Class #1684

Deepening your Powerhouse

50 min - Class
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Description

In this Mat workout, Monica focuses on getting out of the dominant muscles, and getting deep in the powerhouse. She uses the image stretching a spring in the body to keep you lifted. Monica flows through the intermediate exercises, but takes a little more time on the more advanced exercises to make sure you are engaging the correct muscles.
What You'll Need: Mat

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May 20, 2014
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All right, Rebecca. We are going to be doing an intermediate advanced workout today. So let's go ahead and cross your arms. One over the other. Start with a [inaudible] stance, heels together and toes part good. Feel the weight of the ball of every toe into the mat side of the foot and the heel.

And then feel a lift up your arch so that you can keep a grape under your arch, right. And your inner thighs are lifting your pelvic floors, lifting your powerhouse, lifting, everything's lifting. I love it. So that front line just went very nicely. And then we also have a back line that starts at the back of your bottom of your school and goes all the way down to your heels. Want to talk a lot about that today? Okay, so want to lean our weight a little forward onto the ball of our feet. Keep that powerhouse lifting in and up.

Cross one foot in front of the other and lower yourself down to the mat. Always thinking about lifting in your powerhouse. Good. Put your arms behind you, lift your bottom back nice and center and then roll out. Nice and long. Good. Go ahead and bend your knees and paste your feet flat on the mat for right now. Good.

So we're going to be moving through the intermediate series pretty quickly and then we'll tone it down and take the pace down to understand a few of the advanced exercises I'm going to slip in here. And the reason is is because we, most people, not everybody, but a little, a lot of us really like to use our more dominant muscles, which will be the top of our thighs, our quads. And when we use lows, we don't use the back of our thighs as much. So the hamstrings and the glutes don't work as much when these work more the muscle right on top, just your stomach doesn't get to work as hard as it needs to. And what does work is our back, our lower back. So when we are working implies we're really trying to not use our lower back as much. It does work, but we're trying.

Today we're going to concentrate on getting more of a scoop more work out of our powerhouse and therefore less work out of our quads and more work out of our hamstrings and glutes. Some people have hip flexor issues and that is if you have it really nodded up, it's a whole nother ball game, but for someone that just ends up getting tight a little bit and needs a little help with that, this is really a great class because we are going to be focusing on getting more out of the stomach and more out of the hamstring and glute, which will help relieve that. So I like to think of your, the space between your navel and say your thigh. There is muscles and all that. I'm not going to go into the anatomy but like a spring and it's, it's really neat how Joseph [inaudible] had Springs as his resistance. So if we pictured a spring, we want it to stretch and to different directions always in Polonius. We always want that to create space between each coil.

And I want you to imagine that there is a spring between your belly button and kind of the of your thigh. And right now all those coils are really tight. And the way we're going to stretch it is by pulling our belly button real deep into the mat. So we're pulling that side as much as we can, stretching the coils. And in a moment we're going to be stretching our thought by really far away from there. Okay, so let's go ahead and hug the right knee into your chest. Good. And then straighten your leg up to the ceiling. Good. And have a little turnout. Good. Just so that your hips are nice and square. That's it.

So that the knee is not rolling in as well as the hip, not rising. And put your hands behind your thigh and give yourself an a stretch. Just stretch, always avoiding the back of the knee. So you want to grab either the calf or the thigh. All right, now press your arms down by this mat and your stomach is who pulled into the mat. And I want you to lower your leg down until it's even with the other one, okay? So stay right here. Think about that. Spring your belly buttons, pulling one side of that spring into the mat, but your thigh is reaching out the other, okay? And thinking maybe a little bit about back of your thigh and see, engage those muscles and lower your leg and another five inches till it touches my hand. Great. Stay there. So we've got still a little deeper, hopefully on like a scale of one to 10 you might've been in a five stretch.

Now I want you to at least be at a seven and now we're going to go as low as you can. Keep your back flat. Okay? Take that leg as low as you can and reach that leg using the hamstring and your glute. Not take it. Little note, am I locking my knee and my hyper extending it? Am I locking my quadricep, my top of my thigh or my keeping that long and loose and he's in the back of it. Now sweep it up to the ceiling. And now do two times, sweeping it down and pulling it up. Make sure you're stretching that imaginary spring and pull it up and one more and up and bend the knee in and hug it and then put that foot down on the mat. So we're going to be using that image for all of our exercises today.

And we're going to extend the Lega and stretch. Good again, square off your hips. That's the one that likes to hike up on you. Yes, good. And then pressing down and so your stomach scooped in and we're reaching and we're going to bring the thighs even. So bring that leg down to the thighs or even hold it there for five counts. And again, on a scale of one to 10 we're at like at a five of how much we can stretch this spring. Make sure the knees not locked, good, or the thigh cramping and gripping.

Here's the back of your thigh and glute to go down another few inches. So it's about mid calf on your other leg and you're holding that hopefully about a seven really lengthening and now goes low as you can keep pulling your belly into your back and reaching that leg. I love your soft foot. It's not flexed or pointed. This is all working very nice. Now sweep it up to the ceiling and it down. Reach opposition is so camp a lot is one more and up and bend the knee in.

