Class #2355

Whole Body Mat

50 min - Class
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Use the design of your body to help you through the movements of this Mat workout with Kathy Corey. She teaches a whole body workout designed to help you find your place of strength so you can maintain your alignment during each exercise. She shows how simple movements can activate the muscles in the entire body when they are done correctly.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Well, welcome to our mat class. It's for a general workout for the whole body. I am honored to be joined by Kristy Cooper who's going to be doing our demonstration. We're going to start sitting on the mat and we're going to have our knees band, our feet just hip distance apart and our feet flat. We want to sit up very, very tall lengthening off of the sits bones length in the spine and lifting up through the top of the head and take a nice deep breath inhalation and on that exhalation we're going to just roll down bringing the small of the back onto the map. We still holding under the size so that the hands are helping us so we can anchor in this position and roll over and come up. Really what we want to do right now is just to have the spine become a more flexible and just work very easily into rounding the back, working one vertebra at a time, working with our breath and working with the activation of the abdominals.

Not in a tight or strong way, but in a more relaxed and open way lengthiness space. All the way from the pubic bone through the navel and up under the rib cage. Exhaling as we go down. Beautiful. Keep that nice length and inhaling to come up. And once again, exhale and whirl to come down.

Use Your hands when we need to and trust me, you're going to love the help of your hands. So here we go. Roll back to where you're really, really strong. Find that place in the body strong where you feel comfortable. Where if I asked you to let go with your fingers, it's okay if I ask you to lift her leg up. It's okay if I ask you to lift the other leg up.

It's okay if I asked you to lift both legs up, it's okay. And roll up to setting. We have found your strength. There's a strongest place that you have and it's very comfortable, right? So that you can stay there. If I decide to tell a story, which I often do, and you're not going to be stressed, not going to have those hip flexors gripping, there'll be no tension in the neck. Well, that's great, isn't it? From this position.

We're going to roll back once again into our strength place and this time instead of rolling back, we're going to roll and come up. So from here I'm still using the hands and breasts up and come back to your strength and press up and remember we want this to be around movement and we want it to be a very small movement coming from the inside of the body. It doesn't have to be a very large movement. Two inches is is for us ladies. Two inches is two inches and I come back.

I know I shouldn't make you laugh while you're doing this and up, n rural and rural and fed up. We have one more to do and that is we're just going to do three in each position, but we're going to do it with no hands. If you can lengthen upward, roll back, find your strength and go down. One, exhale up and two very nice. Exhale up and three, find your strength up from there. Lift one, roll it back. You look great. Live to reel it back.

Lift three and the same row all the way down onto your mat and relax completely with your hands down. Knees are bent and feet are flat. Now let's go to a small pelvic curl. So from here, think about lengthening the back onto the mat and then having the tailbone curl up toward the shoulders. But keep the length from the pubic bone to the navel and roll back down. Exhale as you roll it up and inhale and linked to come down, you look great. I want this movement to come from the interior of the body. Keep going with that.

And not to be utilizing too much muscle to power it, but to think about the interior of the body rolling very nicely and lengthening out. And then we act hale and just allow the muscles to activate because of the movement. But the movement itself is the power of the exercise. Now from that position, we're going to go the opposite way. So what I want you to do is to think about tilting the pelvis so that the waistline lightly comes off the mat. The hips are, are pressing downward and release and hips come down to, we're going the opposite way. Lift your waistline off of the Mat. There you go.

Very nice. So the waist is going to come off yes and come back and beautiful and come back and just lengthen it off the mat and waistline. Lightly lifts and release. Exhale, one more time. Now let's go and put that movement together. Curl the pelvis up, pass through your center and come down and go the opposite way. Pass through the center and curl the pelvis up. Lengthen down, passing through the center and reach out one more time and curl it up and come back down.

Pass through the center and now go right into the center. Take an inhale and an exhale and maintain this alignment. This is your neutral pelvis position, not tucked under, not arched up, but right in that center place is where we want to have neutral pelvis. Now from here, let's go ahead and uh, take the one leg and just go to the tail and then lift the heel and the and the leg comes up and reach it down. Don't change that neutral pelvis, the positioning of the pelvis and the spine.

