Class #312

Fitness Ball Challenge

40 min - Class
125 likes

Description

Challenge your Pilates practice by performing familiar exercises on a Stability Ball. Meredith takes you through this challenging 45-minute Ball workout that features Chest Lift with Thoracic Extension, new rotational exercises, Push Up, Knee Stretch, and the Full Pike. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat, Fitness Ball

About This Video

Nov 16, 2010
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

All right. So what we're going to do is just start with the, we're going to use balls today I think is a obvious statement, but there it is. Um, your feet should be just under your hips and I think that in order to keep the ball in the right place, you'll just have to bend down and touch it. So I'm Lou over roll down. We're gonna do a cat stretch like movements. So just resting your hands gently on the ball. Start there to just feel weight on both feet to press the pelvis forward so you're very much curved in your spine. And then inhale, let the ball reach away from you. Your back is gonna Flatten, your tailbone reaches up, you get to go as low as you want to and we exhale and just flex the spine back up. So just gently at this point, mobilizing the spine.

Inhale to stretch the back out, kind of like spine stretch forward on your feet. And Xcel took curve back up. Just saying around with the shoulders about level with the hips, maybe a little bit higher, excelling. We come up and we stretch the back and we round the back and we'll do about three more times looking here for a solid connection through the waistline in both directions for the shoulders. Who reaching away from the ears specifically as we're going out into that long back stretch? Not specifically in both directions, I'll say. So here it is, two more really lifting the telephone, then scooping the Velien, letting potentially the back of a stretch. Let's do one more in how we reach annex, how we roll out. Okay, we're gonna just continue to come up and maybe just rest your ball in the legs. The next thing that we're going to do is just a little bit of balance.

I'm going to warn you that if you try to use your arms on the wobbly Bob, it won't help you balance much. So try to keep the weight into the legs. Do you want the big ball for this candy? It's going to be harder down there or the challenge. All right, good. So here's what we're going to do. Just rest the hands on the outsides of the ball and then find wade into your feet.

You want to be in a straight back and as parallel to the floor as you can be with your back. So Deborah, just press your chest forward a little bit. Perfect. And shoulders back. Alright, so we're going to take the right leg back. Just let it rest on the floor behind you. And now when do, you're going to kick the treadmill? I'm sorry. And now you're going to just raise that leg up behind ya storied up behind you. Oh, I know. And then reach it back down and raise it straight out.

Think hip extensors of that back way. We're just going to do five. Just she says shoulders challenging to stay down away from the ears are reaching Vaxis kind of a prep for the standing scissors, although I'm not real sure if it's easier, do more reaching out, working that standing like nicest straight or straight as we can. Here's our last one. Uh, what I'd like to try to do here is been the leg that you're standing on. I'm going gonna lose that and press up. We'll just do five and he'll bend supporting the spine with the abdominals and stretch. Keeping the back leg super strong, inactive and stretch. Last too.

Not Real easy on the mat. I realize the last one. That's it. Ladies. Let's step that foot all the way back in and then bringing the ball just around yourself about have it for a moment. How did you go? Not So bad, Huh? Let's do the other side. They just finding a flat back. You don't have to be flat parallel to the floor. You can be up a little higher. A few wish to be. Again, I'm recommending to keep the weight in the leg and rather than the arms, and here we go.

The left leg steps back and then it stretches straight out behind us and then it goes back down and you squeeze the back of the leg, the shoulders, reaching down the back. Using the abdominals for support is always a good thing to challenge ourselves to do throughout our sessions. Last too, last one. This is the one where we keep the leg in here. We're gonna bend gently the leg that we're standing on and we're going to stretch it back up. Inhale as it bends, as your right knee bends, lift the left leg higher. Let that take some energy out of the leg that you're standing on. Heres three and stretch and two, two a stretch. All last one. Are we all losing it?

