Class #1488

Postnatal Magic Circle Flow

40 min - Class
53 likes
Loading...

Description

Monica teaches part 3 of a Postnatal Mat series using the Magic Circle. This third session moves a little quicker than the previous classes because she starts to link the exercises together. This class will help you reconnect to your powerhouse after having your baby.

You can try Monica's first Postnatal Mat Workout and second Postnatal Mat Workout before you take this class. These classes are recommended for mothers who are 6 weeks postpartum or more.
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

All right. Today we are here with Brooke who is really postpartum. She six weeks, just had a little six week old baby and Brianna, who's has a 15 month baby. Um, but she's extremely fit. So we're gonna kind of keep looking at everybody's bodies and seeing how we're doing. But this is the third one in a postpartum session. The first one's very, very detailed and very wordy and it's really great to get started. And the second one is a little quicker, but this one's going to be quite a bit quicker. So, but I'm not completely, somewhere in between a basic and an intermediate. You always want a magic circle when you're trying to regroup from having a baby.

So we're going to start lying on your bats. Go ahead and lie down ladies and have your knees bent and feet flat on the Mat. Good. And grab your circle and go ahead and place it between your inner thighs. Just Kinda to wake up the outer thighs and the seat and go ahead and start by tilting your pelvis towards you like its bullet soup. I'm going to use all these terms that I've used in the other classes and tilt it away from you so that you can feel how your lower back is lifted up off the mat and it's arched, and then little mouse can crawl onto your back.

So you know you're going to want to squeeze your hips together and that's going to squeeze a circle a bit. Then you're going to want to draw your pelvic floor, your lower belly and everything to pull into the mat to get it a little bit flat back onto your mat. Great. And I want you to put [inaudible] hands one over the other behind your head and just lie down and think about the your lungs, kind of like Gills on the side of your body. And I want you to inhale opening up those gills and exhale, pulling your belly in and up into your gills basically. So inhale, really opening your ribs and making a big nights open cavity. And then exhale, pulling your belly in and up into that area.

Now I want you to think about that sea saw that we've talked about that when your chest bone goes down, your head has an easier time coming up and being supported by your upper abdominals. So we're gonna inhale and exhale. Draw your belly in and up and look at your belly. Good. Make sure it was like that seesaw and take a breath and then exhale, pull your belly and roll down your neck. Almost pushing your head into your hands for nice stretch on your neck. Let's squeeze the circle a little bit so that you're narrowing the hips, pulling the pelvic floor in and up, and your lower belly. Inhale, lift your head. Exhale, look at your belly, makes sure it pulls in as you exhale, not pushes out coming up as high as you can.

Take another breath and exhale, roll down, pulling your belly in to your back. Next time we're going to stay there, but now I want you to take the circle and put it between your ankles, so we're going to slide it, put it between your ankles and have the feet back again on the Mac. Great job. One hand over the other, behind your head. Good. We're going to sneak into a hundred here, so we're going to inhale into your gills. Exhale, drawing the belly in and up. Thinking about your pelvic floor. Come on up with your head and shoulders. Great.

Now reach your arms long by your side, both of them and inhale. Exhale, drawing your belly in and up, not letting it push out at all. On the next exhale, inhale, we're going to bend the knees into your chest. You're going to pull your belly in and bring those knees towards you, forming a tabletop with your legs. Big Breath and exhale. Good. Most important part here is that you're just feeling your belly pulling in to the mat. Really warming up your stomach. If your neck gets tired, roll down your neck and head and rest it down. We're about 60 here.

Inhaling, exhaling and big breath and exhaling for the last 10 if you need a little challenge, you're going to straighten your legs almost to the ceiling, but a little lower and exhaling scoops, scoops, scoop, great job. Hold under your knees and [inaudible] directly into, you can grab on top too if you want. You might lose your circle, but we're gonna take it away anyway. And I want you to go ahead and sit up. Keep a hold of it. We're going to use it for almost every exercise and have your feet now in line with your hip bone. So a little bit apart. And we're going to put it between your inner thighs. Okay? Holding it there. Good hand and underneath your knees. Good.

