Class #296

Strength and Balance Mat

50 min - Class
184 likes

Description

In this Strength and Balance class, participants use lightweight (2-3 pound) Hand Weights and a Stability Ball. This is a great class for increasing muscle tone in the arms, hips, legs, and of course abdomen. Layla focuses on higher repetitions in many exercises expecting you to gradually build endurance when an extra challenge presents itself. We predict you'll want to take this class over and over again. The challenge is there for all and it is a whole lot of fun!
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights, Fitness Ball

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Transcript

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Alright. So let's actually stand tall and move right up in front of our ball and to make your ball stay where you'd like it. To find the balance point where it's not rolling all over your mat. I like to actually mark the top of mine with a little x. So next time I put it down I can find where it will park itself.

So I like it parked on the mat and your shins are barely touching the ball. Standing tall and the feet are spread apart. A little bit about shoulder distance apart. Inhale tall. Exhale, dropping the Chin softly rolling down. Bring the arms forward over the ball.

Contact the forehead gently to the ball, and no lift up the spine in a nice bridge. Pressing the head down into the ball spine up to the ceiling. Inhale and exhale. Roll it up to a nice stand. Inhale tall and exhale. Let's reel it down again. You can bring your arms to the side or over the front of the ball. Contact the forehead. Now lift the spine in opposition.

Pressing the head down to the ball. Inhale here, and exhale. Roll it up. So feeling like you have a nice arched bridge right over that ball. We'll do it one more time. Inhale and exhale, letting the whole day relax and fall into this spine and lift up away from the ball. One more time. Inhale and exhale, leaving it and rolling it up. Inhale here [inaudible] and exhale. Roll it down. Contact the ball on either side, halfway down.

Inhale, hold. Pressing the ball with both palms and exhale. Roll it up, bringing it up overhead. Inhale tall and exhale over to the side. Inhale here. Exhale up. Inhale tall and exhale over other side.

Really wrapping the glutes behind you. Inhale here and exhale up. One more time. Inhale Taller. Exhale over wrapping those glutes and protecting that lower back. Inhale here. Exhale up. Last time, reaching taller. Exhale over.

Inhale here. Exhale. Beautiful. All right down here, grab your hand weights. Two, three pounds. If you don't have hand weights, bottles of water work, those half liter bottles, they weigh about a little more than a pound. Each full leader's gonna Weigh 2.2 pounds. You can even put sand in those and really get it going, but you certainly can, uh, do without as well.

So taking your hand weights in your hand, we're going to add a little bit of balance work to this as well. So I want you to take your toe and just gently rested on top of the ball and really squeeze the standing glute. Bring the arms out to the t and as we push lift up, we push out and slightly drop the arms, rotating the thumbs down to the ground and out and out and out, out and out. To squeeze that standing glute. Now we're going out and hold little lifts up, keeping light on the heel on that ball. And three standing tall, four there's five and six.

Seven here's eight, nine broad collarbones tend to hold it up a little circles forward. And two, here's three, four, five, six, seven [inaudible] eight change out your weights anytime and 10 reverse it 10 and I ate. Really Roll those shoulders open. Six, five, four, three, two and one. Roll it in and bring the arms up to the goalpost arms. Push it up ahead overhead, keeping the ribs engaged and pull it down. Push it up and pull it down.

Push it up and pull it down. Keeping the ribs in as you reach the arms overhead, push it up and down and up and down. One more time. Up and down. Push it up and hold. Now bring it down to the goalpost. Arms bend the knee, toes are on the ball and come in and out, in, out, and squeeze it out. Foot is light on the ball, in and out, in and out.

One more time. In and out. Let the arms down and bring the foot down. Change legs. There we go. So arms out to the t. This time, thumbs up towards the ceiling. We push out and lift up and down and this is a slight movement down so we're really not moving the arms a whole lot and lift and pull in. Lift and lift and extend and get taller.

Up and down. Now we keep it out, rotated down and thumbs down and that and three and four. Don't lean back and five and six and seven. Here's eight. Here's nine. Last time to bring it in and let it all down. Yeah, there's our arms. There's our arms. Okay, we're going to get those. See, but now they feel all better, don't they?

They do. Yup. So take a seat on your ball. Let's do that. Bring them right here. Now push the ball away and come back into tricep extension with an extended back. So we're lifting our tail and our elbows straight. Elbows to the ceiling. Pulse it up and down.

Pull the abdominals away from the thighs and three and four and five and six. Here's seven. There's eight, nine and 10. Bring it forward and a hammer curl and come forward into a tuck on your ball. Extend and pull in and really suck the abdominals down into that ball. As we do this nice bicep, we're keeping the elbows high and keeping the abdomen pushed down into this ball.