Oh that's it guys. Oh, I lost the last one. Roll the ball back towards you. That is all we're going to do with that today. Oh that's they're, they're fun, aren't they? They are definitely a challenge. Okay. So we're going to sit on the ball and um, I tend to slide with my feet. So I'm, we've got stickies where I'm gonna put my feet on a sticky. Personally, whatever you want. I'm going to use this cause I will slide it. You can also, if you're a home, kind of put your feet up against the wall for this to keep it still. So you're gonna. There we go.

Lower your body down so your pelvis is supported by the ball. Okay. If you have a bigger ball, it'll look a little different. If you have a smaller ball, it will be a little bit more challenging. Uh, just sitting here, you should be, feel your abs working and it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Now we add challenge by bringing the hands behind the head. We're going to go into a chest lift motion, so we're gonna take the body over the top and then we're going to come just straight back to that same neutral spine position. There's our exhale.

Inhale to stretch the spine over the top. Nice thoracic spine, stretch XL ribs. Press into the ball and we lift neutral spy. Inhale over the back. Allow the head to just stay heavy in the hands so it's challenging, but try not to have pull up with your face or with your arms just to let the ad's do their work. Keep them polled in as we stretch over the top and allow them to function a lot. As we lift in neutral, we're going to do that four more times. Here's one kind of smooth and steady back and to feel free to stretch back as far as you want to. However, don't change the pelvis position, pelvic position.

One more time. All right, we're going to hold at the time from that neutral place, we're going to curl forward and it's going to go a little quicker. It's forward back. Feel free. If you get tired to bring your hands across your chest, it's quite a lot easier. Excuse me. Getting over a cold or just straight ahead of you works as well.

Here's our last five and four and three. Yeah. Then too and one. So from there we're just going to walk our feedback off the sticky. If we have one or just back towards the ball, hands are still gonna be resting behind the head. I'm going to do a little gentle twisting. What's nice about this, let's go towards me first.

Using the obliques to rotate is that without having to deal with the flexibility of our hip flexes or our hamstrings, we can get a fair amount of rotation through our spine. Inhale as you come to center, if you want to increase the challenge as far as balance goes, step your feet together so your legs are all the way touching. Inhale Center and Exhale, turn the other way. So as we hopefully as [inaudible] practitioners know, it's all about the obliques. As we start to turn, man, as we come home, spinal extensors absolutely work, they work in conjunction with the abdominals. Let's do just a couple more. I'm pulling upwards on my head this way to encourage lengthen my spine to give myself a little traction with my neck.

Can I have my thumbs just underneath my skull all last time here. Turning the body gently, rotating, coming back, go in the other direction and coming back. Okay. If you don't have a sticky mode, we're walking back down into our first position. First of all, bleak work. Would that be fun? Hands behind the head or across the chest and we find a neutral from neutral.

We go back as you exhale, lift through center first and then across towards me. Inhale to come back. Exhale as you come through center and then across the other way and inhale to go all the way back. So you travel through center and then into rotation after you're about neutral and then you head back and stretch over the top and again [inaudible] round your back over the ball around your back as you, you, um, yeah. When you go back is you're talking about this way. Yeah. So you're back. Yeah. I th th your words confused me. I think of that as an extension. But yes, you are going over the back of the ball.

So you're arching and then you lift neutral and then you're turning with a slight flection and then you go back and then you hit neutral and then you start to turn and then just think of it like chest lift with rotation. Oh, how many more should we do? Let's do maybe three more to each side. Does that sound like a good number and three? Anything? We could probably do these all day, right? We're so strong last too and that [inaudible] and to do, make sure that as you are extending over the top of the ball that you're not just letting your stomach relax. That's important. Last one and last one. Okay. From here. Just let your hands go. Slide down your ball. You may have to adjust yourself a little bit. Um, so your feet are going to be on the ground. It's going to be a big arch. Again, I'll treat you balls if you want to. Uh, this is your movement if you want to see it. What we're going to do, uh, be aware of balance. Think about hip extensors, inner thighs.