Sorry, and rest your foot down. Good. Now lastly, before we start our exercises, I want you to really warm up the glutes and your hamstrings, so without tilting your pelvis towards you. So that means you're keeping your tailbone on the map. I want you to try to imagine your hips are in a vice and you've got to just narrow your hips and pull them together, whatever that is. Just a little bit of who was sending a message down there. Good. Now using your glutes more than your hip flexors, we're going to tilt the pelvis towards you.

And so your waistband should be super down into the mat and your tailbone should kind of be tipped. It tipped up like a Teeter totter. And then see if you can keep it using your glutes and your hamstrings to slowly lift up the next vertebra. So that's probably your waistband and the next bone and rolling up like a strand of pearls on the mat until you're a straight line from your shoulder to your knees. Hold. And now see if you can feel the hamstrings and glutes. Sometimes you might even want to use the image of reaching your knee forward over the ankle. So you really get that. And now try not to immediately drop in your hips, but drop in your chest, chest, SPO, the back of your ribs. Again, rolling down like that strand of pearls going down until you're all the way down with your tailbone. And we'll do that one more time. So no tilting first.

Let me see that engagement of the hips. Excellent. And now using your glutes, your bottom, the hamstrings, the glutes, everything rolling up. Beautiful. A little more. Reach forward with those knees. Excellent. That's it. And now you're going to roll down first the ribs. I love how you kept that so steadily. Really get into each vertebra articulating. Great.

Very nice work. Good. So we're going to go ahead and did you feel those hamstrings and glutes? There we go. All right, so we're going to bring your knees into your chest using your powerhouse. Lift your head up, looking good, and we're going to just reach your arms along by your side and reach your legs out to here in a Polasky stance. Good. Just a little lower than straight up to the ceiling. And we're going to pump.

Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, four, five. Good in with the air. Let's imagine that spring and exhale. You want to pool it in here? Read shit out there. Think about those knees. Are they walking? Are we gripping in the top of your thighs in with the air and exhale.

I find that the hardest thing is to engage the seat as well as the back of the thighs to squeeze while you're doing the a hundred like you can turn it on for maybe one of the breaths than that. Then it turns off, it takes a little vacation. Try to keep thinking about them. And we're at 80 for the last 20 pull in and see if you can squeeze down just a couple inches there. You should really get in the back of those thighs. That's low enough. Keep the weight of the head here. This last exhale. Exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Hug the knees in. Sit and rest your head. Good. Now we're going to straighten your legs on the mat just down and long. Good. And I want you to reach your arms up to the ceiling.

Go ahead and we're gonna do the roll up. Head lifts through your arms. Good. And bring the arms parallel to the mat as you curl up. So they're going to go down and curl up one bone at a time. You got it rolling up good and rolling back. Lower back goes down first, middle back, upper good.

And reach up and back and arm with the arms. Yes. Arms head. Try to separate them. Next tense. Okay. Corolla. I want you to keep moving and as you move we'll add more details. Good. So we're going to lift the arms first, then the head, and then curling up. Very nice. Good.

And we're going to do four more on what's going on with the back of the size and seat here. So we're going to bring the arms up head. Use the back of the size and seat to push down into the mat. Ooh, those legs you want to pop up at all when you did that and roll back the low stretch that imaginary spring. Yes. I'm gonna do two more arms. Head back, the size pushed down. Good. See and then we're going to keep scooping in. Good. And pull that imaginary spring back.

Pulling me down away from your thighs. Beautiful. And you're going to do one more arms first, then head, and then curl it up. Good. And reaching and rolling back. No locked knees, right? No lock size, good. And arms by your side. And we're going to do the Rola, I mean not the rope, the single leg circle. So hug the right knee into your chest, good and hug it straight in the leg up to the ceiling and put your hands behind your thyroid is give you another little extra stretch.

So earlier your knee was bent and we did. We stretched with your knee bent. So you can do this exercise like this, but you are flexible enough to do it like that. Okay? All right, because you have, you're able to have your leg straight up to the ceiling. So I want you to press your arms down by your side and before you start your circles, square off your hips. Always excellent. But we're going to stretch that spring. So go all the way down to the mat. Just straight down as you imagine the string stretch, spring stretching, stretching, and pull it up from here. One more.

Here's that back line I'm talking about. You should feel yourself pull up that whole line one more time. You can really feel how your stomach pulls out leg up. Now pull it up higher, higher, higher. And now cross it to your left shoulder. And now sweep all the way down and pull it up. Don't move the hip and cross around.

Cross around up. Ooh, stretch that spring. One more. Stretch it and hold with your stomach and lifting. And you're going to reverse. Go in Dan. Yes, you can go. Oh can open, but I'm still waiting for that hip to square off that. Ah, there you go. So with that hip there, now where's your range of motion? Good for you. Very good. And that's it.

That's why I was kind of standing there leg up for that. And two more around scooping. I want to see more of that belly dieting. Good. And hug the knee in. I said too, but I felt like that was five. Go ahead and switch legs. Accounting is always exciting and interesting. Hug it in, straighten your leg up and good.

So again, we're gonna do three times sweeping down. So your stomach's pulling in, reaching no locking of the knee and pulling up and no gripping in the quad, trying to wake up the back of the leg and see and definitely feel how the stomach pulls up that back line all the way to your notes. Good. Keeping the hips square. Can you get to your right shoulder? Good. And now down around up. Beautiful. Interestingly enough, this is, you're challenging your hip but it's really working nicely so keep that stomach pulling in more though. Yes, correct. Pull it up. One more. Cross around, up reverse down cross.