Four and five, six and seven [inaudible]. Next time eight we're going to stay out and we're gonna lift and two and three. Keep the neck long and fun and the abdomen really pulled down and if you press the abdomen down, hard enough, full arms, just lift all by themselves. It's magic and nine and 10 hold it here, roll it up and lift and two and three and four. Here's five and six. Here's seven, eight, nine and 10. Pull him in.

Pull him in. Come here to the goalpost. Extend and Ben and reach and bend and reach. Make it a long and tall and five and nice soft fingers here. No tension in the fingers. Really don't need to grasp these weights. They're just balanced in our head, hands and nine and 10. Nice work. Put them down for now. Bring your ball onto the mat. Come down, address it with both elbows.

If you want to start this work on your knees, you may do so. Certainly making sure that your hips are forward. If you're ready to go into a full plank, that's what we'll do now. Adapt as you need to. Making sure that you have room to come out into a full plank.

Elbows are under, so come out into a full plank and bring your consciousness, triumph for a moment to bring all of your consciousness and balance into the center of your body rather than your elbows. So really pull up and engage the entire center of your body as you hold here. Now Roll your elbows away and then pull them under out. There's two, there's three and four and five. There's six, two more. Seven and eight. Hold it here now. A little circles with the elbows around two, three, four [inaudible] and five. Now hold and reverse it.

Five and four and three and two and one. Knees down to the Mat. Come up into a pushup position on the ball. And again, the center of your body, the center of your body is, is really the balance point. It's not about the shoulders, it's not about the hands. Bring all your consciousness into the center, drop the elbows and push up and really you're pushing up from your navel and three and four and thought six head is a straight line right down to your heels. Eight, two more. Nine and 10 hike it back.

Put your hands on top of your ball and give yourself a lovely stretch. Stretch that out. Flex the lower spine arch the back. Come up to fingertips on the ball, roll it back out to an extended flat back position. Tuck the pelvis again. We'll let up do a nice arch and extended out again.

Good. We move on. Roll the ball to the back of the Mat Shins or on. How much of the Shin is on? Depends on you. We are going to be doing pike if your ankles, I mean if your ankles, if your wrists bother you, you can try to drape your fingertips off the edge of your mat. And I would like to encourage you to think not about moving forward and not allowing your shoulders to come forward over your wrists, but rather keep them there and think up. So from here, fix your spot on the floor. Bow Your head and come up into pike.

Extend out, wrap the glutes. There's one [inaudible] up there is two and up. There's three. Two more. Up is for one more. Five. Don't leave me. Come up and twist for no bleak and down. Just to each side. Up and down. Yes.

Alternating this and last time up on this side. Extend One foot down the other foot down. Let's hang for one moment here. Inhale here. Exhale. Slowly. Roll it up. Hm.

Grab your ball back because it's running away. We'll come back. Coming back. [inaudible] to that same position, but now we're going to curl the back. So instead of extended work, we do flection work. So we come here and if you want more support, bring the knees right on the ball. More of a challenge further away. Again, shoulders need to stay behind.

The rest are right on top of. So this time we're going to bend at the knee and pull them in with a rounded back and extend. Try to keep the knee as high as the feet. So try not to let the knees drop down in front of the ball, pull it in, but your head goes well, look at your knees, there's five. And now we're again going to do the oblique work. So we pull in as we talk and extent other side and extend one more time each side and extend and time.

Extend One foot down the other foot down. Hang for a moment to congratulate yourself. Bravo. Inhale, gather yourself as you exhale and roll it up. We're almost breaking a sweat and I know we'll come down to our knees. Yeah, so on some of the wonderful Claudia's equipment, we can do a wonderful exercise called fly stretch and we can do a lot of it here as well. And I will encourage you to cut the repetitions down on this particular section and then next time you come back, increase the repetitions and you want to build on this because it will make you quite sore if you jump into it a little too quickly.

So come up on your knees and they are about shoulder distance apart. And the arms are straight out in front of you. Here. We're going to hinge back and we're going to Tuck the pelvis underneath as we push the arms down and press into the SA. So we're pressing the pelvis and release, press and release, press and release, press and release. Press and press.

Really feel the navel just pulled up underneath these ribs. Press really press release. Do this on the Cadillac with a blonde bar. Do it with the straps on the reformer. Press release, press release, press release, and press release. Hold it here and now we'll alternate.

So the right glute and the right hip come forward as the right palm presses into the thigh and release. Left side and release. Right side and release. Left and right, left and right, left, right, left her right. Really pressed that palm into the thigh per ass. And press one more time. Each side, press and press. Hold it.