We're just going to reach back. We're going to stretch the legs and extend the back over the ball. We're going to reach around to the sides with the arms. As we bend the knees, the head comes up and we come back down. Kind of simple. Feels good, Huh? Reaching back, hanging onto those abs. Press up with the hamstrings. Glutes. Let the back extend. Circle the arms around the arms. Reach forward.

The head comes up and we bend down. Nice work, ladies. We reached back. Okay. Big stretch over the top. All around to the sides. I'm bending down. We'll just do two more. Reaching up. Well, reaching around and bending down. Hey listen, last one, county poor candy's, got the hard hard ball.

Okay. And then I think if we just continue school scooting down the bottle, we can make ourselves just sit down on a mat. You're like, oh the sticky if you're over it. And here's our roll lap. So let's start with the knees bent. The ball is just going to rest on top of the knees. Kenneth, here's where you get lucky. Your balls, the lightest. All right, so from here you can either lift your ball up, which will be working for the shoulders or you can just let it roll down your legs and we exhale. Curling the spine back hit though just below the pelvis, bottom of the rib cage. Inhale, lift the ball coma. Exhale, lower the ball and come forward.

You can rest it on your knees, you can keep it up in space. It's totally up to you. Exhale, if you're lifting it up, squeeze it a little, there's a little peck work dealt work curling back, positive heel. Lift the ball. Exhale, bring the ball back. So we recognize this movement. She's a little harder with the ball cause it's heavy. Candace don't go all the way down to just about to the bottom of the ribs are to the shoulders.

And then uh, so there was the abs and then dad and then, and we'll do two more. So go down and the ball goes overhead and it goes back down and the body comes up and then one more rolling back and ball goes overhead. It goes back down to the FI's and we come lifting the ball up. Turn your spine towards might me keep the knees connected. Ah, what's up? Roll back roll. Holding the weight of the world in our hands, right ladies come across the body. Roll at that side. Things just a little harder with that ball in the hands. Come back to center.

We're turning the opposite direction. Feel the weight of the ball in the hands, but the shoulder blades pulling down to support that weight. We come across center. I know I'm going slow. It's harder when it's slow I think and then come back. Let's go a little quicker now. Inhale to exhale. Now you could modify. Make it harder by going up and around if you wanted to.

And you can come up that side. Lifting ta center it off. Again, we're reaching too high, they're just straight across or up and across, up the other side, back to center. And let's do one more tune. Reaching down, reaching up and over, Erling on and bringing it home. This is our last one for the night for here anyway. And we were each up in, over and we were all up and we sit up and then you stretch our legs. We're just going to reach the ball forward.

If you put it just on your feet and hold the ball on the top and push down on the ball. It's a fairly decent stretch for the foot and the front of the shins. Okay. Grabbing the bottle, bringing it with you or coming all the way down onto the mat for a little pelvic curl action. So we're going to take the ball and put it underneath our heels. Be prepared for hamstring. Um, be prepared to feel your hamstrings. This is not an easy exercise. All right, so we've got the heels on the ball.

Bigger your ball is the more room you're going to have to lift up. Want you to press your heels into the ball, keep the knees separate. Inhale as you exhale, as always the abdominals. Do the first movement. Then as the hips start to lift, so hamstrings kick in, we lift the pelvis up, Ian Heel, we pause and we exhale. Start from the chest ruling down slowly, one bone at a time, reaching down through the hips. Inhale and exhale, coming, adjusting your feet if necessary. I'm pushing down with my heels.

I'm keeping my knees bent, a little pressing down with my ribs up and with my pubic bone and we're excelling to come down. Watching the line of the pelvis comes straight down the mat and healing at the bottom. Exhale, and we're coming holding at the top to breathe in and breathe out as you come down. All right, I'm going to add on roll at pausing there. You're going to press the ball out. Don't go all the way straight with your legs and bend the knees back in. We're going to do five, press out to pull back, press out to pull back, kind of like bottom lift with extensions.