It's more important to cross and kick me up here than it is to go out there. Yes. Oh where's my spring pool? Yes. Pull and then give me one more great job. Hug that knee in at the same time. When you're more in a more advanced setting, you also use the back of the thigh and glute on the standing leg. If you will depress down to hold you. Bring your head up.

Lets roll up for rolling like a ball. Lift your bottom forward, grab onto your ankles. Good. There you go. And in this case, I still want a lot of distance between these two points. Beautiful. Yet try to use your upper stomach to get your head between your knees. Good and six times in how rock back. Exhale, roll up.

Hold. Good. Inhale a little back. Exhale, luck, pause. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Just showing me you got control. Three more in with the year here. We're rolling through each phone in with the air. Exhale. Good. One more time. Pulling in your stomach away. Let's do hold it here.

I want you to do one more where all you're doing is pulling your belly button away from your thighs until all of a sudden you lose balance. Excellent. And then come back up and that was great to rest your feet down. Nice. Lift your bottom back and you're going to roll back with your right knee to your chest. That's fine, that's good. And we're going to put your right hand on your ankle. Left hand on your knee. We're going to do series of five. Good. Very good.

Now this leg is going to really work on the back of the side seat. So lift your head up to look at your belly. Good will down your shoulder blades. Just a little. Excellent, good. And then this leg, you're not going to be tempted to straighten and lock that knee. Don't do the knee squeeze and length in this leg out. Stretch that spring. Let's switch legs scooping in. Reach that spring.

That's switch screech. Nice. All right, good. You're really seeing how much can you stretch that imaginary spring between your belly button and that thigh. Watch the locking knee. Make it happen from the back of your thigh and see one more. And now grab both ankles. Good. And now a little Claudia stance, a little open in the knees.

Pretend your feet are on the bar of a reformer and you're gonna reach your arms up and back. As you [inaudible] we ease away the reformer and then pull back in. Inhale back of the thighs and glutes and exhale. Inhale, stomach pulls in and opposition. Exhale. Inhale, reach, squeezing and accent. No locking to the knees. I love it. It's nice and soft and reaching. And one last one, scoop, scoop, scoop and exhale. Rest your neck for a second. And we're going to single straight leg and double straight leg. Curl up, legs up. Good. And now grab the right ankle, just the right shoulders. Relax a little bit. Good scooping. I remember how we lowered one legs. What? Sweeped it down and sweep it up.

And now scrap the left and sweep this one down and up. So just a little more choreography and back of the thigh and glute and scoop it up and back of the science glue. Good and back. And then they were really stretching this spring and pull it up. Now do it as they pass each other and pass. Don't lose the scoop. That's you're controlling it from the back line. No locking of the knees.

Even pick up the tempo. Nice loose long legs. Let right and enough both legs up. Beautiful hands behind your head. One over the other. Good. And I want you to pull this in and bring your legs to touch me. Okay. Lower him down by squeezing as you go away and pull up to touch me.

Good and low. Reach and up. Stretch that spring longer, longer, longer, and pull up. No puffing out. Stretch, stretch down, low and up. One more. Go for it. Go as low as you can and that's it. Now bend both knees and bend the a right elbow to the left knee. Good. And straighten. How do you straighten this back of the thigh and gloop. There ya go. Stretch that spring and switch.

Pulling in in, in no locking of the knee. It's off. There we go. Beautiful. One more set. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Again, no locking. And this one's down the middle of your body. And one more time. Pull in from here and here and here. And hug both knees and great job, Rebecca. Sit up, spine. Stretch forward.

You're going to put a heel in the middle of each block. A little forward. Good. Arms up at shoulder height. Flex here. All right, you're going to take a big breath in. Exhale, touch the crown of your head down to the mat or so much work into this and inhale, rolling up one bone at a time. Good. But now really push your heels away from you. Pull your pinky toes back and without locking your knees down, lift off your seat and then head down and keep lifting off your seat. Kip, lifting off your seat. Keep scooping in, keep pulling apart ear, and then inhale, rolling up one bone at a time.

And exhale. Inhale, lift up. And exhale. Good. Keep a nice lift. Keep pulling those toes back and inhale. Roll back one bone at a time. Now this time I want you to move with your breath. So take a breath here to start now. Exhale, roll down, roll down, pulling in, and exhale. Exhale, pull back in here a little more. That's it.

And now inhale all the way up and they exhale all the way down. Go down and inhale all the way up. And last time, exhale all the way down. Keep lifting off your seat. Let me see a more length in here and inhaling all the way up. Good job. And relax your arms down. Good.

So now we're going to transition into open like rocker. And I want you to actually, you can go ahead and bring your legs together and I want you to think of the roll up and start rolling back one bone at a time so your pelvis goes good. A little bit more rounded. Four though. Curl up in a few inches. Come forward, forward, forward. Good. And then just stay there with your energy pulling in here. I want you to imagine this spring is now pulling your feet towards you and your knees. You're going to start opening to the side.