Other leg, we're gonna alternate. Now the position of the pelvis should not change. We want to teach the body what it feels like to have this stability through the pelvic alignment as we are lifting the leg. And we're alternating legs, one up and down and one up and down. And that's a really good way to find where we need to be with our neutral pelvis and to activate the abdominals. However, this is an exercise class, so what I want you to do now is maintain your spinal alignment, maintain the position of the pelvis, activate from the low abdominals, and lift both legs up with your knees bent. Don't change your spine, don't change the palace and press them down and lift them back up.

Utilize those abdominal muscles and come back down. Exhale and lift and come back down. Exhale, lift up and touch both legs down and stay there for that moment one, the single leg stretch we're going to keep. Um, once again, we'll keep the pelvic alignment and the head down, but lift one leg up and bring in each ward the shoulder without changing the pelvis. Your range of motion is determined by the alignment of the pelvis and extend the leg out and bring that leg back in and down. Good. Extend the bent leg out and bend back in.

Just that bent leg. The other leg is your stabilizer, nothing happening in the pelvis. One more time. Take it out, you look good and come back in and place the leg down. Let's do the other side. And once again, think about the alignment through the pelvis, the spine, the shoulders, the neck. Position out in, in, and press out one and come back in. Good. Press back out and come back in. Press back out and come in and bring the leg all the way down. This time both legs are going to come up.

Bend both knees up and hold. Bring your knees together. We'll make it a little bit more stable. Keeping the head down. Extend the legs out only as long as you can and as an as low as you can without changing the pelvis. Your position is your position been back in the correct position is the one where you have your alignment through your pelvis, through your spine, through your shoulders and your neck. That is where we are beginning to find our own alignment and to work from our own bodies and two more times they extend and come in and extend. Bend in and bend the knees in.

Place the feet flat. Let's work now with the upper body. Slide the hands along the mat and allow the upper body to lift up, but keep that length once again from under the ribs all the way down to the pelvis. Nothing changes and slide this yourself back down. Exhale and come back up and come back down. Very nice and actually come back up. Hold, hold, hold. You should breath and lanes in the spine, out onto the mat.

One more time. Exhale and come up and lengthen and come back and lie down. Good. We're going to begin now with a set of the hundred. We're going to keep the knees bent and the feet flat. We're going to lift the upper body and we're going to do um, a double breath. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale.

What I want to see here is the stabilization through the shoulder girdle and we'll do five sets. Lift the upper body, slide the arms long. Keep the length of this torso and inhale. One, two, exhale. One, two. Inhale, one, two, exhale. One, two. Inhale, one, two, little higher. And inhale one, two, exhale, one, and inhale, one to exhale, one to reach past your toes and roll to come down. Place the arms out at the sides of your body and just drop the legs over to one side. Come into the center, keep the knees together as if they are glued together.

They're one knee tasted together so that there's a thick band around them and over to the opposite side. Pass through the center and come back over and come center the hundred again. This time, knees up, table, top position. Knees are bent at a right angle and these are directly over the hips. Slide the arms. This time, five inhales, five exhales. Only three sets come on up. And one, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five in your one, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, and allied back down, legs down as well. Now bring your legs back up to tabletop.

Bring your arms out to the sides. Keep the knees bent and take your front leg and take it down onto the floor. Take the other leg over to the floor. Leg comes up, other leg comes up other way. Leg down, leg. Ow over.

Keep both shoulders down, top, leg up. Another leg comes up. One more time. Each side, over and over. Beautiful. And come up and up and really stretch. Separating those legs all the way over through the hip.

Getting nice activation through that hip joint and come center and legs. Come down. Bring your arms down at the sides of your body. Yes. What? Let's do some more hundreds cause we're so having so much fun with them. This time what we're going to do is bring your legs, tabletop, both legs together. Remember, and let's put the legs down. Try that again. Remember, we're activating from the low abdominals. Concentrate on maintaining your pelvic alignment.