Last two. Then we pull, knees are lined up together one and we pull and we're going to inhale whole annex hold to make our way back down. We're going to do it again. Here we go. Five more rolling on. I don't have legs. Reach out. Keep the knees slightly bent so that we're not putting too much pressure on the low back. When your legs go out in front of you, you definitely shouldn't feel your back arching more than it at all actually. So the neutral pelvis here, last two, whoa. And where to go. We've been doing, we hold and we come all the way back to reaching the arms energetically away from us. Okay. This one feels nice.

Feed upon the ball needs to gather for the spine. Twist as you inhale, take the legs over to one side, keep them lined up so that opposite hip lifts go a little further than you normally would. Be able to Xcel, drag back using the obliques. So palms out to the side would work here. Palms in a low V in here we go. Cross letting a stretch happen. Annex. So we come back. Okay. And again, just rotating from side to side. On the inhale. Exhale, transferring back to center, making sure the knees stayed lined up.

So the Oh, the rules of the spine twist are the same here. See One more on each side. And when you come back and we go cross and they come back. All right, here's what we're gonna do. Now I want you to just take the ball in your ankles, pick it up and hold onto it with your hands. Okay? So we've got our ball on our hands. Um, if this, if any of this is too hard, everything can be done just by putting the ball down.

This is the double leg stretch. So you're going to come up, just let the ball rest on your shins a little bit and then curl the chest a little higher. Here we go. The ball goes overhead. It's a little heavier. We gotta work a little harder and we pull back in how the legs go out. Squeeze the back sides of the legs, pull back with your abdominals. Inhale, arms overhead. Exhale, dragging the legs back and they come just under the ball to about a 90 degree angle where we go again, shoulders reaching down as the ball lefts. I'm going, we're going to do five and exhale for an exhale. Three pulling deeply through the trunk. Here's two, and here's one. Okay. Separate your feet. Put the ball between your legs, stretch the legs up and squeeze the ball.

Let's lower the head and chest down for a brief moment. Hands behind the head, and we're going to come up again. So picking up the head and chest. We squeezed the ball and it goes away from us. Keep the back flat. Exhale, drag back in. Inhale, squeeze and press the ball away. Exhale, drag back in. Inhale, press away the abdominals working very hard. As we pull back, we're going to do three more. I think about pressing the chest forward as the legs come towards you.

Last too, and one more holding here. We're just going. You can always put your head down. You can always put your hands underneath your pelvis to help you a little bit. If you need to. Just squeeze hard and squeeze. And as you squeeze your ball, pull up through your chest.

And as you pull up through your chest thing, through your abdominals, feel that you're not just squeezing with your legs, but you're trying to squeeze with your entire trunk. [inaudible] stick a little bit more. Oh, you mean turning them in? You know like, oh my feet. Yeah. I'm not worried too much about my feet. I'm just thinking five bones, five bones. And you could even hold onto your legs, right? Or you can put your head down. Is that enough canvas? Is that enough? Pick up your ball in your hands. Bend your knees, lower your head and chest. The ball's going to go back overhead.

We're not done anyway. We're done with the enterprise for the moment. Lift the head and chest. Here comes a single leg stretch. So when these just under the ball, the other leg is going to reach out and then we're going to change. So the, he comes just under the bar, the opposite leg reaches out on that same horizontal plane and we pull, it's like you're trying, the knee doesn't travel past much past 90 but the balls trying to reach out towards the toes, so maybe he even having that bowl could help us with drunk flection here. Let's do four more. There's one, two, two, three, three, four heading into the criss cross. You're going to bring the ball across the outer angle of that foot and a cross and a cross.

Keeping the lift in center pretty consistent and reach and reach. Here's five. We're going to do five of more, a little faster with all the same precision. One, a cross to a cross, three, four, five that to center both knees, place the feet down, lay the head, neck and shoulders down, stretching your legs out along the Mat. Inhale as you pick up your head and chest. Here comes a Rola exhale. As you curl through your spy, bringing the ball with you. Keep the ball just over the just in line with the shoulders. Inhale, exhale, bring it with you as you roll down. You can squeeze it a little bit.