So the fetal slide on the mat towards you from here, from your hands between the um, [inaudible]. Good, good. And then you're going to hold onto your ankles. Excellent. Good. Now don't move a thing and we're going to extend the right leg. Only. Really think of stretching that spring and bend it. And the left good. There was a little wobble there though. Huh? And then we're to [inaudible] to your and go up right.

And Dan and pulling in good and down. And now we're going to do both. Great job. So I love maybe just a tiny bit narrow with near or with the legs. I love this. I love the scoop. I would love for you to relax the shoulders though, and lift up your chest bone and head a little more. Okay. All right.

Now look down back at your waist and you're going to rock and roll with it. So inhale and exhale. Come up and show me the control. Good. And inhale back and exhale, scoop, scoop, scoop. And inhale, roll back. Nick's hail. Look right here. That's it.

And it's really important to focus on something so that you come right back up to it. And that brings your energy up. And two more. How's my spring looking? Are you keeping a lot of distance? One more whole old and ended up here. Now here's the ultimate spring. Squeeze your legs together and they stay there while your hands reach as teaser and you pull that spring to your back and go down your lower back, your middle back. Beautiful head. And now just bring the legs up and bend the knees into your chest.

Rest your head. So we're going to do corkscrew. Okay. I want you to press your arms into the mat, lift your legs up. Good little palati stance. Good. That helps turn off the quads from the beginning. Okay? And I want you to lower the legs just an inch and then pull them back up to you one more. See, stretched that imaginary spring and then pull them. Good.

Now we're going to to go to the right, staying in front of me, and then pull him center and to the left and center. But there was an opposition. So use your left oblique on this case as you reach over this way and pull him back up. Fantastic. Now you're right. Oh, bleak. As your legs reach, pull in in. That's better. Good. Now we're going to do a full circle. So one oblique sweep down and pooling all the way in.

Beautiful reach around scoop, scoop, scoop. Good. And so there's no locking in. Knees go a reversing it and you're trying to use the back of the thighs and glutes or more importantly, try to turn off the top of your thighs. One more set. Pull it in and last time around and sit right on up.

We're going to do SOC, so you're gonna put your feet on each block. Good aunt. Before you even begin again, you got to include, gauge all of the back line, back, thighs, back, glutes, squeezing up. Pull your pinky toes back, and then your waist lifts all the way up until your arms are her shoulder. Yeah, and just a little in front of you. Good. Alright. Feel those sit bones on the mat. They're not gonna lift or shift. Okay? Just use your waist muscles to twist to the right and exhale, bring your going to come all the way twisting and you're going to exhale.

Reach past the baby toe. Good. Inhale up tall, twist to your left and X. Hey, good. Inhaling up, tall and twist. Use the waist. Good. And even here. Now I want you to take an extra breath and as you exhale, pull in deep, deeper, and get down lower, lower, lower, and then inhaling up. So we're S it does feel good and twist, and then exhale down and you're going to get to add an extra breath. We're going to take a breath and you're going to exhale as you pull in your right obliques deeper and you get lower and lower and lower. And inhaling up.

Now think of that for the last set twist as you now exhale down, down, down. Inhale and twist and try to exhale lower, lower, lower and inhale up tall and relax your arms down. Nice job. Squeeze your legs together and we flip over onto our belly for neck roll. [inaudible] you got it. Good, nice and long. And I want your you just to rest your forehead down on the mat and arms long by your side. Good. So now we're on our stomach, which is a more challenging position than just being on our back because gravity loves to help us pull our belly in when we're on our back. But when you're on your belly, it wants to pull your belly out into the mat.

So you want to start by pulling it in and up and while you do the next exercise, it's not necessarily necessarily going to say lift it, but you want to feel how light you are on the mat right now by pulling your belly in and then let it go and feel how heavy you get so you don't want that heavy feeling. You want that nice pulling it. You also want to squeeze your legs together and press the back of the thighs and glutes down into the mat. Almost like you're pushing your pelvis down into the mat. Everyone has different anatomy and you want to be careful with your lower back and so just make sure it's being supported and you feel all of that work. All right, now you're going to place the hands right underneath your shoulders, so bend the elbows, sorry, and then bring, if you are a little stiff or have a little bit of a sore back, you could bring your hands a little forward and out, otherwise that's fine.

Okay, so really pay attention about that spring. We're upside down now, but you're going to start lifting up your head, lifting up your chest, and your belly is obviously gonna pull really far away from here and you're gonna look over your right shoulder. Circle the head down around to your left and look forward. Hold. Only thing is we got to keep the shoulders from moving. Look left all the way down to your right. Beautiful. Look forward. And now we're going to come down onto your belly that's nice and taut and your holster and lengthen your spine out. Beautiful. We're going to do one more set.

So squeeze the seat back of the thighs are working and bellies. Lifting. Careful. Let's try that one more time. The only thing I saw was you have a beautiful wine. When you start, go ahead and scoop and squeeze. But when you started coming up, you actually shrank your pelvis like this towards you and that can hurt. So try to keep, this is really hard. Just keep it how it is. So that's the work. Little more lengthier. There you go.

And now use your ways to lift and lift and lift. Excellent. Look over your left shoulder, circle the head down around to your right and forward look right. Circle the head down around your left. Look forward and reach long through the spine as you come down, reaching, reaching. Very nice. Okay. Single leg kick. You're gonna put your elbows on the mat in front of you and push the knuckles together. Elbows a little more in and your hands were in a good place.