Here we go. Let's make it pretty. There it is. Very, very nice. Now extend your legs to the position where you have your strengths. Your pelvis is in the alignment. The spine is a long gated. The shoulders are relaxed. That no tension in the neck. Slide the hands. Lift the upper body. Let's begin. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five.

Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, one more set in here. One, two, three, four, five. Exit One, two, three, and rule yourself down. Place your feet flat. Take a nice deep breath. Christy. This one's going to be a challenge for you, not for the rest of you, but for Christy. Legs up now straight leg goes to the floor, arms to the sides. Straight leg goes to the floor like so. Other hip just comes up. Nice. Now bend this knee and place it over. The leg.

Extended out, lifted up straight. Other leg, straight, straight leg goes to the floor. Bend over, extend nice straight leg and bend the knees in. Wasn't that fun? It's better when you have floor underneath you. Yes, let's do it one more time. Straight legs up, one leg down to the floor.

Beautiful. Let that other hip come up and bend the leg and cross it over. Extended out. Good. Lift the straight leg, lift the other straight leg and go to the opposite side. Straight leg down. Bend the other leg, reach it over. And Stuart, hatch it out. Nice and long. Beautiful. Straight leg up.

Other straight leg up. Bend your knees and come down into the center and relax for just a moment. And now from here we're going to roll ourselves all the way up, sitting up nice and tall and we're going to extend the legs out for our spine stretch. So you want the legs just about as wide as your mat and we're going to bring the arms out to the sides. So from here we want to image that we have a pole across the shoulders so that as we are doing spine twist, we are going to keep the shoulders and the arm placement.

So that we are twisting more from the rib cage and not just the arm movement. So linkedin upward. And let's begin. Twist on one, two, three, twist to the front. Good and back to center. Two, three and four. Take your time. One, two, three, four, back to center, two, three and four and twist to three. Four, center two, three, four and twist. You look great. Shoulders down. Lift that chest and back. Two three.

Let's do one more set. And this time I want you to make sure that they arm stay where they are and it's coming from under the ribs. Nice and back one more time. Lean against me. Good. And come back in to the center.

Round the back and stretch all the way over. Relaxing through the upper back, relaxing through the upper body and bring the soles of the feet together in the diamond position. Oh well green to do a nice side stretch. So place your hand on the floor next to you. Lift up and side, stretch over and come up through the center side. Stretch over and up through the center.

Beautiful side. Stretch over. Sorry. And up through the center and side stretch over and now side stretch over. And what I'd like you to do is to round over and stretch past the calf onto the floor. Beautiful. Go back to your side, stretch and come up into the center side. Stretch over, stretch too long past your calf all the way out. Beautiful side, stretch and lift back up. And again, side stretch. Rotate the body in, reach for something that is just a little bit further away and come back to the side stretch and come back up one more time.

Up and over side stretch. Get that long, long reach all the way through the movement. Beautiful. Go back to the side, stretch and come. Good. But now we need to rotate the other way as well. It's not enough to go forward because there's always things behind us. Side stretch over, rotate from the sternum, you know, keep the hand right by the ear and where each behind you. Beautiful. Back to the side, stretch up and over to the other side.

Side stretch, rotate and open. Look following that arm and follow your hand and come back over. And now one more to each side. Side, stretch over, rotate. Open that chest. We're rotating from under the rib cage and back to center and over the last one.

Take it over and open. Open and reach. Nice and long and back to the side. Stretch and come up. Let's do one set now where we put it all together. Side stretch are those. They feel so good, don't they? It's a great rotation because this is what we do all the time.

Side stretch. Thank you. And go over the calf. Back to the side. Stretch. Rotate in, open high to the ceiling. Back to the side. Stretch and length into the opposite side and over side. Stretch back to the side. Stretch open and rotate it all the way back.

And one more time. Each side over to the front. Breathing and enjoy it. Let the body flows through the movement. Rotate and lift through the chest, the sternum as up. Rotate through the rib cage over last one over to the side and reach and open and lift a high d back side stretch and come up into the center.

Well I'm glad you liked that one cause you probably won't like what's coming next. So rolling like a ball. We're going to place the hands under the thighs for this and needs a part for you. Depart. Good. And going again. Rolling back slightly. So we're off of the tailbone and this time that your legs come with you. So now you're balanced with the legs up. Good.