And I want you to take a big breath filling up those lungs and exhale, drawing your belly in and up. So I want you to think about posture and gravity. So instead of sitting like this, we're gonna sit up tall feeling those two sit bones right on our cheeks. And I want you to narrow those sit bones down. I want you to pull your pelvic floor up. I want you to squeeze a circle with your outer and inner thighs and draw that belly up. Good. And inhaling.

And this time I want you to exhale and [inaudible] round your back, curling your little tailbone towards you. Okay. Getting significant engagement that lower stomach your hands. Stay underneath your knees and we're going to pull your belly button away, getting your waistband onto the mat. Old, take a breath and exhale. Pull your belly into your back to come forward. Good. Take a breath and then exhale, scoop it in.

Squeeze your hipbones together. Pull your pelvic floor and belly towards you. Take a breath here and exhale, scooping in, trying this. Keep your waistband down on the mat as long as you can. Again, like that last one, and then we're going to it. But this is a great spot to keep it. Take a breath and exhale, scoop it into gain flexibility in your back as well as string.

Then your stomach, so if you can come up smoothly, then we'll move on to the next bones up. [inaudible] Bra Strap. So taking a breath and exhale. Squeeze a circle, pull your belly away from it. Roll down one bone at a time till you hit your bra strap. Take a breath, press your bra, strap down, your waistband, down even further to curl up one bone at a time, getting that nice c curve. Now we'll go down all the way. We'll actually do the [inaudible] bra strap. Again, take a breath and squeeze your hips together. Draw your pelvic floor towards you, your lower belly down to your bra strap.

Take a breath and exhale, scoop it in. Very nice. That's really challenging. But if you really need more than we're going to go down your head. So this time we're going to inhale as you start moving. So inhaling and then exhale all the way down.

Touch your head. Inhale to lift your head and exhale all the way up. And again, inhale to roll away. Narrow those hips. Pull your pelvic floor towards you. Lower belly. Exhaling. Inhale, lift your head and exhale, peeling it up. Good. All the way forward. One more time in with the air. As you start pulling back with your powerhouse. Exhale, rolling.

One at a time down. And guess what? You're going to stay there. And the next one. We're going to take the circle away, but bring the knees together, feet flat, holding onto your circle. I want you to use it for a stretch. You're going to bend the right knee into your chest. Good, and then put your circle on your ball of your foot of the right foot, and straighten your leg. Good. Now think about the box that we always talk about in our classes here, and I want you to keep it straight.

Don't let your right hip come hike up towards your shoulder and now pull that leg up towards you. Little turnout in that knee is what we want to make sure the shoulders and collarbones are [inaudible] nice and flat. Get those shoes. There you go, Brianna. Good. Try to drop your shoulders a little bit more, Brooke into the Mat. Yeah, good, good, good, good. If this is an easy stretch for you, then lengthen the left leg down the middle of your body on the Mat. If it's not too easy, then keep it bent and you're going to put your circle down. Just going to put mine. There you go. And arms by your side, you're going to pull that right leg up to your nose using your abdominals.

And okay, so first actually I want you to put your hands on your hip bones and they should be straight across and they should also be not totally tilted towards you, but kind of a little flat. Okay, so straight across, pull your belly in so deep that it's below your fingers. Really pressing. You're down to the mat. Keep your hips like that, but reach that five bone out of your hips towards the ceiling. Like you could touch the ceiling and now reach it away from you. Down the middle of your body. Reach, reach, reach, really lengthening that thigh and now to pull it up, pull it up with your belly, your belly goes deeper into your back, into the mat to more rich. And then pulling it up from your stomach. Last one, rich.

And then pulling it up from your belly. Hold it up as high as you can with your stomach and now cross the body towards your left shoulders. Circle it down, around, up, cross around Ena or pick it up a little bit. Three times your cross, around and up. Cross around and up. One more. Cross around, an up, reverse down around enough. Reach around, enough, some axes anchored into the mat too, around and up. Last time. Lengthening that leg and then hug the knee into your chest. Nice job. Put that right foot down. Bend the left knee and and grab your circle and put it on the left ball of foot and stretch again. Try to keep your hips square, the left leg a little turned out and pull it up towards you.