Just bring the elbows in. There you go. Good. So push the whole form into the mat. Push your knuckles into each other. Good. And feel the chest muscles. All of that's lifting. Good. And we're going to pull our belly and all right, so I want you to go ahead and lift both legs up off the mat. You should feel the hamstrings and glutes. Yeah, good.

And Romana really could kick her head when she did this exercise. Yes. So you want to use that image. You're not comfortable enough with just kicking your bottom, but you're thinking I can lift my fine knee up so high, I can kick my head each time. Okay, so lift the chest up to stomach. Always supporting that back and let's go right to yup and left to good. Try to keep your knees pressing together so you don't hurt your knees so they don't. Don't let them go wide and kicking one too good. They feel all right, good and right to good and left tooth.

You're really using the back of the thigh. You also want to think about stretching the front of your face, stretching your quad as you do it and kicking and one more and that's enough now, right facial cheek on the mat. There you go. Always have to be clear and then your hands go right here they go. Actually as high between your shoulder blades as you can get them and elbows down. Okay. Both eyes are looking over your left shoulder. Okay. Squeeze both legs together.

Stomach first and then let's see how high can you get those thighs and knees now can you live? Uh huh. Excellent. Look how much light you have underneath your knee. When you bring your heels to your bottom three times. Keep that light to three and now reach long legs can go down while you stretch and switch cheeks and lift and kick. Two, three. Beautiful hamstrings. Beautiful glutes.

I'd love to see your inner thighs work a little more. Keep the knees closer and stretch and reach. Reach, reach. And one more time. Lift and kick. Kick, kick. Good job. And reach, reach, reach. Excellent. Hands on the mat and then push back so you can sit on your heels. But I still want Magine that that spring so that we're really stretching the lower back instead of flattening out.

Can you go ahead and show what it will look like if you just let go of your belly and flatten that out? Yeah. So I don't want this shape here. I want a nice scoop. Tailbone, getting close to your heels. Knees. Okay great. Good. Go ahead and flip over and let's do neck pull. We love neck pull slide a little bit more this way cause we will be sliding back.

But ideally the back of your thighs and your glutes are working so that they push your heels away and you stay right here. Okay. So we're gonna end with the air. Lift your head up and exhale, curl all the way to your knees, cause your knees. Good. Now stay on your knees. Good. Now think about softening your knees a little bit and I want you to squeeze up off your seat and roll up your spine. Good. And I want you to keep thinking about this spring as you roll back.

Pull that spring back. Yes. Squeeze that away. Yes, yes. And as soon as you're down, I want you right back up. Beautiful. Kiss your knees, hold it there. That's always going to be your little moment. Kay. Squeeze your seat and roll up and keep pulling back. Stretching that sprain. Make sure these are in gripping, that's gripping, that's pushing your heels away. Push, push, push and right back. Exhaling for, didn't even need a hold you there.

Polling a very nice job and scoop and relaxing those but work in the back of the thighs. And two more exhale, kiss your knees. Give yourself a moment to really roll up from your powerhouse. Lift off your seat, push your heels away like you're skidding on your heels. And one more time in with the exhale. Good. Inhale. [inaudible] rolling up and push your heels away so that you can pull your belly all the way to push your head into your hands. Push, push, push.

And that's enough. Good. So that's the other, that opposition gives you that neck pool. Very nice job. We're gonna lie. Um, actually we're going to do Jack knife. Okay. So we're going to bend the knees into your chest and hug him. So we are going to really work the back of your thigh and glue on this. So I love to imagine an escalator. Okay, so there is an escalator going from your bottom or right up on a diagonal, right over your shoulders. Okay. So press your arms down by your side, legs up to the ceiling and a Pilati stance. Good. So whatever your legs are going to do, I don't care what I want to see as your bottom.

Rise up on a very precise diagonal. Okay. And your legs kind of go over to a 90 degree angle. Alright, so go ahead and squeeze your seat and rise. Gorgeous. Now engage the back of the thigh and glue and use your power as the lift, lift, lift. And now bring them back to 90 degrees. Hold them there and roll down with control. Really lengthened though. Reach, reach. Good. Let me see again, rising up on that.

Perfect diagonal. Beautiful. Now Jack knife up working these muscles. And now who the legs right there as you roll down, keep reaching them. Keep pulling your belly in the opposite direction. And give me one more going over and this time from here and now rolling.

Y'all keep using this. Keep thinking of those. Cool. That's hard. Very nice job. Rely on your left side and face that way. Good. Um, bring your whole body on the back edge of the mat and bring um, side a little bit more cause I'm going to have you use that box. Excellent. Good. Bring your feet a little forward. A little more. Good. If you, this is a perfect angle for you. Good. And how tall are you if you don't mind? Five. One.

You're a very tall five one. I like that. You're going to rest your head on your hand. Good. So if you, if if you were taller, I would have you used that box and that would be it. But this is just the right alignment for you here. So I want you to keep thinking about that spring, okay?

Not all of our sidekicks. We're going to lift up this leg at hip level. Relax that like there. So we're going to keep the scoop right and we're going to keep this stretched. And how are we going to do that by not using our back or our quad, but by using the back thigh and hip. Okay? So I actually want to challenge you to put this hand right on this hip bone during your work today. Okay?