Don't just squeeze it with your arms. Squeeze it from the back, from the shoulder blades back of the head touches arms are overhead. Inhale, the ball comes up. Exhale be Corolla, staying long and round again. Rolling back, feeling the pelvis. Move the low back. Come down the arms, reach over hat picking up the head and chess coming up. And how about just to more rounding down, keeping the head just above the shoulders throughout and I'm coming home. Here's our last one for now. In coming all the way back up for good. And then just once again, let the ball rest forward on your feet. Can play around with this stretch by going closer to your toes or closer to your ankle and just push on it.

Hmm? You guys were running into each other with your balls. [inaudible] okay, here's a modified spine stretch. So let's go ball between the knees or between the legs. Legs out, either straight or bent.

I'm going to try for straight legs personally. All right. And then you might have to adjust your hands as we move. But here's, here's the idea. Inhale, sit tall. As you exhale, press the ball forward. All the, again, the rules of the spine, stretch apply. So you curve the spine forward, but you pull your abdominals back. Now as you inhale the balls gonna roll towards your chest.

As you try to pull your chest forward into the ball, looking for a flat back. So there's our spine stretch with extension, we press the ball back forward all the way, maybe looking for more and then we just roll back up. Alright, kind of, I actually move my hands around to what makes sense to me and either position. Um, so I'm not super concerned about the yeah, and you could even, yeah, you can go over the top and you could even bend into the flat back if that made more sense to you. That makes sense to me. Let's try that. Exhale. Let the head go forward. So here, yeah, maybe I'm going to move to the side a little bit and then I'm going to lift my chest and I'm going to try bending my elbows, which I think works beautifully.

Pulling the ball. And I actually like that more. Yeah. Yeah, and then you press it back and then we roll up. I like that. We're going to stick with that one or I anyway, exhale that as you bend your elbows, you can press in a little bit and then feel that you're pulling from your upper back. You'd get a really beautiful upper upper back and traction there and then stretch back forward and roll back up oil. I love that. I could do that one all day. Now let's just do two more. How does that sound? So challenging. The flexibility, pulling the ball back, pressing the chest forward. We're going to use this and another exercise as well.

Sucked and rolling. I just feels good. Okay, last one here. Rolling down. Pulling the ball to the chest. Oh, let's just keep that really gorgeous flat back position. This is mean. Pick up the ball, bring it overhead, press it back and back and back. Shoulders gently reaching down the back spine.

Traveling forward had between the arms. We're going to do three more. One, two, three. Lower the ball down in front of you. Keep the spine reaching forward. Let's challenge that extension one more time. Bending the arms, reach forward, stretch the arms out and come all the way back up to sitting like that. Here's how we're going to make it work for the twist. So again, always it can be done without the ball, but I think it's going to feel nice with the ball. So with the arms out straight, that's fine. Straight a little bit forward, Deb, with your body. Perfect. You can bend your knees if you need to.

We're going to add, what do I want to do? Bend that same feeling of working from the upper back and now we're going to bring the ball with us. As we turn, we're going to stretch the ball forward. We're gonna raise the ball over, had growing the spine in that direction. Ball's going to come back down. We're going to bend it, bend the elbows anyway, and bring the body back to center. All right, here's some breathing. Inhale. As you turn, exhale as you stretch. Squeezable a little inhale. As you bring the ball overhead, grow the spine.

Exhale as you drop the arms down and bend the elbows and back, like can not all happen on an XL. I think it can. Inhale, exhale. Here we go. Any heel length and with the ball maybe go behind you a little bit XL down in and home and he'll turn, stretch the, you raise the arms overhead, lower the inhale, exhale, bend, turn. And we're home. A couple more. Inhale, squeeze into the ball. Field the shoulder blades. Move away from the ball, float the ball, float the spine, lower the ball, lift the spine more. Bend the elbows and return to center. I think this is going to be our last one for the day. Stretch and you know, raise the arms up, lower the moons down, fold the elbows back in and bring the ball back center. And I think that's plenty. You know, here's what we're gonna do next.