Try not to sacrifice your upper body, your neck, shoulders, collarbones. Just enjoy a good stretch. Again, if this is easy, lengthen the right leg down the middle of the body on the mat. All right, put your circle down and we're going to have our hands on our hip bones. Again, making sure they're straight, making sure our bellies deeper than our our hands. And reach that leg up to touch the ceiling without lifting the hip up. And you're going to reach down the middle of your body. The leg lengthens even more to pull it up and reach.

So as you're getting stronger, you want to make sure that your leg one more is a little turn down. So hold it up here now with your belly. And when you do your circle, make sure your knee is pointing more towards your left shoulder than towards your right shoulder. Okay, so we're gonna pull it up towards our nose, cross the body around and up. Cross around and up. Three more. So as you cross that knee wants to roll in, keep it from rolling in to strengthen your hips and reverse down around enough, down around. And as your leg goes down, your belly pulls in more. Two and one more. Scoop it in. There Ya go. Good hug in that knee. Nice job. Alright, now I want you to sit up any way you can and kind of, and we're going to come up.

Good. Very nice. Now I want you to just put the circle down for this one. Good. And back to Kinda that roll back position. So this time though, knees will be squeezing and feet are together. Good. A little. That's nice. Now round your back as much as you can. Press your hips together and scoop in your belly.

So you're going to be squeezing your inner thighs, pulling your pelvic floor up, and we're going to get your waistband back down onto the mat. Good. Take a breath and exhale. Scoop in again. Good. Now we're going to go down your bra strap, waistband bra strap, and then forward. Good. Now what I love to do is imagine that I have a six pack on my belly and use it to correlate with my spine. So as I roll back my waistband, that's my lower set of my six pack. So think my lower set and then my middle set and my bra straps, my upper set to come up. Take a breath and press your upper set.

Engage that then your middle six pack and then your lower. Okay. Very important. One more time. Lower middle, upper. And then take a breath and come up. Exhaling, upper set, middle set, lower and scoop. And stay like this where you're a little more. Yeah. Good. So we've got our six pack engaged. And why are we doing this exercise again?

Cause now we're switching it up to rolling like a ball. Well you're not gonna push your lower back forward at all. You're going to keep using your stomach and you're going to balance with one foot off the mat. And if I was looking at your box, I wouldn't know anything was happening and put the foot down and pulling your belly and you're going to balance with the other foot up. Good. And put it down and easy as pie. Right? And you're going to bounce with the right foot up and that.

And just a foot an inch off the mat for me, Brooke. So lift your thigh more than your [inaudible] and now hold it and we're adding the other leg. Nothing changes. This on zone is pretty hard for some people if you, um, the goal is to kind of get your shoulders a little more rounded over your hip bones. But if we can take it a little further, we're gonna pretend we're rocking chair and there's a rocker right here and you're gonna rock back to your bra strap and come up and balance like this. Not like this. Okay. So drawing your lower six pack in, roll back up, or six pack and balance balance. Good.

Inhale back. Exhale up and bounce. Good. Inhale back and exhale and two more in with the air. And exhale last time. Great. Now you get to rest your feet down. Nice job. Go ahead and lie down. And we're going to do single leg stretch.

So I want you to remember that your head lifts with your upper six pack and k. So you're gonna put your hands behind your head again, one over the other. Take a breath and exhale. Draw in the ribs, that upper stomach, exhaling, pooling in your belly, not pushing it out. Stay and bring your right knee into. Ideally, the right hand is going to go on the ankle, left hand on the knee. Don't worry about it.

Grab your leg any way you can if you have a healthy knee and hip. Okay, straighten the left leg by reaching it away from your tight stomach. And we're going to switch and switch and switch. I went into this exercise in ridiculous detail in the first two, so I'm just going to go through it here. Stomach pools in those legs, scooping in two more sets, right and left and one more set, right and left. Good. Bring both knees in and I got to sit up to get my circle, but just grab your circle and we're going to do the double version of that. We're doing a series of five today and it's single, double, single, double and then the cross.