Find your balance here and I want you to roll back. Okay? Roll up and tap your toes. Okay. Lift them up. Roll back, roll up. Tap the toes. Nice. Roll back. Roll Up. Tap your toes and one more time.

Roll back and roll up and tap the toes. Roll down and hold. Roll back and come up. Tap your toes. All right, come back down. Roll back. [inaudible] hold, hold, hold. Tap the toes. Okay. Yeah.

Roll down. There you go. Roll back, row up. Because we can't do miss this part of our back when we're doing the exercise. So we're starting down, we're using the design of the body to help us so we roll up and don't throw the body forward to come up and now put it all together. Well, backing up. Well one, no touching and two, no touching and three. Good. And for get more contact with your back.

Do you see how breaking it down helps particularly with the upper back. Beautiful. Candace. And last one. Very nice and down. Okay, good. Are we good? We liked it. Oh right. Oh good. Because it gets more of them control all the way through the movement instead of just getting it over with, we actually can get to those places in our spine where we needed the most. Okay, so now we're going to and turn to the side.

Beautiful. And just um, leg over leg, leg over leg and bring the arms up. Turn away from your legs and place both hands on your mat. Square, shoulders. Beautiful. Now try not to let this top hip come with you, but resist the top hip and keep the back long and straight.

Push ups and down and lift. Very nice and down from the chest and lift and dam and lift and down and lift. One more time. Take it down and lift. Beautiful. Take the front arm, place it on the small of your back and down in lift. Oh dear. Down and left. Okay. Single arm.

Push up and down and lift and down. Back as long as straight. Come from the center of the chest and down. Only one more time. Down and lifted up. Very, very nice and other side. Bring the legs around, arms up, leg over leg. Twist and turn the body and place both hands down.

Square the shoulders and press down and push up. Good and down and push up. Once again, use your breath. Inhale, exhale. As you come up and keep that spine long and straight. Try and keep this shoulder square to the floor and come down front of the sternum and come up. Front. Arm goes behind you. We're back. And five more caressed down in lift up and for rest down and lift up.

Inhale down. Exhale up, square the shoulders. Use the breath and one more time. Take it down and lift to come up and come back in to the center. And we're going to bring the lay center and roll down. Or you're going to roll down this way and he's bent fee flat. Roll down one vertebrae at a time. Find your alignment.

Place your hands lightly behind your head. Drop your knees to one side of the body, keeping the torso. In this position we're going to lift the upper torso and lift and sit up. Now what I want here is yes for you to lift straight up, even though the body is on an angle. So think of the sternum coming up to the ceiling and down.

Exhale and lifted up and come down. Exhale, lift, very nice and come down. Exhale up. Five more. Exhale, a lift, press and lower linkedin. So we're working on those obliques and down. Try to relax the knees toward the floor. Use your breath and remember it's the center of the chest.

Is lifting two more up. [inaudible] alright, one more and down and up and the other side. Sometimes my five is not exactly five but that's how it goes. Okay, here we go. And exhale, lifted up and yet I was never good in math and up and down. Lift. I do as many as looks like we need them.

And up lifting, long center of the chest and five more and ah, and lift. Exhale two to go and reach. Add up and lower and stretch out and come down. Bring your legs into the center and relax through the upper body. And now we're going to bring the legs over to the side.

Lift. Piece of hands back behind the head. Lift it up. [inaudible] 10 more. No, I'm kidding. It was a joke. Okay, I was joking. This time what we want to do is take that rotation. So we're coming from under the ribs and we're going to go on to the side of the body. Very nice. Now rest on the side of the body. Place your hand down.

Okay. Now you can either have it be resting on the elbow or you can have the handout and the head down, whichever is more comfortable for you so that we have um, either body position is absolutely fine and the front arm is you're going to help support you from here. We're going to have you just open the top leg up so we are opening from the hip, keeping foot over foot. Good and close it down and lifted up and close it down and lift up [inaudible] and close down. Keep him KIPP hip over hip. Keep the stabilization through the hips and the shoulders and lift up and down.