Here we come back. We press the right side as we tap the right heel and come up, press the left side and press the right and press and press. Press. Oh, feel that elongation. This really helps to work out in balances for runners, for anyone who overworks a lot of their quads and needs a little bit more hamstring. One more each side. Hold it here, sit back on your heels, spread the knees a little bit further apart.

So now we're a little bit wider than our shoulders. The palms come a few inches behind our toes, fingers facing inward. We'll do a nice, so I want you to open the shoulders and rotate them back. So we really broaden the chest and open. We inhale here and we exhale. We tilt the pelvis up and scoop it all the way up here.

Good little pulses at the top. One and two, three and four, five and six. Seven here's eight, nine [inaudible] trying to make sure the head doesn't fall back or that it doesn't strain forward. Keeping a nice straight line between the knee and the ears and really keep this pelvis tucked under and yes, we're probably going towards 20 on this, right? There's 20 give me 10 more, 10 and eight. Shoulders Open. Seven, six, five and four. Three there's two and one. Hold it there. Open the shoulders, engage the abdomen, pull those, seal those ribs in and lift and open. Yeah, lift the hips higher. [inaudible] give me 15 pulses and two and three and four.

Here's five and six. Seven and eight. Nine there's ten five more, five and four. Three, two. Hold it up. Open the shoulders, broaden that chest, close the ribs. Really Tuck that pelvis under.

Reach it open, open, open. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Inhale and exhale. Drop it down. Come forward into child pose and really let those hips settle right on those heels. Tuck the pelvis under and really feel a nice flex in the lower back as you relax into this, because we have a really fun part of this to go. All right, here we go. So coming back to the same position, we're going to come up into pelvic peel, open the shoulders up into pelvic Peele, lift the right knee off of the mat and do leg circles with the thigh.

So we're making small circles with that kneecap and four and five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 reverse it. 10 and nine. Eight and seven. Keep those hips lifted. Six, five and four. Three, two and one. Put it down. Lift the other side and 10 lift that hip. Nine, eight, seven. Shoulders Open. Six, five, four, three, two and one. Reverse it. One, two and three. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. Come forward into child. I'll pose good work. That is hard in such coordination for a small movement. You're really stirring that femur with your hip.

Oh, move your hips from side to side over your heels here for a moment. Stretch out the lower back. Inhale here. So roll it up. Grab your ball.

We'll make some nice here. If you can feel your knees at this point. I want your upper backs to be lying on the ball. So, and then roll back. Let me, I'm gonna get off the mat here. Rollback. So you've really got pretty much your mid back here. Yup. Your scapula's still in contact with the ball and your knees and feet are about shoulder distance apart.

Elbows are wide and open and the head is cradled in the hands. So feel long first, tuck the pelvis under. So you really feeling like your tailbone is lifting away from the ball and chest lift up and back down to a straight line and up to hold at the top and release it back down and lift and down and left. And keep that tail tucked up to the ceiling and the lift and lift and down and lift. And now we make a change. We rotate away to the window here, lift and down, rotate all the way through center and lift.

Lifting the tail through, center in the lift and down. Lift the tail at the same time that the chest comes up and the left and cliff and lift one more each side and lift. Nicely done. Walk out. So your hands are on the ball, your scapula are. And that's about it. Narrow the feet just a tad. So they're just inside the shoulders. So I want you to inhale here, Tuck the pelvis up to the ceiling as you allow the upper back to contact the ball and roll down the face of this ball.

Keeping that pelvis tucked until the last moment when the pelvis unfurls and the back is arched against the ball. Inhale here. Exhale, Tuck the pelvis first changed nothing else. Roll that up. Now the mid back and the upper back [inaudible] to where we started. Inhale here. Exhale, lift the pelvis first and drop the upper back. Okay, and now the mid Oh, now the lumbar comes and the tail goes away and back into the ball. Uh, even let the ribs go here. Just stretch that. Just enjoy that. Inhale here. Exhale, Tuck the pelvis under and roll up this ball vertebra by Vertebra.

One at a time. String of pearls. Inhale, one more time in. Exhale, roll it down. Keep that pelvis tucked until the very last minute. And now glue the entire spine to the ball. Hold that here. Oh, press those elbows wide open. Inhale, exhale. Roll it up. Come to the very top and a nice straight line.

Heel toe a little bit closer together. And now drive your knees together, pin them together and little lifts up to the ceiling with the glutes. And two and three, four and five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Again, here's 10 and nine and eight and [inaudible] seven. I really get a lot out of the top of this and four and three and two and one. Roll it all the way down. Sitting in front of your ball. Oh, stretch your legs out. Straight in front of you.