So we're going to kick that leg forward to your nose. And now as you go back, keep this stacked on top of this hip. So you use this and this and stretch that thigh. Stretch it. That's what you want it thick and forward and back stroke. You taking it forward a little bit. Keep it right there, there. Now you're working in the back thigh and seat and forward and back.

And you do want to get a little free with, it doesn't have to be super technical, but those are the things that you're thinking about going back and really stretch in that swing and forward and stretch. And that's me, N three and reach and a back end to try to get it back further and one more and good. And now legs together. But keep your hand there. Turn up the knee just a little bit for me and relaxing that foot. This hip does not shorten. Keep it right there. Really push it long. Use the outer thought to push it like up and then squeeze the inner [inaudible], right? Yeah. A little movement there. We're work this more. Push it up. Oh, there you go. And LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, and they'll reach that imaginary spring for me and too, and reach it. And one more time.

Reach all that hard work and five little circles. One, two, three. Stretch it. No locking the knee and reverse it. A little more turnout for me to shape that thigh to one. Beautiful. Relax for a second. And we're going to put this hand in front and we're going to do bicycle. One of my favorite to really get a good stretch here.

So we're going to add some stretches to it rather than just making it work. So you're going to lift that right leg up. That shoulder height and children hip height and a little turnout actually thinks relaxed foot. He being this imaginary stretch spring, kick it forward to you knows now the foot has to stay short. A hip height, not flexing. There you go. Knee little turned out. Yeah. [inaudible] I'd hug than bring the knee to your chest. You're going to stay like that. Good. And now, so we call need chest need a knee is like here.

All right, we're going to keep this hip from rolling forward. Okay, here's the stretching and take your free hand and grab your ankle. Good. So without moving this hip, staying stacked, you're going to take that knee as far back as you can and back and back and back again. Of course. If you have a healthy knee right now, Oh, can you keep that thigh and right here, let go of it and straighten it by rep, squeezing the hamstring and glute to straighten that leg. Beautiful. Kick it forward all the way. Don't let it drop. Has to be at hip height and a little turned up please. There you go. Bend the knee to your chest. Good.

Now go ahead and grab the ankle and then he goes to knee. Okay, hold that hip there and now take it back. Keeping this stacked. Nice. You feel that stretch? How can you not right now? Instead of just stretching, use a hamstring and glute to extend the leg. Good. All the way. One more forward. Bend the knee. Take the knee back. Scoop, scoop, scoop, stretch, stretch, stretch, and take it back from there. This is what I'm looking at.

Good legs together and we're going to do the reverse. Good. Wait, wait, wait. We're going to lift it up at hip level. I do want that knee. Just a little turned out. Thank you. So I can see your inner thigh. Just a little. Use the hamstring and glute to go back. Keeping this hip right here. So think again. I'm stretching here. Now imagine I'm standing right here and wrap that leg around me to bring your heel to your seat. That's it. Now you're really working the back of the leg.

Need a knee, knee to chest, and go ahead and sweep your arm under that side all the way and straighten it. Just a nice stretch. Good. Let go. And you're going to keep it a little turned out as it goes back using the hamstring. Glutes. Watch this alignment. So you're here and here and now we'll wrap that leg around me. It's you're really stretching and really working. Heel to seat. Need a knee, knee to chest. Go ahead and give yourself a little stretch. Let it go.

And last one slightly turned out seeing the inner thigh. Good. Back the thigh and now pull that heel all the way to your seat. Stretching that need a knee. I need a chest and extent. Good legs together. Good. Go ahead and roll onto your stomach and make a small pillow for your forehead with your hands. Nice. Good. And I want your belly in.

Use the back of the thighs and seat, and we're going to lift up those legs. Nice. And now open the legs, the width of the mat, almost. Almost, almost. And squeeze them completely together. Come on, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Open the width of the mat, huh? And then squeeze all the way together. Now I need you to do that double time. Really fast. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 stomach, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all the way to down at nine 10 and roll to your other side. Nice job.

It's not always that wide, but we do. Sometimes it's go mean, we keep it like really, really minor. So you do want to get a good range of motion and then take yourself back. Just a little further question is, did you feel it? Not as much as I can cause my feet. 10 feet needed to go all the way together. You weren't quite getting there. Hmm.

Yes. Okay. So then I'm gonna have you keep your hips stacked here util and we're gonna actually bring your bottom forward a couple inches. Yes, there you go. Good. All right. And you're going to take that top hand and put it on top of your hip so it does not Wolfe forward, right. And I want that top leg to lift up at hip level. Let me see the inner thighs. So you're turning it into nice, long loose leg, no gripping in the quad, and you're going to bring that leg forward.

And now take it back as far as you can without rolling that hip forward and thinking of stretching the quad and really working the hamstrings. And now get a nice tempo. Kick it forward and squeeze it back and forward and stretch and forward. And you're still have that imaginary spring, right? You're really pulling it in and stretching and three and back and two and back.

And last one. Nice legs together. Keep your hand where it is and still want to see that inner thigh. And you're going to keep push that like up to the ceiling and squeeze down less movement on the way up. Yeah. And now let me see those inner thighs come all the way together, all the way, all the way. Good and up and squeeze them all the way together. Yes. Two more. And squeeze and reach. Good. And one more.