Now lift up and hold. So lifting as high as you can. This time we're going to squeeze it down and just let it float up. Squeeze down. Can you feel the difference in the hip joint? So just doing the same movement but the focus of the movement is different and up two more times. Press it down and let it float up. And the emphasis is on the activation of the muscles on the down and let it float up. If you can come onto this elbow.

So you're coming up a little bit higher. Rest on the elbow if you, if you can, if that's comfortable. And from here, lift both legs up, up, and press down. Good. Lift up and squeeze down and lift up and down. Exhale up. Inhale down. One more time. You see hip stays over hip. Don't roll forward or back and come down. Bend the leg. Now it's straightened both legs just lightly in front of you.

You can slide back. There you go. And beautiful. Now we can take the top leg and bend the leg. Sweep the leg so it's hip level with your hip and sweep it to in front of you. Extended lower to the floor. Lift it back up and straight leg sweep behind you. All the way back.

Bend. Bring it front. Extend lower lift, sweep back bend. Sweep it front. Extend lower, lift and sweep a straight leg back. Beautiful and bend and extend and lower. Left straight leg back. One more time. Bend. Bring it front down, up, and sweep and take it all the way back. Now take it to the back.

Keep it straight and just lower and lift. Lower lift. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four and five. Bring leg over leg. Come down onto your arm. Roll into the center. Bend your knees, place your hands behind your head. Lower the legs to the side.

Lift the torso and will up to the opposite side. Do you want to turn around to Christine? Nope. Okay. Okay. And No, this is fine for me. And okay. From this position, find the right position for you. You can rest your head down.

You can stay on your elbow and the other hand comes in front. And we're going to do the top like emphasizing, open up and down. Open as wide and high as you can through the hip, joint and down and exhale and inhale. Emphasize the opening and release and open. Release. Open and hold. Now keep hip over hip, shoulder over shoulder and emphasize coming down. Squeeze down.

One lifted up. Exhale, two. Very nice. Exhale three and up. Exhale for lift up and exhale down on five and lift. Come up and rest on your elbow. Now arming front still stays as your support.

You look great and both legs up first and open and lift up. One. Knees are bent and feet are together. Good. Open in lift one and down and two and down. Lift three and down four and down. Lift on five and come down.

Bring the leg over and extend the legs. Out. Lays go slightly in front, but hip stays over. Hip. Shoulder stays over shoulder and take that leg and bend it. Bring it around to the front. Extended lower lift. Sweep around to the back and bend. Whole leg comes front.

You look great and lower. Lift, sweep, bend and extend it front. Lower lift, sweep back. Bend two to go and extend lower lift. Sweep it back and around. Bend it. Last one. Extend lower. Lift and sweep and hold it to the back.

Straighten it out and lower. 10 Times. One, two, three, stretching out of the hip and five hip over here. Forget it. And I said long one, two, three, four and five and bring leg over leg. Bend your knees and roll back into the center and relax. Take three full breaths. Small pelvic curls, curl on one and down Caroline, two and down. Curl on three and down, and now come on over for swimming and our extension work. So we're going to roll to the side and churn over onto our stomach.

From here we're going to begin with some extension. Head is down and we are to reach in opposition, so one arm and the opposite leg. Lift up, stretch out as far as you can and lower to come down. Other side lift. Lengthen the arm away from the foot and lower all the way through and keep alternating up. Arm and leg and down and stretch. Lift. I'm in leg.

Reach out and down and again up. Reach it out. Stretch down. One more time up. Reach out and stretch and now gather. Bring the arms and the legs lightly up. Stretching opposition without changing the shoulders or the pelvic alignment.

A small flutter with the arms and the legs. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, reach long and come down and now slide the arms underneath you and begin to press up just to the count two, it's comfortable. Lengthening the arms. Now from here, right, watch the ribs and don't play. Lay into the spine, but keep the length of the back and now come down from the pubic bone to the navel length in the front of the body and come all the way down to the mat. And again, pulling the arms under you. Lainson up only as high as you, you can without pushing back so that we keep the length in the extension and we reach out through the top of the head.