Inhale here. Exhale, scoop down. Roll forward. Extend the arms overhead. Inhale here. Exhale, scoop it back and set up. One more time. Inhale. Exhale, scoop in. Roll. Extend the arms. Come out.

Now it's come into spine stretch. Inhale here and exhale down and roll it up. Great. We'll come back to the ball with our feet on the ball. Last little bit of aerial work. The Tufts stuff is behind us. Kids.

Good. We're going to alternate. Basically a leg pull coming down on the side of the ball and lifting up. Come down with the other leg, touched the ground and lift up, down and up, down and up, down and the right up, left and right. Left and right. Left and right. One more time. Each side, the left and right.

Hold it here and give me five pushups down and one up, two and three [inaudible] five. Walk the ball up so it's underneath your hips. This is going to be nice. You're gonna like this push back yet, however you can make it. So hands are now underneath your shoulders. Your hips are supported on the ball.

Now twist the hips and split the legs. Split the legs and then come back to center. I'm losing all control here. Go split to the other side. Split the legs and come back to center. Yup. Roll. It's better if both elbows are straight. If you need the balance, it's okay. There's no rules here. Roll. Doesn't it feel great?

It's not mean. It's nice. Let's start with your hips on roll back and one more time this side. Oh, amazing. Is it not? Yeah. Alright, come back. Roll back and say goodbye to your ball for now. We'll come down onto the mat.

Knees bent softly, a little less than shoulder distance apart. Holding on right behind the thigh. Inhale here, sitting tall. Exhale. Just flex the lower back. So we really haven't changed the position of our head. It's maybe come down in itch. It's not gone back. Sit Up, flex down, up and flex down, up and flex down. Hold it here. Inhale and exhale.

Continue to roll back. Lengthening the arms. Come all way down just to the tip of the scapular. Hold it there. Lift the arms overhead over the knees. Inhale, exhale. Roll it up. SLU sitting tall. Inhale here, and exhale. Roll tip of the Scapula. That's a nice spot. Inhale, exhale, roll.

But enough of that inhale. Exhale, roll and stop right here at the belt. So the belt is pushing down into the mat. Lift the right arm and down. Lift the left and down with the right and the left. One more time, or right and the left. Inhale here. Exhale, roll it up. Inhale, exhale. We're coming all the way down to the mat. Slowly and in control.

Coming up into tabletop position for double leg stretch. Inhale out. Show that extension and exhale, sweep and press. Inhale out and empress. Drop the ABS here in periph it in. Extend. Look like you're on a rack and sweep everything.

The shoulders are with you as you draw your arms down. And two more. Last one, single leg here and here. Lifting the chest, scooping the abdominals. That belt again is pressing into the mat nicely and control. I think that's eight nine, 10 and 10. Hold it here. Hands behind the head. Rotate, leaving everything open but lifted. Inhale, annex hills switch, keeping those elbows wide, thinking the shoulders lifting to the knee and at the same time that back is dropping into the mat. [inaudible] where are we? Kristy? There we go. Straight leg. Here we are.

Inhale and exhale switch. There's one and two lift and three. This whole upper body is coming up and fuck, they're six seven, eight, nine, 10 and 10 hold it here. Hands behind the head. Rotate. Last part of this and the Sioux, which there's a one and two, sorry, and five six, seven, eight who does two nine and 10 hug those knees in to the back, side to side. Do whatever. Stretching feels good to your back. Knee. My back likes to move and roll and frolic when it stretches.

Some people do better with a static type stretch. Do what? Feels good. Listen to your body. Roll over. So stack your hands underneath your forehead, reaching the legs long, pulling the abdominals up away from the mat, tucking that pelvis underneath you, bringing the heels together, flexing the feet, lift the legs. So everything from, hopefully your hipbone is off of the Mat. Our feet are turned out, the heels or the heels are together and he'll beat. So we're beating quickly near inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale in and out. Beat BPPP. Think straight leg, straight leg, straight legs and lift. And you're lifting from the glutes. You're lifting from the hips. Think hips. Don't think knees. Don't think ankles left. Left, left, left, left in and out. One more breath in and out. Hold point the toes.

Circle the right leg and close the heels. So little circles, two and three and four lifted up high and six. Press those heels together and eight, nine and 10 reverse it. Same leg, 10 and nine. Eight, seven and six. Five and four. Three, two [inaudible] and one change legs. 10, nine [inaudible]. Eight. Take the tension out of your shoulders, pull the abs up off the mat.