And now keep that leg working of five little circles. One, two, imagine that leg getting longer and longer so that your heel could be in that arch and you reversed it. Very nice. And rest it down. Now our bicycle, so you're going to keep it up at hip height. And I love the little turnouts. I can see your knee, kick it forward to your nose, bend the knee to your chest. Good. And as the NIGOs back, go ahead and grab onto your ankle and pause right there. So we love to roll our hips forward, not just you. That's just what we do.

And now we're going to pull it back, keeping your hips stacked, using the hamstrings and glutes, and really stretching the thighs out as far back as we go. A little bit. There we go. Good. All right. And now holding that leg, which you know what? On this hip, you're the alignment. It's really, it's just straight with your body and that's pretty, it's pretty normal, but it's always amazing to me that we feel like our legs like way behind us and all it has done is gone right under us. So you have a straight line right now. So to get keep that you're going to use your hamstring and glute as you reach back. Let go the ankle and that is amended. Amazing how much more work I got out of you at that, that visual and reach long and now kick it forward.

Bend the knee to your chest, take the knee back and keep those hips stack as you grab it and stretch the quad. That's what I want you to do. You feel that stretch in the quad and now keep working the gluten seat as you reached long. And one more forward with the belly, knee, good knee to knee. Great alignment. Just a teeny bit rolling forward there and now reach it back and legs together and we're going to do the reverse. Squeeze it back and bring the heel to your seat as if I'm standing and you're wrapping around me. Need a knee, need a chest and you can scoop your arm under it for a nice hamstring stretch and take it back all the way back and healed a seat and need a chest and all the way forward. Nice. One more. All the way back. Good. Wrap your thigh around me. Your foot. Yes. And then bring it back all the way.

Need a knee, need a chest and extend good legs together. And now lie onto your back. Bend your knees into your chest and you're going to shake your legs out. Cause we're going to just try to shake out those quads if they got into it. And we're going to do the teaser. Okay.

So you're gonna reach your legs up and try not to lock the knees. Good. And a little turnout. Reach your arms back. Good. And your back might come off the mat and that is okay. But I want you to really pull in and stretch the spring as you go down with those legs till they're a 45 degree angle. That's pretty nice. Stay there and now you're going to whirl up and retreat. Your feet. Roll on up.

Good. Now take a moment and as you exhale and roll down, pool that imaginary spring and keep those legs right there, right there. Beautiful and right back up to more. Scoop it in reaching. So no gripping in the quads and scoop. Scoop, scoop. Good. One more time. It's your last one. And pull ankle and try to give him up and bend the knees into your chest.

Really good, Rebecca. Nice job. We're going to turn around and do swimming. Flip on over long arms in one direction, long legs in the other. Okay. And we're going to take it bit by bit, so you're just kind of go ahead and melt into the mat. Don't worry so much about it. Then once you've relaxed, you're going to pull your belly into your back. Go ahead and you're going to squeeze. Good. And I want you to press your left arm into the mat and lift your right arm up.

Good. So you have this nice sense of square and you can kind of feel these muscles are what lifts up your arm, right? And now I want you to do the opposite on the legs. You're push the, keep your arm up and you're gonna push this one down from here. And lift this up from here and lift up both your arm and your leg up as high as you can. Beautiful. Put those down and switch. Always supporting from yours powerhouse.

Keep it down the center of your body and down. And one more set stomach and hamstring and glute right. And the stretch of your quad and down. And one more time on the other side. Stomach. Good. Reaching it even longer, even longer that spring. Oh my gosh, that was beautiful. And down.

Now lift all your limbs up off the mat. Really stomach scooped, reaching, and you're gonna reach your right arm and left leg higher so you can lower the other ones too. A little. And we're going to go for a swim. Go ahead. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four. Don't forget about your seat. Come on. Use the seat. Yes. Exhale, two, three, four, five, and melts into the mat. Good. Work. Round your back and sit on your heels. God. Next we're gonna get into a pushup position. So I want you to just tuck your toes underneath you so that the ball of your foot is on the mat. Good. And plant your hands. Actually stay seated with the ball of the foot on the mat. Good.

And reach your arms as far away from you as you can. There you go. Now keep your palms planted into the mat and use your stomach to lift yourself forward into a plank position. He knees up too. Good. So we've got always a stomach in, but the sweet seat squeezy. You got it. So this is squeezing almost down. And this is pulling up? Yeah. Okay.

We're going to take this real slow to lift your right leg up off the mat. You use the hamstring and glute. So lift that leg up as high. Good. You're going to rock back on the left foot a little bit. Pull it forward from your stomach and put the right foot down. Now don't lose those muscles. Come on, get squeeze.

And you're going to squeeze up the left from the handshake and glue rock back a little bit. Put it down. Good. And we're going to switch to the right now. You still want to think about maybe this stretch in your quad and rock, back, ankle stretch and down and left. Now we're stretching the left quad or front of the thigh. Put the foot down. One more set. Stomach's always supporting. Reach that leg up higher, higher, higher. You bring it forward and down. There's no question of what you're feeling. Lift that leg rocket back. Good.