So we're going to put your ankle a circle between your ankles, one hand over the other, behind your head. I just always think when you're getting back into shape, it's easier to connect with your upper stomach like this. So you're going to inhale opening those gills and exhale, draw your belly in as your seesaw works and now reach your arms long to your ankles and pull your ankles into. Ideally your squeeze in the circle right now with your hips. Good. And now reach your arms and legs up and then pull them back together.

Squeeze a circle out, hopefully squeeze the circle in. Squeezing out for five and pulling in. Knees and toes are looking away from each other to get your outer thighs, your glutes and your inner thighs to more. Inhaling, drawing the belly and always last one and exhale. Good job. Rest your neck down and take away the circle. Now we're going to do single straight leg, but it's almost going to look like single leg circles.

You're going to pull the right knee into your chest and stay nice and flat with your head. Reach that right leg up and give yourself a nice stretch. This time with your hands either behind your thigh, which is good enough, or if you're needing more stretch behind your calf, arms down by your side. Again, you're going to keep your belly anchored below your hip bones and reach that right leg up to the ceiling, down towards the floor, reaching it and feel how your stomach pulls that leg up. Bend the knee, put it down, bend the left knee in. So I'm just trying to link all the exercises together for you.

Stretch this left one by a hands behind your calf or thigh, and then put your hands down by your side. Good. Really reached that leg long as your belly dives down, turning out the knees slightly and reach it long down the middle of your body and pulling it up from your stomach. Good job. Now bend the knee and put that foot down. Good. Now I want those hands again, one over the other behind your head and you're going to inhale and exhale. Draw your belly in, pulling in the upper belly and the lower belly. Everything's pulling in and up and now hugging that right knee.

Good and hugging the left. Now straighten both legs up, but only hold onto the left ankle or calf. And now reach that right leg long and down the middle of your body and hold onto the left leg as you pull up the right leg. Switch to the right hand, right leg and down and pull it up. Grab onto your left leg, reach the right one away and pull it up with your belly. Grab onto the right leg, reach the left away. This is all in your stomach, hopefully. And one more time, right? And pull up that right. Watch those shoulders from keeping up and left and pulling it up.

Now gram onto the left. Reach the right one away and now we're going to switch. As they pass each other. Switch, switch, switch. And as you get stronger, you move them faster cause it's not a quad leg exercise. It's a powerhouse exercise. One more set. And now bend the knees. Rest your head. Nice job. Now the double version is a little bit better and kinder, put the circle between your ankles for when we're getting back into shape.

Cause when your legs work together against each other, they give your pelvis more stability. So hand over, hand behind your head. And this time they're going to stay there for the next two exercises. We're not going to take the hands away anymore. I want you to inhale and exhale. Draw the belly in the nut to lift your head up, extend the legs and you're gonna use them like those barbershop pools.

And they're rapping and squeeze and squeeze the circle. Lower Jerome, just a few inches. And use your lower belly to pull up towards you. Inhale, exhale in with your think of curling your tailbone towards you. It's a serious lower abdominal work here. Try to use that seesaw, Brooke, and curl up just another inch. Yes, give me one more here and now bend the knees into a tabletop, but lower the head. And if you need to bend your knees in, you can. But they're gonna stay at a tabletop. Now this one's hard, but it's really good for your waist. You're going to keep the circle without driving it. So no movement in your lower body, no movement in your knees or anything.

Take a breath and exhale, lifting up. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Take your right elbow towards your left knee without moving the lower body. Come Center other side. Lift over. Stay up as you come. Center. One more set up. Stay Center.

Lift as you go over to the right knee and relax. Nice job. Take the circle away. Sit on up. Now we're going to hold onto it and do what I call a little tummy left here. So you're going to open the legs wider than your shoulders for it. You guys have the benefit of the boxes.