Start from the pubic bone to come back down two more times. Lengthen, reach it long and stretch all the way out. Coming up and stretch and come all the way to lengthen down. And we'll do one more of those reach and stretch through the top of the head length and all the way out out, up and lengthen the torso. Stretch out on the front of the body, Linkedin, spine and come back. Come onto your elbows.

But stay lying down just on the elbows. And we're just going to make two little, little fis lightly, um, together. So we have some little shared goals. We are going to lift one leg up off of the mat fold and bend it into Kik for to stretch it out and down. Lift the opposite leg up. Bend it in, kick for two with the heel to the buttocks and down and lift up. Kick the heel to the buttocks for two. Lengthen out and come down. Like comes up, kick, kick, lengthen out and down leg comes up.

Kick kick linkedin long. One more time. Ah, kick kit. Lengthen long and calm down. And now come back and sit down on your heels and stretch all the way out from here. We're going to stretch back and roll up to sitting. Good. Stay on your um, in the sitting position. And the idea here is we want to think about really utilizing the work from the thigh. So the back is going to stay straight and we're just going to press up to a kneeling position. So from here, arms come up and come back down.

Try not to lean as we do this. Become as if your beautiful raising all the way up with your exhale and down. Only one more. Come on up. Okay. And calm down.

Bring your legs to the side now so you can turn and face run again and just sit down with your legs and your hips here and your legs here. Beautiful. And we're going to go on to the elbow. Try to keep the knees together, feet together in this position. And we're just gonna lightly lift the hips just a few inches off of the mat. Hips come up and press down. Hips come up.

Good. Try not to twist your, turn them straight up. If, if you're um, in a swing that's just lifting you up and pressing you down. Lift back up and down and lift back up. Hold and calm down. Bring the legs in and come back into your kneeling position and go over to the opposite side on the elbow, hip over hip and foot over foot. And from this position, we're on the elbow and just the hips and we come up on one and press down into the mat and lift. Done. Two very nice and shoulder stays over, shoulder, hip, over hip. Try not to roll forward or back in this position, but maintain that alignment in the body. Very nice.

There should not be a lot of weight into the shoulder in the weight is coming all the way through the torso and the hips so that we're working by activation of the whole body. One more time and calm down. Once again, sit on the uh, on your heels in the center. And once again we're going to press up to the sitting position. You're going to need to face frog for this one. You are going to face right. Okay. Okay, so come up straight. Very nice.

And now this time we're going to place one hand down on the, to the mat, keeping the leg bent. The other arm will go back over the head. The end elbow is band, leg bend and lift, yet one now squeeze to come down, lift on to squeeze to come down and lift on three squeeze to come down and four and down and five now lifted up, straighten it out, point the toe and lower down. Take the top. I'm high to the ceiling and round the body. Over and bring the arms through and come back up, rounded o over and through and up. One more time. Round over in, through and come up and the leg in and sit down on the heels.

Stretch the back and come up. Oh, there's side dressed up. Don't waste the movement. Use the movement and over to the side. Hand behind the head. Bent leg on one. Squeeze down to squeeze down three and down. Four and down. Last one. Five. Come down, take it out and extend it. Touch the toe on to the mat.

Lift the arm high and circle and squeeze through. Round the back and open through the chest and around the back and open the chest up nice and long and one more time. Round it down in, through open and stretch high and come into the center and sit down on your heels. Round your back and relax all the way through. Press F one, two hands and knees round the back. Keep the back in, rounded in this position and keep your hips level. Take your front knee and bring the knee towards the chest without changing your spine. Bring your leg up and around to the back. Good. The roundness of the spine will limit the range of motion.

Just keep the spine rounded and squeeze. And n the leg position doesn't change. It doesn't extend. It stays bent all the way through. Bend the knee, keep it knee bend. Good. You don't change the spine position. Keep that spine stable and come in and back and last one and up, down and change sides and let's go.