And put the foot down. And for now bend the knees down and round your back and sit on your heels again. And then you're going to flip over to the other side. There is a fancy advanced transition, but we're going to do it this way cause I want you to really feel this exercise too. All right, so go ahead and lie down onto your back. Did I say that right now? Go ahead and sit up. Nice.

And that with your legs long in front of you. Good. Alright. So when you transition or do this exercise because our knee joints involved, we always like to push down our knee to lift our seat instead of just squeezing our seat to lift it up. Okay. So put your hands way behind you and you're going to point your fingers towards you. Good, good, good, good. A little wider. So and a little further back. Awesome. We'll see you with that alignment. If I is, it fits too far, does it feel too far back? Maybe a tiny bit forward for you. Sure. Alright, so stomach in a lot of distance between these Springs. Good, right where we've stretched it. Squeeze your bottom together. So to remind you don't push your knees down.

We're going to roll up your tailbone good and get lift all the way up like you did earlier. And now your straight line. Now we're going to keep looking at your hips. I want you to look at your hips. Don't let them fall to the mat as we take the right leg up to your nose and then flex it down. Let's switch. Legs left up and I'm going to have you flex down. Yeah, usually I don't pull it up with the belly and flex room longer and left and now reach it and one more. Right. And flex reach it. Don't pull up with that quiet and last one. Semat good. And that's enough.

Go ahead and sit down on your bottom. Good. And reach forward for your feet. Love it. Good. And now we're going to go ahead and lift our bottom forward for seal. Hmm? Hands go between your ankles. Are you comfortable rolling all the way to a standing position? Okay.

Do you have enough room here? Do you need to scoot back a little bit? Alright. Just a teeny bit. Yeah, might as well. We have enough room. So in the seal it is just a massage for your spine. But I also actually want you to think what are, what is my bottom doing? What are my advisor?

They just like totally out to lunch and popping because they can have some engagement. Okay. So try to engage them stomach in, but most importantly always keep that spreading. Great. Clap right here. Three times. One, two, three, rolling back. Two, three. Exhale, two, three. So hold it there. Yes, because I need much more stretch. You can reach your legs a little lower and longer. Look forward more I should say. And how are you going to get them forward? More is by taking this forward or they're there.

So really beautiful. And now rolling back in with the year. Clap. Two, three. Exhale, clap. Two, three. Inhale. How are your hips? Are they engaged? And exhale and two more. Inhale all that lower back. Pop forward on that one. And so good. So pool, that's being beautiful. You're going to do one more after this one.

Hold that spring. Good. So you're gonna roll back like go the ankles, cross them and round through each phone to stand up. And this is all hamstrings and glutes pushing off of the mat, arms up to the ceiling. I loved it. Go ahead and turn all the way around and we're gonna finish with our pushup. And it's really important because you really have to use the hamstrings and glutes to get in a nice plank position like you did earlier. So are I like apply stance if you don't mind so that you really get all of this here. Don't lock the knees scooping in.

Reach your arms up to the ceiling and we'll often imaginary wall. Good and rolling forward. Try to keep your weight a little more on the ball of your feet next time and walk out and holding it there. Good. Before you go down, do you feel your seat is squeezing? See stomach in now like a straight piece of steel. Lower yourself down to the mat. Down. Up one.

I'd like your hands forward just a tiny bit. Thank you. And down, up to good. And Dan up three more. Bottomed down, up four. There we go. Down up five and like you're being pulled up by your waist. Walked back to your feet, roll up arms all the way up to the ceiling. And this time keep your weight on the ball of your feet. As you roll off an imaginary wall.

Don't stick your bottom out so far behind you and walking out good and squeezing the seat down. Up one. Good. And Dan up two and down of three. So your stomach's pulling up, but your hamstrings and glutes are pushing down. And now walk back to your feet. Keep the weight on your ball of your feet as you will up. Watch those locked knees, arms all the way up to the ceiling.

Palms out to the side as you exhale. Don't have them behind you though, a little more for it. And take a breath as you push down the earth and exhale and you're all finished. Good work.

Comments

Saluting you here in London Monica, nice work
Loved your cueing and great detail on each move!
SO helpful in the side stretch series. I still have a really troublesome right hip (I think its from carrying my 1 year old on my left hip all day) but that added extra quad stretch really gives me something to work on.

Also appreciated the jackknife instruction.

Thanks monica!!!
1 person likes this.
Thank you Monica. All the attention to detail is much appreciated.
Monica, you are the BEST!!!!! I regularly take several of your classes. You never fail to give 100% of yourself to your student(s). I am so thankful for you!!! BTW, we "chatted" several times a year or so ago when I first started Pilates Anytime. I'm an above knee amputee and I have learned so much from you. THANK YOU!!!!!
Great follow up to your outstanding beginning series. I love your cueing and smooth progressive instructions, Monica. Thank you for your great work!
Great class learned a lot of techniques to counter domination of Quads and Hip Flexors x
Excellent method of teaching; perfect cueing...every class is like just stepping into pilates from the beginning which is awesome for me...thank you Monica Wilson
Gaspar
Thank you Mónica, lovely class. When you say in and up, to get the up  in the stomac are you thinking more in pelvic floor or diaphragm? the "in" is easy for me but no "the up"!! thanks

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