Put your heel in the middle of each block. Yep. And pull your toes back. So nice and flex. Get all righty. So you're going to put the circle right. Um, pat on top of the pad and they should be, if you're sitting up tall, the heel of your hand should be able to go onto the pad without getting concave or changing your posture. Let's start with the right hand on the circle. Left hand on top. Good. Open your chest more. Beautiful. So we're going to squeeze our bottom and lift off of it.

Like we're on a bed of nails. Whew. Up off of it. Pull your pelvic floor up, pull your belly up. Good. And now we're gonna curl forward. And as you do, you're only gonna push down the circle as far as you can lift in here. If your hip flexors are grabbing, that goes, bring your bottom forward a little bit. Yep, great. And Heel, but, and you can keep your feet like that if that's easier. It's just about lifting a little more in here. Okay. All right.

Lift up a little bit out of your lower back for me, Briana. There you go. All right, so we're gonna take a big breath and exhale, bring your head down and curl into yourself. But it's all about just lifting your lower belly as you push down, lifting your belly in and up, and then release. Take a big breath. Exhale, scoop it in and up. As you push down, pulling your belly in and up.

Small, small movement and coming up. Let's switch hands to the left. One's on the pad and here we go. In with the air. And exhale, pressing down as the belly pulls in and up in and of lifting it. Lifting it. Good.

One more time. Big Breath and action. Exhale, scooping it in and up. Imagining that you can stretch between each vertebra in your lower back and rolling up. Nice job. Lie down on your back corkscrew. We're gonna do some more waste work. Bend your knees in, extend the legs up and you're going to put it between your circles. Arms by your side. And now you get to stay nice and flat with your head and your spine.

Squeeze a circle and you're going to lower it down two inches and pull it up with your lower belly. Good. And lower it down a little bit and pull it up with your lower belly. Hold on, let it fall. We're going to go away from the ocean, so my right and then pull it center towards the ocean, left and center again to the right. And I was just about to Saybrook. Usually you have to be pretty flexible with your hamstrings. Okay.

Go ahead and bend the knees for a second and actually lower the feet while I talk. I'm pretty flexible with your hamstrings cause otherwise you'll start feeling cramping or gripping. So sometimes we'd just have to leave the zone out for a little while so you can try it or you can leave it out. But the hip flexors will definitely cramp up as well. If you have a bad back, it's not great either. So this might be a skip it exercise. But for those of us who want to try it, you're gonna extend the legs up and we're going to now let the circle fall away from the ocean, then circle it down a little bit towards the ocean and center.

So that's left. Circle it down a little bit. Scoop around and center. So you're keeping your back on the mat and reaching your legs in a circle at the other way. Left away from it. You're trying to squeeze your hips together with the circle so you can feel that work. And we have one more, but great waste work and stomach and outer and inner thigh. All right, we're gonna sit up and if you skipped it, it's already over. So now we're gonna this one. I'm just want you to get a good stretch.

So we're not going to detail this one, but arms out to the side because we need a good stretch. Sometimes head saying you have a healthy back. Pull your belly in and upgrade tall, twist to your right and exhale, reaching towards your baby toe. Inhale, roll up your spine. Sit up tall, twist to the left and exhale down. And inhaling up and twist.

I'm just going to keep it moving. There's so much you can knit. Pick on this exercise. But for today I just want you trying to twist and reach and coming up. Sometimes you just got to move and twist and reach and up. And last one twist and exhale and rolling.

Good. Now bring your legs together. So now we're going to do our only exercise on our belly. Okay? So I want you to knock it, use your circle. So just get it kind of out of the way. Lie on your stomach and we're gonna have our forehead on the mat. And our arms are gonna be long by your side, okay.

And I want you to imagine that there is, well, first of all, I want you to pull your belly button in and pull in your belly. Good. And then let it go. When you let it go, you should feel heavier than right now when you pull your belly in and up. Good. Now I want you to think about stretching in two different directions. So send your pelvis towards your feet and try to pull your spine. So long stretches so long and tall, that's like the crown of your head can touch the wall in front of you.