Keep that back rounded in squeezing, lifting up very nice and in exhale, keep that stabilization of the spine and en and relax the shoulders and neck. Pull it in reach instead. Your long back behind you put in and up to to go and in round it up, n and up and down and round into the cat. And now lengthen all the way out. Back long and flat, round into your cat and back. Long and flat and round to the cat.

Keep the long flat back and one arm and opposite leg. Slide the arm and the leg up and out. Don't change the spine position or the hip position and pull in and down. Change sides. Lengthen and stretch it long and out and in and down.

Lengthen all long and out. In and down. One more. Each side. Lainson and down. Lengthen. Long in and out and down. Last time. Lengthen and stretch. Beautiful. And come down. Curl your toes under.

Sit back on your heels. Round your back and let's roll up to standing. I bring the arms up. Take a long, long breath, and we've been around. We're soften your knees and round the spine down. Rule yourself up. Lengthen the spine out. Lanes in the legs in the spine.

Lifted torso high. Lengthen all the way up. Sweep the arms around back behind you and rule yourself down. Soften the knees. Begin to roll up. Lengthen the legs, lengthen the spine. Let it grow organically, all the way through the body. Lift up, open the chest high to the ceiling. Circle the arms behind you. And one more time. Roll it down, roll back up, Lincoln out. Stretch it all the way long.

Lift up and place the hands behind the head. Step the feet lightly apart and roll over to the side. Stretch out to the sidewall and lift up, lengthen the spine, stretch over to the side linkedin and come up. [inaudible] linked in the spine. Stretch over to the side. Lengthen and come up. One more time. Over length in the torso to the side. Yeah, and come up. Bring your hands down and in front of you and make two little circles with your hands. From here.

We're going to flick our fingers open wide as if there's something kind of sticky on him. And the thing is we want to keep that wrist absolutely still end straight and let's begin. So it's a nice strong movement and we opened that faint, the fingers very wide. As we're doing it, our [inaudible] stable, we keep them nice and stable all way through and we bring the arms then up into the center and right in front of the chest we keep moving through the stabilization of the wrist and this nice soft elbow, the shoulders are down and relax. Bring the hands up over the head, reaching nice and long, shoulders down. Don't change the alignment through the pelvis. Keep that spine long and keep breathing through the movement and open the arms.

Now out to the sides. Shoulders, stay down. Keep that going. Nice and strong. Rotate over and bring the arms down into the center, into the center. And set two. I'm kept joking. How are your hands? How? How are your forearms?

So this is one of the best examples of the Palladia system. About how one set of exercises, one small movement activates a whole different set of muscles. So we're working on our forearm, we are working through the elbow. You can see the movement passing through the joints. So our stabilization helps us to do all of this work.

This is an excellent exercise for people with arthritis, for carpal tunnel, for tennis elbow. But I like putting it here in this program because it's an example of how simple movement done properly really activates muscles through the whole body. Let's be do a nice stretch to complete. Come back up. Well over and down. Relax the arms and small circles from the shoulders.

Again, don't force the movement just working from the shoulders and reverse it. Reverse it as small and easy. Soften the knees, roll the spine, and come up one vertebrae at a time. Relax the arms, relax the shoulders, and come up. Stack Vertebra on top of Vertebra, lift the arms, let them float up through the shoulder girdle, open, high. Inhale and exhale. And thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

Great work. Really good.

Comments

DJ
DJ
1 person likes this.
Little gems throughout this class ! breaking down rolling like a ball, diamond stretch sitting with rotation, and of course the finger /hand / forearm work at the end - I love constantly learning. Thank you Kathy
A really appreciated your explanations....loved your class I understand why Cecile Bankston likes you so much!!
Loved this class, lots of stretching after a long swim workout.
Thank you Kathy
Taghrid K
Excellent and most enjoyable class, loved the cues, the different variations like the diamond stretch, side work variations and flicking the fingers. Brilliant. Thank you Kathy.
Liked the flow, the different variations to familiar exercises and especially flicking the fingers so simple and effective. Thoroughly enjoyable thank you.
Maria P
Thank you Ms Corey! You can tell this recording is from one of the legendary figures of pilates. I wish someone taught us these exercises when I started my training years ago as an eye surgeon!

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