We're going to come up, I'm going to do a little bit of, we're gonna do a pushup variation and then a pike variation. So I'm going to offer three choices. And, um, I think I'll just, what you'll have to do first is be a little bit more graceful than me and get on your ball. Um, you want to back up a bit so that you're not running into each other's heads when you lie on your ball, cause you're gonna want to be about it your size. Okay? So here we are though. I'm about on my knees with the ball underneath my thighs. All right, the ball is going to help support us, but we're going to keep lifting our abs and keep our legs strong and active.

So we bend our elbows towards our sides and press up. So we do that three times then and press up. Feel the shoulders reaching down the back. Here it is. Now you're going to sailing round your back like the knee stretch. You're going to pull the ball towards you. There's your exhale.

It's an abdominal exercise in, you know, release back into a straight spine. Exhale round from the lowest part of the belly. Allow the knees to start to soften, pulling the ball in and inhale. We release. We're going to do that one more time. Exhale. Allow the body to around hovering the knees towards the body and inhale, we release. Now we're going to try for three full pikes if you wish to.

It involves keeping the legs straight so you just lift rolling towards your feet with the ball rolling up, up, up, up, up. And then you go back and you lift your hips. Your head goes down towards the ball, you pike up. He'd go as high or as low as you want to, and you go back down in depth. Just drop your head a little bit when you're picking your hips up. So as your hips go up, it's like you're a doing a somersault. All muscle can get the ball and then we really stand.

Okay, let's just walk back. Let the body rest over the ball. Um, you can roll yourself kind of forward and back over the ball and find a stretch that works for you. This one's a good one for me. Do you guys want to do it again? Sure. Three beach. One more time. I think that sounds fun. Let's go. Okay. A little faster this time, maybe. So you find your really strong position. Just because your legs are resting on the ball doesn't mean they do.

They don't have to work. Let's work on squeezing the backsides of the legs. Lots of Bend and press and two and press and one can inhale. Exhale, round the spine. The knees fold in, the head, drops down, the shoulders dropped down. Inhale, plank position. Exhale, think abs curve the spine, the ball rolls towards the forehead and will reach to Xcel. Last one, curving in and in. Heels really reached down. Here's our pike. Exhale, the hips come up, up, up, up, and we release. And again, we lift up, lifting up through the trying to look for the flat of spine that we can't really impossible to do without good, strong abs.

Recheck and release. And carefully, please walk back towards your ball or you could step off your ball and just stretch over it for a moment. Oh, that feels good to me. Here. Okay, so we got a little lateral work to deal. So when you're ready, come down off your ball and let's just go. Why don't you face me on your knees. All right. So, um, we're gonna do sidekicks. Our balls are a little bit big.

Deborah's is going to be perfect. So she's the perfect model to be looking at. So you're going to bring your ball up against you, Candace. Your balls pretty good too. Were just, these are big. Okay. So what I'm doing is just resting on the ball and then I'm adjusting my bottom knee for comfort. If you know sidekick kneeling, this is kind of what we're after. Um, Wendy and I are going to be a little high. So with the obliques, pick up that leg and there it is. You who, if you have the room to touch, you can can also wrap your head around the ball.

Here's a flex foot and hand behind the head for the side kick. Kick forward twice. Reach back once, kick forward twice. Ou reach back once. Whoa. We'll tell you how much your body wants to wobble here. My knees popping, pulling the ball or pulling the leg towards you. With the abdominal muscles, you're going to do four more for reach back.

In theory, reach back up last two and back. One more to go and back or 10 take the leg to the side. Reach it a little higher and lower to the ground. I want to try something now. It's not going to work. Just come on. Sit away from the ball, pushing your hands into the ball and we're going to do a Blake's in a in a really lovely way. I think you guys are gonna love it.

I do. Anyway. Okay, so here's how it's going to go. We're going to come back up facing me again. That same hand is going to be on the ball, so we'll be on the same side, opposite arm out to the, in fact, just put your hand on your pelvis. Make sure you're in a neutral pelvis. Position, a hip bones straight across.