And Five, four, six, we use the button to [inaudible] and one reverse it. We're almost home. And nine, here's eight and seven. Six [inaudible] five I think of squeezing those glutes together. Three too. Okay, and one, let it down and push yourself back into it. Child was, ah, yeah. Ooh. So Nice.

Wherever your arms want to be. Overhead by your side. Backed by your toes. Yes, indeed. Little bit of upper back extension work. Come back out. Let's go swimming. Let's go swimming. So stretching the arms overhead and stretching the legs in opposition and pulling the midsection up in between.

We inhale here and exhale, lifting everything. Sing up and swim and breathe. And inhale and exhale. And now and exhale. Think upper back reaching. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Two more breaths. Inhale.

Exhale. Last breath. Inhale. Exhale. Hold everything up and drop it down and push it back into child's pose. One [inaudible]. Let's roll it over.

We're on the homestretch kids. So something kind of simple with a little variation. We're going to do leg circles. So one leg is extended, the other leg is lifted towards the ceiling. And now the leg that's on the mat, I want you to bend at the knee, pick it up and move it out so that it's at the outside of your mat. Just outside your mat.

Good palms are firm on the ground, but we're not really using these as leverage. So I want you to circle to the inside and out, down, up two and three and four. Really keep those hips stable and six, seven, eight, nine and 10. Hold and reverse it. 10 and and and seven. So get some momentum going with this and then try to control that momentum so the body's not involved. Is that 10?

Yup. Alright. Bend it. Good, Carolyn. Excellent. Other leg, extend to the ceiling leg. That's down. Move it out just to the outside of the mat and drop it to the inside. First out and around. One and two and three and four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 reverse it. 10, nine, eight Oh, nice looping movements.

Five and four. Three, two and one. Hug your knees into your chest. Both legs up to the ceiling and dropped them down to 45 pressing the palms into the mat, up, lifting over for rollover. Flex and separate the feet. Drop them down to the floor behind you. And now keeping the same angle in the hip. Roll it down, pressing those palms into the mat.

Come together, lift a pin over flex and separate dropdown. Roll it in. Control. Scapula flat on the Mat together. Lift one more time. Flex and separate. Drop it down and roll it out.

Keeping the legs open. Come down to 45 point lift. Open up an over flexing clothes. Got down to the floor and roll it. Open the shoulders. Collarbones wide.

45 point open. Lifting over flex and close. Drop it down, scoop it and lift and roll. And last time. Point in open lift and over flexing close. Drop it down and roll it.

Holding onto the backs of the thighs. Roll yourself up. We'll do a little bit of rolling work to roll. Roll us out and make sure we're okay. Good. Rolling. Like a ball, your choice. Knees together. Knees can be open. You can hold doubled over hold here. Whatever works best for you.

This is a nice, nice. This is make nice here. So you do what your body wants. Inhale here. Exhale, roll back and come up and bounce back and balance and balance and balance. Look for a nice hollow between your thighs and your abdominals. Back and balance. One more time. Cross your legs. Push yourself up. Come to a stand, uncross your legs. Drop the head. Inhale here.

Exhale, going the knees together. Pressing up, rolling up one at a time. Inhale here, and exhale. Roll it down. Inhale here, and exhale. Roll it up. Inhale, arms overhead. Exhale out into the t and flat back.

Inhale, drop it down and exhale a little, little last time. Arms up out of the t flat back. Inhale, scoop it down. Excellent. Thank you ladies. Good night.

Comments

Wow love your workouts- soooo invigorating!! I will repeat this class again and again. You make the workout with your props so much fun. Please instruct more classes on this site! I love and look forward to all your classes.
Hello Elaine! You are dedicated! Love it!!
This was a fun class to do, and I'm so glad you like it. I'll be working on another
Wow! Didn't think I could get a good workout at home. Excellent overall body workout. Great class!
So glad you got a good workout right in your own home! That's the great thing about Pilates Anytime... YOU get to choose the time, the place and the challenge. Hope we can do it again together soon
LOVE LOVE LOVE this class. Tough yet not impossible; great flow and cueing.
Hi Colleen- Pilates LOVE.... isn't it FUN?? Pilates allows us to explore the playground of our physical form in so many ways. Glad to have you aboard Come back often!
I LOVE the mix of things... I didn't need the hand weights... maybe in a few weeks once I'm stronger in this area. Thank you Layla!
You are so welcome, Zeena. You are so smart to modify what you need to do and build into more strength from a solid foundation. Precision and Control should be first, strength and endurance will follow. Keep up the good work
Hi layla, I have not used my ball in a while so really had fun with this !!! very challenging!!!!
Hi Janice- Glad we could dust off the prop and give 'er a drive! The props can really be so useful in refocusing our awareness, can't they? Thanks for playing
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