All right, so now imagine that there's a pencil between your shoulder blades and I want you to squeeze that pencil. So really open the collarbone. Squeeze that Pencil and let it go and do that. Again, hard to talk with my head down, but my head should be so squeezing good and down fat. I'm going gonna leave that out and you're gonna squeeze. Now while you're squeezy, I want your stomach to pull in and still keep that length in the spine.

Now see if you can lift up your head good and keep your belly lifting, not pushing into the mat like a big balloon. You want to keep it lifting and lower down. Good. Pull your belly in, squeeze that Pencil and coming up up. Squeeze in that pencil between it. That's it Brooke. Now as you come down and try to think a little bit of lengthening your spine to as you come down, now I want you to bend your elbows and put your hands underneath your shoulders. If you have a really flexible back, you can stay like that.

But most of us need them to move by three inches in front of the shoulders and out to the side. All right, now it's hard to do it, but you still want to do the same thing, which is pull your belly in, squeeze that imaginary Pencil and actually lets have the hands an inch up off the mat. So they're hovering here and we're gonna pull up our head and our chest and when we can't come up anymore supporting with the belly, squeeze in the hips, then put your hands on the mat. And just come up in a nice back bent. As far as feels comfortable, the goal is to have the shoulders though away from your ears. Look over your right shoulder, circle the chin towards your chest, over the left shoulder, and look forward. And now circle over the left, down around right and come forward. Now hold it for a second. So Brooke, I'm gonna want you to not have your shoulders up like that. Good. Come down. So on this next one, we're gonna come up only as high as your shoulder blades can stay towards your spot. Okay, so we're gonna squeeze that Pencil and we're going to keep our hands hovering for a second and squeeze your legs together for good support.

Spool your belly in. And we're going to start coming up with your head. And when you can't come up any higher, put your hands down, but now only come up as high as your shoulders can stay open. So push into the mat. Good, good, good. Now look over your left shoulder this time. I know I'm tricky. Down around, over to your right. Look forward lifting your belly more. Yeah. Right shoulder. Circle the chin down around. Look forward and now calm down.

And when you circle, they had rang the chin all neck long, all the way down to your chest next time. Okay. Go ahead and push back. Rounding your back and sitting on your heels. Nice. Good, good, good stretching. Very nice on this. You always want your lower belly to be up off your thighs. So we're going to kind of round back even more there. Now stretch. That's better for you. Good. All right, now turn around and you're gonna lie onto your back and we're going to put the circle between your inner thighs for some hamstring and glute work.

So after the one we just did, there's usually some really good hamstring and glute work, but we're going to do it this way. All right, so completely flat pelvis, not tilted towards you, not letting a mouse crawl under your back either. Completely flat. Okay. I want you to have your feet hip width apart and we're going to draw your sit bones or your hip bones together. And we're going to squeeze that circle just with our pelvis, adding the glutes, adding the inner thighs and outer thighs. Now I want you to really feel your pelvic floor pull in and up and your lower belly curl your tailbone towards you.

So now we're starting to tilt our pelvis towards us and we're going to keep tilting using our bottom to start lifting up our sacred or our lower back. And our waistbands going to come up and we're going to come up until we're a straight line from our knee to our shoulders, trying to really reach a straight line. And we're gonna roll down upper back first, really articulating middle back, squeeze in the circle the whole time. And finally the tailbone. If you can adjust here, you might need to bring your feet a little in more. And we're going to now stay up there and do some pumps.

So we're going to pull your hips together and squeeze bottom outer thigh, inner thigh, draw your pelvic floor and your lower belly curls, your tailbone towards you. And we're going to start lifting up your waistband and lifting up everything and implies we always want to engage, but use those muscles to reach. So think about reaching your knees forward over your ankles and now holding your pelvis. Still. Give me 20 beats, one, two, three, four, five. Lifting your bottom up as high as you can cause it. Trust me, we always need to lift it a little bit more. And Eight, seven six lifting. Five, four, three, two, hold it up. Squeezing and melt down your chest bone, your bra strap, the next bone waistband and all the way down. If you need to adjust, you can.