Now the arms going to go up. As we inhale, we're going to take the arm overhead and we're going to just let the balls just gonna roll away from you. There's a side stretch. Now, lift from that stretch. Bring the arm down to the side. How's that feel? Good. Reaching over. Just allow that bottom shoulder to press downwards towards the ball and then we come up. So the exactly the place where you're feeling the stretch in your body is exactly the place where you want to feel the pull up. Come from. Let's do that two more times.

Reaching over the big stretch up with that top arm and excelling to lift that. Um, did I say two? This must be it. Okay. And then we're going to take it into a mermaid. So in the Algo over, exhale, rotate towards the ball. Your bottom hippo, probably move back some. It's just a rotation of the spine.

Any, I'll come back to the side. Stretch position x, I'll lift the waist, let the arm fall down. Inhale over the top. Focus on the shoulders. Stability needed here. As you turn, I'm pulling that supporting shoulder back a little bit to help me increase my rotation. Do you know what I mean by that? So as I turn, I'm kind of pulling back with the hand that's on the ball. Last one, reaching out, reaching back and lifting all the way. Nice. Okay. So the ball goes right up against you. You're really putting most of your body weight into the ball. I feel free to adjust the bottom knee for comfort.

I'm just going to hold onto my ball and keep it underneath me. If you have room to put your hand on the floor, do it leg up in the air. It's going to be about hip distance hopefully and behind the head and we're going to kick forward and reach back and forward and reach back. Trying to keep the leg at a consistent height throughout and focusing on the abdominal muscles to keep the trunk stable. Instill as out leg swings. This is our last five with our hand.

We are absolutely not pressing the head out of alignment. It's better to let the elbow come a little forward. Then to move in [inaudible]. Okay, this is three and two and one and I take that leg out to the side, reach it way out there. Then come up off the ball. Sit on a diagonal into that hip.

Does that hurt your knees step? You could also just, Yep, you're good. Okay. Is that the end? The thing you were telling me about earlier. Yeah, to that. Okay. Come up when you're ready. When I'm on the ball one, I'm out to the side. I'm going to just reach the ball over. Float that arm up, feel bull shoulderblades heavy, and then pull up out of that oblique.

We're bringing yourself up. Drop the arm down in heel. Neutral pelvis is a must. So if you know you're, you like to arch your back a lot, or if you feel this work in your back, chances are you're leaning back a little. So the muscle focuses the obliques. You want to feel the front of the body, stretching and working. These are our last two. Here's our inhale and here's our exhale. And then last one, he's our in halo over in. Exhale up and here comes the mermaid. So we're going to inhale over. We're going to reach around for the ball.

I bring it back and really lifting. Inhale as you go over. Exhale as you turn working deeply through the abdominals. Inhale as we come back. Oh, lifting back up. Did we just do three? I think so.

I don't think so. No, that's okay. And come all the way back up. All right. So if you just turn aside with on your map, this one's a nice a modification to the cats. Retrofit it in a different way to do the cat stretch. What I find is sometimes I do need to walk my hands a little bit in this exercise as well. So here it goes. You start with your hands on the bone.

I have enough room to not run into each other. Maybe scooch back a little windy. Perfect. Your guys are good here. Um, start by rolling down through the head. Never feel that you're pushing the arms, the ball forward with your arms. Always think of just moving the spine, the shoulders. Here's where I kind of inched the ball forward with my fingers as I round down and then I'm looking to find a straight body. Yep.

So I'm reaching out into a straight back and shoulders are getting a little bit of a stretch and then I draw the tailbone up underneath me and I curve myself back in. And at some point I might need to just start to curl the ball towards me with my fingertips again. Whatever. You might be a little happier if you go wider as far as shoulder stuff. Uh, here we go again. Rounding down, allowing the ball to travel out in front of you. Stretching the spine, finding a flat back there. Shoulders down top of the head, reaching forward towards the ball. And then we curve from the pelvis. Really stretching through the back as we roll ourselves back up. Coming all the way up tall. And how about two more head goes.

First shoulder is very, very stable. Shababa left center. I'm finding the shoulder stretch there. They're good, lovely flat backs. Ladies in curl. Okay, last one. Finding a stretch. Try to keep the hips just over the knees. So it's tempting to lean back a little. If you don't lean back, not only will you get a better stretch in your back on the way up, but you'll get to feel the backs of your legs working a little bit in order to help you do that. Here we go. Coming up.

Okay. And then you just finished at the top. This next exercise is what am I very favorite back exercises in the whole world. Um, you can do it with your legs straight, which might be a better option on the bigger ball on that size ball. I prefer, um, just being on my knees.

So I'll show you what it looks like or I'll talk you through it if you're coming with me. So I start by just reaching over the ball. Essentially. I'm relaxed here, straight. Um, yeah, fairly straight. And you'll be able to round over the top. So you go ahead and round and then I'm just going to bring my arms up so there's, that's going to be my most of positions. I haven't really lifted my body up yet.

From there I'm going to rotate my thumbs up and like I'm turning, it's almost like I'm screwing my chest forward with my arms. I know that doesn't, that didn't really sound good, but that's what I'm thinking. And then I returned back to neutral palms down neutral shoulders and then I go over the top and I get a little bit of a stretch. Yeah. You guys with me. Inhale, just arms. The head comes up a little bit. There's a fairly neutral spine, but you're already getting your back work.

Then think about rotating. Keep the ribs on the bulb. It just lifted just a little. As you rotate your thumbs at return back, neutral and release, you should feel a heck of a lot of work in your upper back. Does everyone feel it? Great. Here we go again. Ahrens. Here's our inhale. Let's exhale as we reached the chest forward. Almost like you're trying to roll the ball forward. Inhale, reach back to neutral. Exhale, take it over the top.

I'll do three more. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, thumbs up, chest up, dominoes and for support and heal. Arms back and exhale over the top. And I don't remember the number that I just told you, but we'll do. Thanks. That's what I was going to say. Of course, right after the fact and then come down. All right. Last one. Just the [inaudible] let him float. So it's not really about the arms, it's about the back. Is that the arms?

We kind of light there and really move the spine and then just reach all the way forward. I'm in the, what we're going to do just to finish this class is [inaudible] over the top of the ball. Mm. And you can just kind of roll back and forth over the ball. The more you go towards your upper back, the more likely you are to feel a stretch in that area. The more you head over towards your lower back, the more likely you are to feel a stretch in that area.

So play around with where you feel like your body needs a stretch and just breathe into it and allow the head to relax. Feeling the rib cage expand over the ball and feeling the abdominals. Just lift up gently away from the ball as the body just hangs forward. Let's do one or two more breasts there. Letting tension just flow out of the back, out of the neck, out of the shoulders, wherever. Yeah.

Over and his last breath. All right guys, that's, it seemed like five minutes.

Comments

3 people like this.
Great class Meredith! I love doing the familiar Pilates exercises with a prop like the stability ball.
Thanks Elaine...Its always great to hear from you!
Ohhh I love those colored balls..very cool,Havent seen these before. The routine was great! Loved it.
I love props, nice modifications! enjoyed workout a lot! Thank you!
Wow! Great ab workout--thank you!
So glad I didn't let the listing at level 1/2 deter me from taking the class thinking it wouldn't offer enough challenge. Other than being a bit shorter timewise I thought it matched intensity wise the other ball workouts listed as level 2. Really enjoyable class Meredith.
Thanks Joni...As always, its great to hear from you!
I love your classes, Meredith! It's perfect for a busy teacher who works alone in the studio all day. I get a huge energy boost in between clients and I don't feel so lonely!
really fun class. thank you
Seems like an amazing class with the stability ball and I agree with Joni, the listing of 1 / 2 makes is sound easy but it's not... shame the video could not go past the 21 minutes for me.... very frustrating :(
1-10 of 21

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

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

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin