it's like this saw in standing, so we'll take your arm. Your legs will be in parallel.

Take your arms right up overhead. Now on the exhale, curl down. The minute your hand comes to the paddle. Instead of pushing from the arm, feel like the spine is going to pull the pedal down. As you rotate away from the chair and take the outside arm up. Inhale, spiral back to square hands still on the paddle. Exhale back down as you reach into both arms and then feel that spiral.

Now as you inhale, let the Palo come up. Pathway. There you go. And as you spiral, feel like the turning is happening from the waistline, but the hips are on imaginary wall. And inhale back to center. Just one more time. Exhale, turn and twist on the next inhale, spiral back to center. Exhale, stack the spine all the way up to standing. Rolling it all the way up. Ah, that's a party.

It'll turn around to your second side. So the challenge on that one we will, you'll find is to prevent the pelvis from turning and not doing it so much from the arm. Let the arm connect to the back and let the spine in the waistline. Take the paddle down. So we'll do the second sides. We'll take the arms up overhead. Exhale, curl right when the arm connects to the paddle. Connect to the arm to the back. Now rotate to take the pedal down and take the outside arm to the sky. Inhale, spiral back to center. The paddle come up halfway.

Exhale down and twist. That's it. Inhale, spiral. Back to center. Two more times. This is hard. This is guys. You're doing really good. Do One more. Exhale. Turn. Beautiful Christie. And how? Back to center. Exhale. Lengthen the right up to the center.

Arms come up. Ah, and release. Nice work. That's anti muffin. Now. Now from there we're going to keep the spring tension the same and we're going to go into a bridge series. So you're going to come onto your back with your feet. When you put your feet on the paddle, your legs will be just dent a about a quarter of the way, not so, so you don't want to be too tight to the chair.

Now put the arches of your feet on the paddle and then bring your arms long by your sides and just sense neutral in your pelvis and the sequences. When you do the exercise, activate your abdomen and your pelvis before the legs you feel you have. Your pelvis is stable. Then you'll feel that the leg work won't be very hard. So on the exhale, as you feel your abdomen turn on, then pull the paddle all the way down to the bottom and inhale it. Come back up. So I feel heavy. Feel too heavy. Okay, let me go down. Let me go down and run for you. Why don't we actually go, um, why don't we go one on the regular side, on number two on the regular side. So relatively light on the exhale.

Pull down without letting the pelvis tip forward or back. Inhale, control the return. That's it. Now get a sense, you might even challenge yourself to turn your palms up so you don't grab with the front of your shoulders at all. And again, exhale to pull. Now going to make it a little more interesting cause we like interesting. So on the next one, pull down. Now stand into your left foot like your left foot just got full of sand and the right leg gets light as you floated up on the exhale. Inhale, place it down. Standing leg stays heavy as you float the other side. So you get instant Karma on this. The paddle will move if you are not anchored.

That's it as you know. And again, that's it. One more to balance it out as you bring it down. Now with control, release the paddle back to the start. Very nice. Now we're going to pull down and take it into a bridge. So on the inhale, pull the pedal down on the XL from the tailbone, curl towards the knees and peel the spine off the floor. Inhale to sequence back down through the spine. Exhale with control. Release the pattern. Paddle back to the start.

We'll do that. Two more repetitions. Feel your way through the spine evenly. Even work through the legs and the center line. Equal pressure into both feet. Useful neck and shoulders. Okay, and one more you guys. Nice and fluid.

That's it. And Peel through and sequence down. Now we're going to do one more bridge and we're going to add something to it. So the next one on the, on the inhale, pull the paddle down. Exhale, peel into the bridge. Now holding the bridge stand strongly into your left leg and on the exhale, float the right knee. Do three on each side and held down.

Feel the stability of the pelvis, the work through the back chain fluid motion in your hip joint. One more each side. That's it. Inhale to the paddle. Exhale, control the down through the spine and then with control, release the paddle back to the star. Now from there, you're going to, you're going to go into turnout and put that outside edge of your feet on the paddle. That's another, you're going to work through the hip rotators a little more. So again, still feel your core cylinder and then once you feel the activation, then pull the knees wide to pull the paddle all the way down.

Oh, that's it. There you go. Then inhale the control the return, and if, if it feels too hard to let the knees go, why do you don't have to go into extreme external rotation? Just feel like it's comfortable. You just feel like you can take the paddle down without a lot of um, straining. Now the next one, we're going to bring it down and hold it down. Now on the exhale, as you stand into your left leg, float the right inhale down. Exhale the left. Oh Wow.

That's it. One more. Each side. That's it. Feel the connection through the midline. Back of the hips. Inhale down. Now with control. Float the paddle back to the start, Huh? Now let your heels go over the paddle with straight legs in turnout.

We're going to do a straight leg bridge, so arms are long. This time, turn the palms down, press the top back of the arms into the mat and take a breath in from the pelvis. PLF up into a straight line. Ankles to shoulders. Now focus on your standing leg being very strong and on the inhale, lift your left leg to the sky. Xcel back to the paddle. That's it. I'm going to do three each side. Nice and strong and connected. That's it. There you go, Christie. Nice and fluid. That's it. Beautiful you guys.

One more each side, strong and connected and one more as you come to the paddle and then sequence down through the spine. Nice and fluid. Try the knees into your chest. Just rock around your lower back for a moment. Beautiful work. Nice job. Now from there, we're going to come up to a seated position to do spine stretch.

So you're going to straddle the chair and then have be as close as you need to be where your arms can be on the paddling. The arms are straight, but you're in upright posture, wherever that might be for you. So different than spine stretch on the Mat, you initiate the movement through Lumbar flection instead of top down flection, but you want to see if you can keep the head of your arm bones back. The tendency would be will put when you curl for them to overly protract forward to see if you can avoid that. So the movement, I'll just talk you through it really quickly. You'll curl back from the curl position. You're going to roll forward on the sit bones, keeping the bar low and you'll straighten the spine so it'll look like this.

You'll curl back, you'll transfer forward under the sip arms, the elbows will bend and you'll come into a forward lean. Now keeping the shoulders down, you're going to release the paddle in, reach up on a diagonal, connecting to your middle back. You'll come back to the pedal. Arms are bent now curl back to straight arms. And then you'll lengthen up to the start. So I'll talk to you two that says, take a breath to prepare from your pelvis, activate and pelvic bowl to the back to pull the paddle with you. Now keep the paddle that low and roll the pelvis forward, bending the elbows and let your spine straight. And now shift forward.

Now as the paddle comes up, reach on a diagonal. Forward enough connecting to your middle back. Come back to the paddle. Still bent arms. Now roll back to straight arms through the pelvis and then lengthen back up to straight spine to this, to the beginning. Very nice and again from the pelvis curl.

Inhale, roll forward on the sit bones. Let the spine straight and elbows bend. Let the paddle come up as you reach on a diagonal. Now this time we're going to add rotation from your upper back. Rotate to your right back to center. Rotate left back to center.

Hands to the paddle. Roll back to straight arms. Lengthen back up onto your sip dons. We'll do that whole thing one more time from the pelvis. Peel back with control. Roll the wheels of the sit bones forward. Come to straight spine bent, elbows hinged forward. Reach up on the diagonal, connect to your middle back, rotate right with the breath center.

Rotate left, center back to the paddle, curl back through the spine to long arms length and right up to the star to complete. Beautiful work. Nice job. Awesome you guys. Now from there we're going to do a pushup progression where you'll turn sideways to your chair and you'll be kneeling like an all fours position where your inside arm can be on the paddle. I think that spring tension might need to be just a little bit heavier, so why don't we go with m one on number three, one heavy on number three are three from the bottom. We'll see how that feels for you guys. So you're going to start kneeling on all fours.

Now the key thing on this one is we're working on scapular stability, so what I'd like you to do is pull the paddle down all the way to the bottom. Now show you with Amy what we're working for. I want Amy's shoulder blade to slide in a little bit and have a coke contraction with the front, her chest muscles and the scapula. Now I wanted to do is bend the elbow and straighten it a few times without the shoulder blades swimming around on the back. It's going to stay pretty stable. Just sense that that's it.

Now take your outside leg and straighten it. Come onto the ball of the foot and then do a few more. Making the connection that you can differentiate the arm from the body without the body twisting. Now take the same side leg back and do another three beautiful. Feel your way through it. You've got to kind of play with it to find it.

And if you're feeling adventurous, the final three will be lift the outside leg. There you go. It's a Christy. You're kind of challenged with your positioning. He'll do three there, one more, and then lower. Bend the knees and return to the start. Very nice and we'll turn around to the other side. Nice. Sure. So I think it gives you time to really feel your way of how to differentiate your limb. If you start on all fours before you make it really hard, and that's what you can do with your clients or with yourself is just feel your way through it. You connect to your back and your alignment.

Let's try that second side. So first just take it to the bottom and really feel how you can take the scapula tips slightly in, in the top of the chest is nice and open. And now just bend and straighten the arm a few times and just feel, what do I gotta do to keep that scapula hugging close to the rib cage? That's it. Now Advil Lincoln in the outside leg. Feel that connection into the ball of the foot, bottom of your gluten inner thigh.

Now add the same side leg and then you might need to just feel your way through that to connect. If you still have room to move, lift the outside leg and do three more. That's it. Beautiful. And one more beautiful work. You guys. Then gently help yourself in and up from there. Huh? Nice job. That's good. Now we're going to come around to the back of the chair.

We're going to do a swan progression. So for the Swan Progression, I recommend we go a little heavier. Let's do one on the lowest cactus setting are two springs on the lowest cactus setting too heavy ones on the lowest CAC setting. So the support is a little, a little more than the last exercise that's a little different than you're used to. You're going to put the crease of your hips on the back of the chair and your feet will stay on the floor. So you'll be more like in a tabletop. So you're supporting, that's it. Now with your balls of the feet on the floor, just push the paddle down and bring your back to be parallel with the, with the mat, with the seat of the chair.

So you're going to come back a little bit further this way. There you go. And then straighten out your legs. Now just get a sense of your shoulder blades of the head of the arm bones coming back and now bend and straighten the arms without closing the chest. Just bend the elbows wide and feel how you can connect through the mid back. And also see if can get a feeling of activating your upper inner thighs and the the lower part of your gluten hamstring. Nice.

Now straighten the arms. Now this movement is not going to be a back bend. It's going to be a hip extension exercise. So on the next exhale, as you press your sit bones towards your pubic bone with straight legs come up into a plank. Straight line from your ankles to your shoulders. That's it. Front ribs will stay in, shoulders are low. And then inhale back down, hindering from the hip joint. Feel your way through that. So on the exhale, feel the coming up into plank with active legs and inhale down.

Beautiful and again, feel the connection to the legs and then the connection to the middle, back and belly. Beautiful. One more. Now as you come down, hold the down position and take your right arm forward, palm in towards your ears. You're reaching it out. That really connect low in the body. And now do three on that side. Coming up into plank and single arm. Inhale down. Feel the length of both sides of the waistline. Shoulders, stay nice and low. One more. Feel the lift.

Beautiful. Come down and we'll switch sides. Connect low in your body before you move into it. Feel the connection of the underside of your shoulders. That's it. And two more. And one beautiful you guys. Now as you come down and push the paddle down, just let your head hang for a moment that everything's soften for a few breaths.

Just let go of work. Before we do this next exercise, just let yourself let go of any unnecessary tension for a moment. Very nice. Now when you're ready, come back into straight line and slide your torso or your hips onto the chair so you're in. Your shoulders are right over your risks and your feet are off the ground. For the traditional swan. Only difference is going to be the way that I teach it.

So it's going to be a little bit different. So what I'd like you to do is you're going to do an exercise before you extend the spine called levitation. So levitation means that your front ribs are going to dry in and on the exhale you're going to levitate up onto your thighs without arching the back. So the XLF. Now as you inhale, slide the upper chest through the arms and come up into the upper back extension shoulders. I'm in Lincoln all the way back down to the start. Paddle will go down in to prepare XL levity.

Inhale to extend shoulders. Slide in. Upper chest opens. Exhale all the way down to the start. Inhale to prepare. Exhale to levitate. Inhale to extend and open the chest XL all the way down. We're going to just do that one more repetition and help to prepare Xcel to levitate. Inhale, extend and open.

Exhale all the way down and when you're ready, gently help yourself back off the chair. Hold the front front of the seat and just stretch back for a moment. Take a [inaudible] a couple of breaths, and then when you're ready, we're going to slow slowly rolled up through the spine and we're going to go into a side bend and a side twist. Now I think that tension level should be fine for you. You're gonna start like so you'll come into a side plank.

The tendency in the side plank is to be long on the bottom side. So you want to feel like your side bending down in, zipping up your legs, and you'll start like this. You'll also tend to bring the legs forward, but I'll guide you through that. So when you're ready, come into position. That's it. Have your shoulder right over your wrist. Now zip up your legs. You can have your front hand on the seat for a moment if you'd like just to find your position. That's it. Now with the bottom side, feel like your side bending down so you feel like you're gonna feel like your side bending down when you're straight. That's it, Amy. There you go. Now take your top arm to the sky and zip up your legs.

Now on the exhale, as you look towards your feet side bend, using your upper by your side body on the top and let the arm come down towards your legs. Now inhale back down inside. Then with the downside of the body, so it's active opposed to just doing it with gravity. Exhale, side bend towards the feet. Inhale down side bend with the downside. One more time before we add something to it. Side Bend. There you go. And then back. Now this next one, let the top arm pull straight up to the ceiling. The lift. You now leave the paddle high in.

Spiral the upper body down and take both hands to the paddle. You can open the left arm further away from the midline. Now let the upper body go back down and hold that shape and zip up the legs. Inhale, bend the elbows away from each other. Exhale the straight and feel the wrap of the rib cage. Legs are glued together.

Two more times. There we go. And one from that long arm position. Bring the left arm back to the center. Come back from the side bend. Now side bend over the top. Taking your left right hand towards the floor in front of you and lift your top ribs up to open the ribs. As you bring the arm up, take your bottom leg forward. Top leg back and come all the way up to sitting.

This will go back. There you go. Very nice. Now we'll switch sides. Okay. We had no choreography on this floor beforehand, so these guys are doing amazing. Thank you. That's it. Not really. Get that sense of alignment first. Find how, feel how the inner thighs find your stability and also feel like your slightly side bending down, which brings you into straight top. Arm will be straight up. Now on the Xcel, use the top side of the body to side bend.

Looking towards your feet. On the inhale down. Here's the bottom side. Actively to bring yourself into straight line and again, side bend, strong legs. Open hips side, bend down. One more time. Side Bend Up, side bend down. Now this next one, let the top arm pull you straight up to the ceiling to get heightened. Lift wrap down to the paddle pal stays high. Open the right arm a little wider. Now take the body back down so you're in line with your pelvis. Inhale, bend the elbows wide. Exhale, activate your legs. Show the blades core. You're ringing out your body like a corkscrew, like a towel.

Two more. That's it. And one more from the long arm position. Slide the right hand back to the center, left arm to the sky, bottom lego of go forward, top leg, back to split yourself to come all the way up. I left out that other part. Then I left out that side. Then there you go. That's it, Christie. Very nice. Awesome. From there, we're going to come around and we're going to change the spring potential for lunges, so I recommend fairly heavy. Let's go with two on number on the second practice from the top, we have a lot of support and I recommend, the way I teach it is you start from the top, so put your hands on the seat and press the paddle all the way down and then put one foot towards the back edge of the chair and then let the springs take you all the way up to the top. We'll start from the very top.

Just noticed the view from up there. Get comfortable up there. We're all good. Very nice. Say hello to your neighbor. Now from there eye. So way you want to feel at the Tennessee and lunges is to do way too much work with the quads. So the way you want to get, you want to get yourself more into the back of the leg. So have your toes towards the back edge. And when you bend your knees towards this packet, there you go.

Now you'll have more less pressure on the knees now, right when you bend your knees, see if you can sense the back of the pelvis widens sense that now activate your hamstrings by resisting the heels back so you feel the back of the legs are turned on. Now keep that and do a slight weight shift to your left. And now with the right leg, reach back and find the paddle. You're going to have to go down a little bit cause it's, it's, it's back there. That's it. Now, right there. Now take your arms forward and rib cage arms now scissor the legs together before you even move. And on the inhale go down about halfway.

Now scissor the legs to come up just to where the foot is still on the paddle. We're going to do three like that before we take it all the way up. That's it. And if you needed to, you could have hand support here. These guys don't. These guys are awesome. Now in the next three, you're going to come all the way up into a knee fold. Squeeze all the way up, knee fold and lift. Now as you bend that standing leg, feel the back of the leg and find the paddle again. This is your Ninja moment. That's it. Find the paddle and scissor up with control.

Niffle and then find it again last time. That's the Christie. There you go. And that scissor right up to the top. Find it. Maintaining your posture. Let the arms come down. Let the leg come down and take a breath. Beautiful work. Now again, right as you're about to bend, feel like you want to keep your center of gravity as low as possible. Feel the back of the pelvis widen.

Now resist the heels back to turn on the back of the legs in the center line. Inner thighs. I do a slight weight shift to your right and now find the paddle with the left leg. Reach back. There you go. That's it. Now. Now feel the back of the leg is active on that reaching leg. Now go down, reaching into it now. Scissor the legs to come up. Three foot still on the paddle. There you go. That's it. It's all good.

That's it. That's it. One more now three where you'll bring it all the way up. Feel that trajectory slightly forward and up. Needy your chest. That's it. Nice clear. Hinge in the hips. Reach back and find it. Both legs are strong and active. Your light. There you go. That's it. It's a low paddle. If this makes a challenging.

Very nice. One more time. One more time. Last one. That's it. Hipsters level as you can make it. That's it. And then scissor back up. Knee fold. Beautiful leg. Lower arms, lower and rest. Huh? I swear that was the party.

Now from there we're going to go into hamstring stretch. Three so you can roll down, put your hands on the seat, and then step the paddle down to the bottom. So for this one, we're going to actually go into turnout, have your hands slightly forward and wide, and then in turn out lumbar flex. Draw that the lower belly up and feel the lower back. Imagine your lower back suspended from the ceiling and the shoulders are wide and low.

And now zip up from your inner knee to your pubic bone and challenge yourself to lean as little forward as you need to. To go up holding that lumbar flex position. Go up as high as you can and then just go down about three inches before the bottom. Go back up. That's it. Feel the lift through the midline. The neck is long, the shoulders are wrapped wide, you're staying low in your body. Just three more nice and fluid. Beautiful. Nice.

Lift through the midline. And two more and one more. Okay. As you lower shandleys step off. Beautiful work. Ah, now we're going to come around to the back. We're going to do reverse Swanson for the reverse.

Wanting to have the paddle up close to the seat. We're going to do that crossing of the spring to the, to the highest setting with just one spring. Okay. And then we'll come around and we'll have a seat with the paddle will be to the back of you. There you go. There you are. Perfect.

That's it. And we'll start with um, legs straight. And I just want you to start with your hands on the paddle. Just feel where it's at. That's it. Now, zip up your legs and take the head of your arm bone straight back. So think of what's going to take the paddle down is, uh, your, your abdomen. So curl back to push the paddle down. Take a short breath.

How's that spring tension? Feel that feel arise, feel heavy. Oh, have you been in my scheme? How's that? If it feels heavy, we can make it lighter. Let me get telling you that. Okay. So let's go down. Let's go down. Let's go down one cactus lower right. Let's see if that helps. We can even go, we can even go to cactus lowers. Let's see how that feels. Yeah. So now we're two cactus's from the bottom. Let's see how it goes better. Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be control that. Okay. Alright. No, that's important. This is what you got to feel with when you play with it. You got to find out what's right for your body and body weight's gonna be, it's gonna be different for everybody. So no on the excess. Zip up the legs, lumbar, flex the, push the pedal down. Take a short breath of the bottom.

Now Curl over your center, keeping the front of the hips open as far as you can bath. And now inhale, stack the spine up tall at the top and exhale to short. Inhale. See, I'll curl back up and over your center. Beautiful. And as you inhale, lift and open. One more time. Exhale, curl. Short breath. Exhale, curl back up. Inhale, grow tall. And now we're going to take it into rotation. So I like you to take your left arm up as you take that right shoulder back on the exhale. Turn and flex back, keeping the right hip weighted. Turn the arm to the back. Exactly. Now as you inhale, come right back up to center. Bring in your rib to your opposite hip. That's it.

And then exhale, spiral back. Beautiful Christie. Now inhale, come across to come to center. That's it. And feel like you're turning around a tight rec rotation. Last one back up. Come right up to now. Lift both arms up, get long now find the paddle with the other side and spiral back on the exhale. Inhale, come across the body to come back to center. Beautiful. Two more spiraled back.

Pull across zipped up legs. One more. Last one. Come across. Lengthen up straight and release. Beautiful work. We just have two more exercises we're going to do seated mermaid. We'll face this direction so you can face the side. Amy, that would be wonderful and we're going to do it with both feet just like that where your legs are bent facing down. Now the challenge with this one, it seems like you don't go as far, but the stretch is deeper. That's what I seen. That's what I find.

So I'd like you to do is take your right, your outside arm overhead with the palm up. Now with it palm up, bend the elbow slightly and feel the connection from the heel of the hand to the bottom of the shoulder as zip up the inner thighs. And on the exhale as you press down into the paddle, push up into the heel of the hand, keeping the connection to the rib cage to let that straight and a little more. There you go. That's it. As you inhale at the top ribs, bring you up with the breath. Exhale back over. That's it. Inhale, lift. Exhale. Over. Inhale to lift. We're going to do one more. We're going to add something to it.

So Xcel over, and as you inhale, spiral forward to the palm. Will face you in the shoulder wide. He can go. That's it. Now breathe into the stretch. Come back to the side position. Now bring your arm down to shoulder height. Now press back and look back.

Come back to the side on the exhale. Go deeper into your side. Bend, let along and he'll bring you all the way up and release and we'll turn around and take the second side. Beautiful. You guys are doing awesome. This is pretty cool. You guys are doing great. So just get that sense that that the arm is connected to the spine. So what's really doing the bending is the spine instead of the arms doing too much work. So grow tall on the exit with that Scapula, the connections side bend to push the pedal down. And now as your inhale at the top long, bring you up and then exhale back over. That's it.

Inhale to lift. Exhale over your staying heavy in the outside hip in help to lift on the next one. We're going to go over and stay over. So inhale over. Now spiral forward. Feel the shoulder blade stays low and wide and breathe into your back low ribs. You're opening like an accordion. Come back to the side stretch. Now bring the arm down to shoulder level with a straight arm from the back of the shoulder. Press back to open the chest, back to the side position. Xcel deeper into your side.

Bend with a long inhale at the long inhale. Bring you all the way up and gently release. Awesome. Now we're going to finish with a stretch for your hips, so I'll show you what this looks like. You're just going to do pigeon on the back of the chair and you're just going to exhale, hinge from your hips, the poster rounding the back. You'd just hinge and come up and then we'll add a rotation to it and I'll talk you through. So picks whatever side you like. That's it. Just square the pelvis and just get a sense that your, you're not changing the shape of the spine.

You're rolling the pelvis up and over your leg and just lean until where you feel like you're getting a little stretching. Just take a breath there, take a few breaths, and a nice thing a teacher could do is they could accidentally rotate the leg and give you a little bit of pressure into the pelvis. That's it. Let's take a few breaths there. That's it. Nice. Now if you have your right leg up, put your left hand in the middle of the paddle. Put your left hand on your lower back or your right hand on your lower back. Now extend your spine straight and turn to your right drawing back into your right hip and take a few breaths. That's it.

You feel that nice opening across the hip. One more breath like that and then slowly back to center and help yourself up and we'll switch sides. [inaudible] that's it. Just set yourself up. Make sure there's no torquing in the knee. Nice and square. Let yourself hinge forward. The pelvis is rolling over the top of the femur heads and just find that position where you're just taking it slow. One side might be tighter than the other.

Now from there, extend your spine to straight. Bring your right hand to the middle left hand to your lower back or your hip and turn the torso to your left. Drawing back into your left hip to feel that deeper stretch into the hip muscles. Make sure there's no strain. Take a nice and smoothly breathe down towards your hips. Breathe low in the body.

One more fluid breath, and then slowly come back to center. Now come to standing to finish. We're going to stand. I'd like you to stand with your feet about four inches apart. Make sure you've got room. You might even come around to the front of your mats. We'll just take the fee right under your hip joints and just bend the knees slightly and it starting from the top of the spine. Curl down into yourself.

Allow the pelvis to roll over the top of your legs. Nod your head yes a couple times. Feel the weight of it rotated a few times and take a nice fluid breath. And as you exhale, feel the sit bones. Get heavy and draw down as the waistline floats up. And stack the spine, one vertebrae at a time.

Arriving in align posture and just close your eyes for a moment. Soften behind your eyes. Allow the top of the chest to float up. Slightly. Knowledge Yourself, your hard work. You guys, nice job. Okay. Hope you enjoyed.

Comments

Ronda P
1 person likes this.
Frog front... who knew? Great inspiration as alwaysTom!
1 person likes this.
Thank you, Tom for another wonderful class. Your cueing style is calming with just enough information. Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to work with many more of your classes on Pilateanytime. Always a pleasure.
I have taken all your PA classes and when I think it can't get any better along comes another. Loved the chair class. I don't have a tower or cadillac but I do mimic some of the spring exercises with my bands and wall anchors. Would love to have a spine corrector class!!!!
Happy to say Katherine we know Tom will be coming back to film more classes at the end of Fall!
1 person likes this.
What a great class! Lots of new stuff for me. I look forward to more classes with you. I really liked the hip stretch at the end. Ive got tight hips so it felt great.
Wonderful class! I come to love the chair more and more! The hip-stretch at the end was awesome, but also all the rotation-work. Thank you Tom, great cues and calming voice! I am looking forward for more classes with you!

I'm pretty sure Tom is my hero! Yet again another amazing class!!!! Thank you!
1 person likes this.
Tom,
Great class! Thank you for adding specific instructor queues - they were very helpful!
Wow! Loved the class and Tom's cues. Can't wait to start trying these execises.
Great class!! Thank you, Tom! You're cues are calming and re-assuring! You are very gifted at cueing what the body should be feeling. Thank you!!
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