But one more set. Pull your hips together, squeezing outer thigh, inner thigh. Draw the pelvic floor, curl that tailbone towards you and curling it up. Lifting up, trying to reach out of the hip flexors, not using them. And we're going to do 21 to three using the back of your thighs. The glutes hate nine 10 more. Squeezing a little higher up with your seat, right? There you go. Nice job loss camp. Let's say one and squeeze and rolling down. Upper back, middle rolling down one at a time. Fantastic. All right, so that was great work there.

So now we're going to lie on your side facing that way. Let's all face that way and I want you to use that block box in front of you. So put your feet on that box. Good. And then get your whole back on the back edge of your mat. So basically your legs are forward at a 45 degree angle. Good.

And bring elbow back just a little bit more. [inaudible] it's a little overkill. Sorry Brooke. Bring it forward a little bit. Yeah. Good. Now I'm going to help you girls. There's some fancy choreography with this, but for now I will put your circle. Yes. Okay. So we've got our sidekicks here. So the left hand, well, the top arm is going to be hand is going to be in front of you.

And I like to think of it like a kickstand, but also it reminds you that your belly should not be touching your kickstand. Your belly should be in it. Same here. You gotta bring your shoulder and little bit more forward. There we go a little more with the chest and then your elbow can go right there. There. Now you're straight, so pull your belly into your back.

The top leg needs to turn out so that we can see your inner thigh. Your hips are stacked, one on top of the other. Pull your belly in and now using your bottom first, then your outer thigh and inner thigh. Try to squeeze that circle down and hold it for five down. Four, three, two, one and release and scoop in your belly always first and then squeeze it down for five. Hold it. Try to pull your pelvic floor and belly up the other way and release and one more time. Stomach in and squeezing, and if you're using the right muscles, then the pads stay on top of each other and release.

If you're using too much of one or the other than they start to roll. I'm going to put it now on the outside of your legs coming over in a second. Brooke, he can just leave that there. Here we go. Lift. There you go. All right. Now both legs are, you can lift it. Good. And again, hips are stacked one on top of the other.

I'm going to have you bring your upper body for just a little bit cause your pelvis is low for, there we go. And you're going to pull your belly and turn that top leg out. And this time you've squeezed a circle like crazy. Watch the knee from Muse working too much. Now you get to stretch the circle. So pull your belly in and try to stretch it for five, four, three, two, one release, stomach in. And then push up on my hand right here.

This is where you should feel it. Kinda like no question about it and release. And one more. Pull it in and stretch, stretch, stretch. Fantastic. Okay, so I kinda lied. There is one more exercise on your belly. So we're gonna put the circle back between your ankles. Yes, but it's really good. Hamstring and bottom or can we always welcome that?

All right, good. And so we're going to have both legs turned out, stomach pulls in and you're gonna squeeze the legs together. And now with your belly. And try to lift both legs up and this is the way you can use your hand or whatever to help push and lift. This is the way you're going to lie on your belly with your legs up so it turn your stomach and keep the legs up and make a small pillow for your forehead. One hand over the other and hopefully you're centered on your mat and the legs are still up. I'm going to just pull you over your hips over a little, Briana.

There we go. And now keeping the legs long enough. You're going to lift. Make sure your knees are up. [inaudible] stomach supports the back 20 beats, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 ten one, two, three, four, five long, eight, nine. Nice job. We'll to your other side. So you're going to bring your feet forward to the other box and it's great to see your alignment. Great. So the both legs are on the outside again and both are relatively turned out.

Line A. Scoot your bottom back just a little bit. Good. Nice. Very good. All right, and you're going to keep the hips stacked, one on top of the other. Beautiful. Turn the top leg out a little bit. Pull your belly in and squeeze it down for five, four, three, two, one and release. Let's try not to let that circle balance it all stomach get and just hold it down to make sure that we could see your inner thigh from the front that you're hiding the outer side and release and stomach in and keeping those hips stacked and press down. You should really feel it in your outer thigh, your inner thigh, trying to pull your pelvic floor up and release. Good.

Now we're going to put your feet on the outside. Insight by law and just keep your leg down so it doesn't get tired. Here we go. Yes, and now holding that there. Good. All right. Hips are stacked. Oh, you can lift your leg up. Now both are turned out. So this is one that you finally get to stretch it, stomach in, and you're going to use the outer thigh right here to stretch it. Five four, three, two, one, release and stomach in and school lift, stretch, stretch, stretch and release and stomach. In and lift, lift, lift, lift and down. Nice job. Go ahead and take away your circles and lie on your back. You're not going to use your circle for the next one. It's the very last one.

So you're going to lie on your back. And we're going to just bend one knee in at a time and stretch. Amen. Good. Now I want you to go ahead and sit up any way you can. Okay. And I'm gonna put my down here and I want you to think of the roll back again. Okay. So your hands, your knees are going to be together, squeezing and your hands are underneath your knees. And I want you to pull your belly button in and roll your waistband back.

So lower belly and then take a breath and exhale up. Good. Brooke, that's at Brianna and now down your waistband. So sometimes we lose our, Huh? How do you do this in the of our mat and then curling up? Great. Now hold yourself nice and scooped. Yeah, yeah. There you go. And eyes down on your belly and bring your feet a little closer to you.

Go ahead and let your knees open a little bit. Like wider as wide as your shoulders. Yeah, and try to relax your shoulders and just keep it in your belly. Now bring your arms together and palms up and as if your belly can pull in more and bring your ankles to your hands. I want you to think of that connection. That's nice. All right. This is called seal and it's just a nice massage.

Eventually you're going to hold yourself with your abdominals when you're up and you're going to clap two, three. And when your bottom is over your shoulders, you're going to hold and clap three times there. But today I want you to just roll back, reaching your feet back like that rocking chair. Go for it. And then up and balance cause we all want to push that lower back forward. That was back what that was for for nine months. Okay, so you've got to pull it, pull your belly into it, roll back and come up, but stay together. Now. Exhale X. Exa. Here we go. Inhale, roll back.

Exhale up. Hold that belly into your back. Inhale back. Exhale up. Hold. Inhale, back. Exhale up to more. Remember, lower six pack, upper six pack and on the back. You're growing down, your waistband, and now your bras truck. Last time. Round that back. Inhale. Exhale. Hold it with your stomach. Relax your shoulders, rest your feet down, and you are all finished. Nice job.

Comments

2 people like this.
6 weeks post natal doing Hundreds?!
Monica Wilson
Although this is a postnatal class, please keep in mind it is the THIRD class in a series aimed to lay a strong foundation. The First in the series is very detailed and basic and only once you feel proficient in that class should you move on to the second class in the series. Brooke is only able to do this class because I work with her on a private basis and have prior to her pregnancy as well.
I just did that class 5 years post partum and it was challenging ! Fabulous class wish i had of been taking them after my babies. It has made me realise I need to be doing these classes before I move onto the higher levels.
9 people like this.
I'm a pilates teacher and 12 weeks post-partum. I too think, no matter the prior practice, doing hundreds and double leg stretches at 6 weeks post-natal it's a bit too much.
This is the second time I've done this post partum and I purposely left it for later post baby as I remembered this postpost my first pregnancyand I agree that this isn't really a post natal class- definitely a challenge but not a class I would recommend in the first few months PP regardless of the training done while pregnant.
Agree all 3 classes are a breakdown of basics and not tailored for post natal needs.
This is not appropriate for 6 weeks post birth.... way too much for any client (from an experience pilates teacher and mother of 3)
 
Jess H
I have tried this class twice, once when I was about 3 month postpartum and now where I am 6 months postpartum. The first time I tried it, I found it very challenging and couldn’t even do a roll back. I used that to really drive me to getting a stronger powerhouse and doing the other postpartum classes so when I did this recently I found it a lot easier and a good base to see how much I was improving. I really enjoy this class and will keep coming back to it. Thanks Monica xx

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin