Class #411

Overball Flexion

55 min - Class
60 likes

Description

If you are looking for variety, this is the class for you! Meredith uses the Overball to focus on deep lumbar flexion with fun variations on Cat Stretch, Criss Cross, Shoulder Bridge, and Basic Back Extension.
What You'll Need: Mat, Overball

About This Video

Mar 30, 2011
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Transcript

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All right, so let's start sitting at, yeah, I want to use these because I've this new exercise I tried the other day, like what am I new? I don't know. It's the greatest thing I've ever tried and it matches and you know, but the most, all right, so let's just take the ball and put it in between the knees or between the thighs. All right? And then just sitting situating the feed so that they're just parallel to the knees. I'm going to just put my hands right on top summations and guide myself up a little taller. I don't, Gosh, look at the sunset. So pretty. And with that, let's press into the ball. And as you press into the ball at the rib cage expands. So that said, I like an oppositional thing. And as you exhale, let the legs relax a little bit. Feel the work staying contracted in the trunk.

Inhale, feel the press into the ball. And as that happens that the ribcage expand to the ball, presses in and the abs pull in and the ribs push out and an exhale. Let that relax the legs a little bit. But feel the trunk getting longer and let's let go. And with that exhale, curling the spine, allowing the pelvis to move out from underneath you just kinda gently now and then inhale tech. So rolling forward, let the head come forward over the ball and then elongate the spine back up straight. Welcome to use your hands. Any old time you need. Exhale round the spine back, feeling the articulation of the spine and in how the head goes forward.

The chest goes forward and we lift up tall. Just a few more like that. It's x in Hilton paws looking for debt XL to curl forward. I lifted it as we do that just a few more times. Begin. Um, feel how maybe, I don't know, works for me. The idea that the inner thighs can help us create more depth in the abdominals and it's not a gripping sort of a feeling. It's just a gentle inward hugging of the midline, sort of a feeling. Well, let's go forward. Income all the way up.

Turn in my direction. Xcel roll down just gently outside that spine or that side of the spine. Inhale, come across center. Exhale, roll up that side and unwind. Doing a lot of mobilization of the spine rolling back, coming around through center, rolling and coming. Center in healing is you turn the hand seat just in front of the shoulder is Xcel. As we round down the shoulders are heavy. Inhale as you come across. Excellent. As you return to straight and unwind. Let's do one more. Inhale, turn. Exhale, roll back.

Having a cross center up the other side and on one. We're heading into the pelvic curl here, so just make your way. I'm scooting a little forward to all the way down onto your back, placing the feet a little closer, perhaps arms down long and again, press just gently press into the ball. Let's start to hollow out through the abdominals. Rolling yourself up and as you do so, feel that the entire wall of the stomach is pulling down into the ground in healing. To pause, let's articulate the spine. Starting from the neck, the neck reaches back. As the chest drops, the ribs drop, the lower back stays curved until the very last moment in the pelvis comes down and he'll prepare. Exhale, articulating up.

Feel as you roll up that you've got equal weight on the feet and as far as the inside and the outside linings in healing to pause, press your arms back into the ground. Xcel CPO, rolling hollowing and scooping through the abdominals. Tailbone reaches down and again, XL. Pause this time at the top. We're just going to press into the bond. I want you to think about squeezing with your whole trunk, but squeeze the ball with your legs and your trunk. Inhale, release a little XL squeeze, so this time we're releasing the legs as we inhale and expand the root Cajuns, squeezing the trunk and the inner thighs. Inhale to release. Let's do that three more times.

It's press and really and press checking in with the backs of the shoulders. They should be pressing down. Last time. Press and release a little to excellent and hollow. Carving out the center, rolling down, finding a neutral pelvis. One more time. Same thing at the top. Exhale, articulate. Inhale to hold. Exhale to squeeze from the trunk, from the inner thighs. Inhale, release a little exhale pressing in that you can drop your rib cage.

Just the littlest perfect and squeeze and release. Last to think about tucking as you press into the ball. One more time, reaching in and rolling ourselves down. Just step your feet together. We're going to keep our feet down today for the spine twist. You can do what you wish with your arms either out to the side or slightly away from the body and a Low v shape. Inhale, tilt both knees towards me.

The outside lining of that back foot will lift up. Exhale, feel that as you pull back, it comes from a sense of hollowing out or pulling back through the ABS. Inhale across to the opposite side annex. I'll just pull back and then just keep that rhythm going. It's an inhale to move, but drawing the abdominals backwards and an XL to come back. And notice here that sometimes when we hold our legs in tabletop, we get a little bit of overactivity in our hip flexors and without having to lift our legs up in space, there's the potential for more work or deeper work or just different work Xcel to come around center. Inhale across the other way.

Exhale to come around. Center pausing at the top. We're going to lift the head and chest up, bringing the arms. Just step over the knees. This time as the knees come towards me, our arms are going to go away. It might be a little smaller than Xcel. Head back to center and then inhale alternating upper body, lower body. Exhale, head back to center so you're just rotating at the spine, the knees stay lined up. XL Center and inhale the Cross and exhale center.

Let's do that. I don't know. One more time to each side. Come and center across. Come and center. Pause there. Raise your arms up overhead. Place them behind your head and lower your body to the ground. Slide your feet a little closer to you so they're quite close to your hips.

Exhale to pick the head and chest up for the chest lift. Pause there in here and exhale to lower down. So we've got our feet a little closer than normal. There's a plan there. Just bear with me. Exhale to left Pos. Look for neutral pelvis. Inhale and lengthen working.

Elongating the abdominals as you reached down. Exhale to lift. Inhale to pause. Annex. So to really stand one more time. We lift the head and chest. This time we're gonna keep the chest up and we're going to excellent. Pull the ball to the chest. Inhale, let the ball move away from the chest. The toes might tap and exhale to pull in in, you know, to let the Tosta exhale to pull up. If this is too challenging for you, you will have the option of reaching forward, which is a fair amount.

Easier Xcel to a pole. Inhale to touch. Exhale to pool in Hilton touch. One more time. Exhale to pull in. He'll let the feet come down and XL. Let the body come down. Breathe in again to start. Read that as you left feet feeder. Once again, pretty close to the body. Exhale as you bring the knees towards the chest, pause an inhale. This time exhale, point the knees towards the Left Elbow Center.

As you inhale point that needs to the right elbow center as you inhale. So there is a little bit of lifting from the pelvis, the one side lifts and center. So it's kind of like a spine twist with trunk flection. Kinda hard. Uh Huh. Uh Huh. How about one more twist, bring it back, let the feet come down in here and exhale. Let the body come all the way down.

Reach forward and take the ball in your hands. Hold it in your hands. Stretch your legs of slide them out along the mat. Going to bring the arms just overhead. NAF. It's challenging for you to have your arms this narrow. Don't go up quite so high. So just go to where you can feel good, strong stabilization in the shoulders, bringing the arms forward, let the head follow look right at the ball as you roll.

Rounding the spine or staying round at the top, start to roll back. Keep the eyes on the ball as the head comes down, the ice follow, and then you can't look really. You don't need to. As the ball goes overhead, inhale, ball comes forward. Look right at it. So oftentimes again, or in another situation, we get so caught up in the abdominals that we want to stare down down at him, which can potentially take the neck out of alignment. So by giving us just something to look at, we can keep the head where we want it to be in space.

Let's do that two more times. Rolling back. Okay. And the head comes down looking for a smooth controlled mobility and back. I'm going to change it when we get to the top. Lifting up honey there. We're just going to turn our body on the ball rolled down that side of your spine. Don't go all the way down. Go just about to shoulder distance.

Bring about over the top, roll up the other side. Stay round and flex as you return the ball to center. Inhale, think obliques turn the other way. Exhale we go down about shoulder level, bring the ball up and across. Really focusing on abdominal work. XL Tit, come up the other side and unwind and center. Let's do it one more time. Inhale, exhale, curve flexing through the spine. Taking the ball up, Ben over to the other side, rolling up that side, and then scooping even deeper in the belly to slice back through center last time. Exhale, rolling. Bringing it up in a cross and coming back to center. Separate your legs. Place the ball between them.

This is the exercise I was speaking of earlier. We're going to head down onto our back. So with the ball between your ankles, who reach your arms forward and just peel down. Okay. All right, reach your hands back behind your head. So we're in our chest lift position and we're going to be doing the chest lift, but the legs are going to stay straight. So as you curl your, excuse me, curl your head and chest up, hollowing and scooping out through the abdominal. So there's the one movement in this series.

And then inhale to come down and XL to lift [inaudible]. And inhale to come down as you lift it into the ball. So it's really in essence the first part of the neck pole or the roll up. Exhale to the left. I'm anchoring down with my legs and release. This time as we lift, we're going to, in fact just do this for a second.

Take the, the ball's going to stay between the INCOSE. Just roll the ball. So when on top of the other ankle and then bringing the ball down and roll the ball. So when ankles on top of the other Inca and roll the ball down sits a bit of inner thigh work. But if you work deep, you'll feel your obliques working as well. One more time around and back. And this is our last and back. So as we're going to curl up, we're going to take the ball and roll it towards me.

As you roll your ball towards me, turn your body in that direction. Come back to center. Kind of fun, not squeeze the ball, hold onto it. Turn the body in the direction that the ball is going and come back to center. I'm not lifting my pelvis this time. I'm just rolling my leg and I'm rotating in my trunk.

Kind of deep and fun, Huh Dave? Maybe not fun. I Dunno. Fun for me. Kind of a holidays geek. Oh, this feels fun. All right, come in over this side. We'll, we'll do one more to either side and back in one more to the other side and back. All right, so we're going to go to the side that we started on in. Hang out there, so it's up in, across hold up position. Now it's simply been that knee. Pull the ball towards you. Push it away and pull the ball towards you. Push it away. One more time.

Pull it towards you. Push it away. Hold there. Turn your body the other direction. Pull the ball towards you. Push it away. Totally hollowing scooping. Push it away. Head heavy in the hands. Here's our last one. Pull it in. Push it away. Bring the body back to center. Lower the leg and the body down.

Oh yeah. Okay. Other side. Pull the ball over the top of the other leg. Curl the head and chest up. Turn in the direction that the ball was going, and then just bend that knee, pull it up towards the other knee, and then stretch out. Stay strong. Look for intensity. I guess that's kind of not easy or not hard to find. Last one, keep that leg there, but rotate the trunk to the other side.

Pull the ball in. Press the ball away. Oh, pulls up in breast of all the way. Here's our last one. Pull the ball in. Breasts, the ball away. Bring the body back to center. Lower the body in the ball. That's that. Take the arms up over the chest. Lift the head and chest and make your way back up and stretch forward. Take a stretch. Just hold onto your feet. Maybe flex the feet. Yeah.

Hmm. All right. And then the feet to separate a little. Pickup the ball with your hands and sit up tall. So you've got the ball in our hands. We're going to do our spine stretch here. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale. Fold the head down. Pull the ribs back, the abdominals back. Send the ball to the ground.

So it's kind of like a chest lift there. You haven't gone forward yet. Now roll the ball forward, lengthening the spine or past the legs. Inhale to pause. Exhale to roll the ball back so that the shoulders come back over the hip joints and then grow the spine long. The ball just comes up lightly with your body and heal. To prepare, next I head down. So ribs, back, chest lift position, pause, reach forward maybe mark where you're going with your ball and try to go further each time in healing. To pause excellently to guide the spine back, dropping the shoulders as you come. And then the balls like real light, like real light. What am I a valley girl and how am I've been? Sit up again.

Exhale, curve. Keep the leg straight. If you can slide the ball just rolls between your arms. Roll it back. Shoulders over hips. So there's the top of our Rola and then lightly that the spine stack last time round down. Actually I'm gonna change it this time. So roll back there with me. I'm just trying this now.

Put your hands on top of the ball and then start to straighten out your spine. Once again, the ball will rule towards you. There is our spine stretch with extension. Yeah, take it back away. Let's do it again. So just stay there, lift the chest forward past the knees, roll the bow up to about fingertip distance and then take it away. Let's say three more times, lengthening out and forward and then going back down and lengthening out and forward. And I like this with the arms down and reaching back down.

Last and like thing. Can you guys feel to have for how much further you get each time and then go all the way down. We're gonna round up this time. So bringing the ball with you, curling up and then it just lightly comes away from the ground. As we sit up, let's bring the legs together. The ball can just stay as this gently twisting towards me and coming back. [inaudible] so the space between the ball and the collarbones is [inaudible] assistant in how backed up lean just a tiny bit forward. And is it is, it's, is it a thing as it boom thing? Okay, just checking that you're not trying to avoid an injury.

Um, it is what it is. We twist and come back. Stay here, bend the elbow, spread out the shoulders as the ball comes in. So I'm, I'm almost barely touching the ball. Minimus squeeze at all. Well as I press back out and come back to center, let's inhale now.

Exhale, pull the elbows wide, bring the ball to the chest, lightly touching the ball, and then squeeze it a little bit less. You press out all the abdominals back and center and he'll turn XL, pull lifting taller and he'll press exhale center and he'll turn Xcel po and he'll press lightly and XL center last time and he'll turn. Exhale, pull, reach back forward and bring it home. And last time, and I'm pulling, lifting the chest to the ball, the ball to the chest. Press forward and bring it all the way home if you point your feet and put the ball on your Shin area. And then as you reach for this stretch, roll the ball forward. So it's pushing down on your feet.

Use the ball to help you find a stretch to the tops of your feet. Accentuate the curvature of your arch. Push the toes towards the ground in the your stretch will guaranteed. Get bigger. And then rolling the ball back up the legs. I'm going to bend the knees and put [inaudible] between the legs. Uh, hands back, fingers either facing in or out.

Lifting the chest. Put weight into your feet and hover the hips up. We're going to curl the spine so we around roll yourself forward. Reach the knees out over the feet and lift the chest so there's our shoulders. Stretch. Pause there to inhale. Exhale, keep lifting away from the floor as you hollow the abdominals back, trying to bring the hips underneath the ribs and then restack the spine to your back flat. Perfect. Exhale as we hollow out, the apps a are moving in the direction of your feet. As you unwind the spine, the chest lifts. Inhale to hold and exhale to carve out the abdominals.

Keep reaching the chest or the shoulders down the chest. I don't know. Well. What about the chest? The shoulders away from the ears? Let's do two more. Curl forward. Taking weight out of your arms and into your legs a little bit. Of course, your arms have to support you a little bit, but your legs get to do a fair amount of the work as well. Curl back Mac, Mac and straighten last time curve. Reach forward.

Lifting the hips and a rolling back, Eh, no. Then release does. Reach the hips down. Stretch out the lengths and widen them a bit. Taking the ball so it once again in your hands. I'm going to do a little foot stretch in a little sauce, so you're going to lift up tough feet. Still. Flex, turn, reach forward. Put the ball on your shin.

Point just that foot as you slide the ball out of your foot. Thinking of drawing the abdominals in the opposite. Hit back, roll back up. Shoulders, hips. The ball is just where it lands on your shit and you sit up and you unwind. Flex the foot and heel to turn round for placing the ball on the shin.

Reach forward pointing just that foot. Here's a little coordination exercise. Roll back, sit up on wind and center, flexing the foot in heels. Her exhale, fold, reach fo. Inhale, exhale, roll back. Inhale, lift, flex and come center. Oh, we need an XL in their reach. Exhale. Lengthen. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, sit up. Inhale, flex. Exhale, center. There we are and he'll turn. Last one. Exhale down. Inhale Linton even further than before. Exhale, roll back. Lift de Flex. Exhale, hand center. Inhale, turn. Last time we can get you off those ones. Deb, reach forward. Inhale, roll. Oh, I've lost the breath, but you guys know where you are.

CITA and come back to center. Bend the knees and just drop them out to this size for a sec. All right, so we're going to work on a little bit of um, spinal flection. So take the ball, put it behind Ya. Let's go legs together.

We're going to actually get right up off our sitting bones and rolled back into the ball. So I've got a little bit of space between my body and the ball. And as I roll down into it, I'm talking my [inaudible] together. Yep. So I'm just talking into it now. What I want us to do is just move your feet to where you're comfortable and be behind your pelvis. So you're kind of in that rolling like a ball scoop. From there, hollowing out through the waist.

You're just going to think about rounding more and pick up one leg, pull it right into the chest, inhale to come down. So it could be like a single leg stretch action. Yeah. Uh, I alternate it. Thank you. I think alternating is a bit more challenging because you've got to reset and restabilize so you could do whatever. But let's alternate today. Do One more and one more to the other side and then both feet down. Just lightly leave the ball, stay behind the pelvis. Just round off.

Takes some weight off. So there maybe we'll even get a little bit of a stretch. Come back onto the ball. We're just going to work a little bit of posterior tilt. So inhale, as you exhale, pull the belly button into the floor, into the ball and just lightly let the pelvis try to lift off the ground. It won't. And then release that. Exhale, draw the abdominals down in, in trying to pick up the pelvis and release. So as we continue that movement, can we do it without putting a lot of pressure on our legs? Let you can pick it up.

Yes. All right Deb. She's proved me wrong. You were picking up the pelvis curl and lift. Hover. Well, it's a bit hard, but we can do it. Let's do it again. Curl. Now when you pick up the pelvis. So I would say in dog use legs, you gotta use your legs a little bit to pick up the hips. I little. Oh, all right. Just keeping me honest. Let's do two more curly.

Lift and release. Warmer Curl and release. Stretch forward. Stay behind the pelvis. Just keep pulling the abdominals like you're trying to touch the ball, Stowe, but you're Enlightly roll back. Here's our side reach. Okay, so we're in that deep scoop of the pelvis. Inhale, reach the closest arm to me back and exhale. Feel that ribcage come back, the abdominals drop back and we're back in center. Inhale.

Let's go the other way and exhale. Refocus on the scooping of the abdominals. Inhale, reach back. You can hang on if you want Xcel to come back. Inhale away. It makes, I already made Lisa do this today. Sorry, Lisa, and he'll open and Xcel to come back. This is our last one. Inhale, open and I tell to come back and inhale. Heck, so hollow out the up scoop. Scoop, scoop. All right. This is the meanest one. I don't know why I saved it for last. I'm really sorry. Go down.

K. You can have your arms forward. That's easier. You're going to have your arms behind your head. That's going to be a lot more challenging. We're going to take the upper body back just a little bit too flat and then we're going to roll. Roll back forward. Just go to flat. If you want to go into extension, feel free to, I'm going flat, but if you're going into extension, please take care of your back.

Crawling forward. Inhale back, feel light on the feet as you haul o pressing the abdominals into the ball and coming up into around spine. How about two more? You're at least, okay. Last one. Let's all reach our arms forward. I just thought of something even meaner, so I'm going to give us a break and then we're getting to do it all right here. It is really evil today. I'm just feeling really nasty. All right.

Find it hands forward or behind the head. I'm going back here and we're going to turn so hollow in scoop. It's tiny and come back and hollow in scoop and kind of look for stability. Scoop and come back. That's cool. Nice work. And come back. Do we have one more? Alright, here it is.

The very last and reach forward and come all the way up. Okay. Rolling. I was always thinking of that too and then I was like, I can't be that mean. Should I be that mean? Alright, Deb wants me to beat, I mean you guys lift up. I don't know if you have a choice. Alright. Blame this one on her. Not me, but okay, here we go. Back just fine. I had had, you might have to adjust your ball a little bit.

The arms forward is perfectly fine. It's the same thing we just did. We flatten out and then we curve and lift and back. What's not so bad. Kevin? Left and stabilization and back control and back. One more. Yeah, and last one. And that is really it. There it is. Let's roll like a ball. Take the ball, but it by your belly, and then wrap your legs around it. I'm going to start here today. Since I almost never managed to do this exercise nicely, I'm going to hold behind my legs.

Feel free to go for the full deal if you want to, but what I want you to think about is really going back into the position that we just were. Then try to suck your ball into your abdominals and hover the legs and from there we rockets in back. Press your legs into the ball, your spine, into the ball. Good in heel back. Then exhale and inhale back. Exhale. Keep the elbows wide, the shoulders down. Let's do one more.

Oh yeah, you guys are all shaming me. All right, one more for me. You in the right place. All right. Okay. From here, and take the ball in your hands. Lean back. So you're just a little bit behind your pelvis. Float the legs up, stretch the legs out, stretch out and put the ball on your legs. I have gotten my fingertips on it.

I'm going to Tuck my tailbone under. I'm going to bring my ball down my legs. Once my shoulder blade I get to about my knees and then I'm just going to lift the ball, staying off the shoulders, reach forward to put the ball back and see if you're going to rural and have to lay eggs in here. Xcel, let's go down. Yeah, curling the spine. That posterior tilt that we just were working on. Keep the shoulders down, lift the ball up, and then bring the ball back. Think forward with the spine to do it and push it up the legs. Oh, okay. Let's go again and roll down.

Yeah, and then arms and arms back and all that. No, hold with the ball. Lower the legs, lower the ball, lift the leg, see if you can touch him both up and down. Last one, keep your legs there. Roll the ball down, bend your knees and rest all goes back between the legs going back into our hip extensors. So set up for a pelvic curl, arms at your sides. Breathe in, prepare, breathe out as you again, hollow out the abdominals. So in lieu of the shoulder bridge, this is what we're going to do today.

So we all know that the action of pushing down with the leg, that's the little flat floating through space is what's going to help us keep our hips level. What we're going to try to do is keep the back of both legs working evenly and take one leg off and straighten it forward. So that back leg has to work two and then down, I was just before I cramped and then out it goes the other leg and then down. So the tricky part is can we do it without a lot of pelvic shifting and a n o n n n, then yeah, hold here. Lower the entire spine in one piece. Think about both legs squeezing as you press the pelvis up, down to the hips. Abdominals too, and press up.

So as I'm lowering my body, I'm pulling my stomach down to do it. And lift. Last two, check in with your shoulder that I just caught me lifting and that's why I'm reminding all of us. Last one. Okay. Fold that knee or the leg out. Five lift straight down and straight up and straight down and straight up. Um, three more. Two more.

Last one. Let's bring the knee in and articulate this slide to come down. All right, take your ball. Oh, let's just rock up. Actually he didn't keep the ball where it is or take it. We're going to put it between our ankles and come all the way down.

All right, so hand on the mat if you need assist, if not, you can reach your hand down the side of your leg. The head is on the arm, a check with the ankle bone. So, uh, both ankle bones parallel to one another. So the legs are truly in parallel. Squeeze through the center and raise the legs and then keep them reaching away from you as you gently lower them down and lift them up and then lower them down and lift them out to come on. So here we are in a kind of a fundamental, but I think that because we've looked so hard for the, for the good solid work, it'll be really easy to find a good solid work here. Let's do three more and to, and what. Okay. Allow the legs to come down for a moment. Recommit. We're going to pick them right back up. So it's XLR. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna put my hand down for this one. We're going to do a scissor.

So you just roll the ball, kind of like what we did on our back and then roll the ball. You've got to use the back leg or the whatever legs. Go into the back. You want to use your hip extensors or squeeze the back of the leg. Turn what? Everything else is from the center. Turn two more. Last one.

Lower the legs. Uh, bend the knees. I don't know. I always feel like I have to use a ball for every single thing, but I don't think we're going to use it. Oh, put your hand on it. Push down on it when I do some hip work here. Okay. So just push down, getting some a little bit of work through your back. Open up your knee and come down. So as your knee opens, push on your ball. My elbows pointing towards the ceiling.

I'm pushing from my lap so that works kind of into it actually and crest. So if it's like a go button, cool. Let's do a former app and empress imagined squeezing like crushing a can on the way down. Okay. Keep the pressure. Now on the ball consistent. We're going to go internally, rotate, touch knee externally rotate touch toes. So I have still have the same England, my knee, I'm just going down an out and down. And what I want to do here, what I want us to think about is the, not just the lay or the knee, but the rotation of the actual Femur, the ball of that bone rotating in the joint and touch.

And a still pushing down. Let's do three, three, two, two, one. Hold with the intention of creating more external rotations, direct selection and bend and stretch the leg and bent. I think five is enough. Where do you guys think? Yeah. Really. So to keep, keep the shoulder down. Keep the back working. Does that five? Yes. Hello? We're everything down.

Is that your ball downward just out of your way? Come up. Turn so that you're sitting this way and then just put the ankle. I would lean back. [inaudible] so not be told. In fact, that's all just lean back. So although we're not sitting right up on our sitting bones, we are looking for a straight back and you're going to use your hands. So the good thing about this stretch is your foot can go further away from you, right or closer to you, depending on what you need.

And then you get to use your arms to extend your spine. Just gently. Now a the knee that's pointing out to the side, I'm going to bring it across the body, towards the center, on my [inaudible] chest. And then back. Let's do two more, bring that leg across and then go back and bring it across and go back. It's like the leg out. Pick up your ball, come around to your other side. Okay, so you've got the ball in the ankles we set up, once we got lying down by making sure that the ankle bones were facing inwards into the ball or like they have little magnets on them and they're trying to magnetically pull into one another. Okay. How does on the arm hand is down or on the leg?

Just raise the legs out and then with that solid contraction to the entire waistline, it's just slightly out in up and well and yeah, and re reach. She'll that as the legs go out, they go along, so the entire wasteland is trying to get longer or taller. Last four, if any part of this is about the legs, it's about the inner thighs. Last two and one more. All right. Then we let our legs come down for just a second and we recommit. Pick the legs back up, go and hand down and we go into our scissors. So we're still squeezing the ball. One leg goes forward, one hip extends, and then we change. Rolling the ball between the ankles.

Remember to squeeze the glutes of the leg that is going behind. Lost my ball. Come back here. Uh, this is I think our last one and [inaudible] back and then both legs down. Just bend your knees, pick up the ball, put it down in front of you. Now my knees from my hip joint to my heels, my legs create a 90 degree angle, but I'm not 90 at my hip. Joy and pushing down on the ball. Shoulders down.

You just keep the heels together. Open the top knee and squish the can as you bring it down and we push down on the ball too open and we really push the pushes in the focus so much on the hand as it's focused on the back that's creating that tension for you. Just think about where you're, the head is positioned. Sometimes we look down too much. Oh, last four kind of fast. Warren abs in, two down, no movement in the hips. Three down. And here's hold going. Internal rotation. Touch knees, external rotation, touched toast and knees. And again the head of that bone is like a big ball.

Can you feel the ball rotating around in like a cavern and toast and just too much last time. Here's the mean one, this is direct select, try to pull that whole, I'm cramping. Sorry. I'll be with you in one moment. And Bend and stretch and Paul Stretch. Stay in and turn out the policies nicest where we're still pulling down with the lap. Pressing down on the bottle. A little less than counting. I think one is now. Okay, that's a lot. So lower the leg and then just help yourself.

So we just sat up, we sat behind the pelvis a little bit. [inaudible] kind of in like the teaser position if you will. And then the leg comes, the ankle comes on top of the knee. Want to look down at your pelvis, make sure that the hips run straight across and then if that's not enough stretch for you. Move your foot a little closer. If it's too horrible, move your leg a little further away. So it's like a sliding scale stretch. And just breathe and then just rotate that pointed knee, that outside knee, across the chest and back and across the chest and back and across the chest and back.

And then go ahead and [inaudible] uncross the legs. Let's roll over on our hands and knees. This is something that I've done with a roller, but I've not done with a ball that I'm willing to give it a go. So if I'm willing, yes, you're kind of stuck with it, but the ball underneath your knees and let's actually change that. We're going to put the bomb kind of figuring out as I go. All right. We're gonna be balancing in like a plank position with our ankles on the ball.

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, you're probably gonna have to put your home's kind of far forward. Adjust your shoulders over your hands and then lift up and then we're gonna round the spine and pull the knees in and reach back out. Do we need to move the ball? Let's move the ball up a little. Yeah. Well, the trouble with making things up as you go along is that you kind of have to troubleshoot. So I'm going to move my ball up a little higher and I think it'll work better.

Okay. Press sessions into the ball and left. But that problem with that is it that your feet are awesome. All right, let's just curl and let's not go all the way out. Just there. We're around the spine like the knee stretch and, and scoop into the abdominals to pull the ball in. Kind of a cross between Pike and knee. Stretch. How about two more and one way and then take it down and put the knees down.

You get a foot cramp. I got a foot cramp suit everyone. We all got foot cramps. All right. Maybe not the best one. Let's try a different theory. Same action. Have you guys ever tried like the, you know the, the wheelie thing with this? The, the handles, the AB roller. Okay. That's kind of where I'm going with this. It would be that, that same action of pulling back and rounding from the back again. Not sure. So I'm gonna go and I think we'll have to be pretty light on the ball. Thanks.

Starting out. It's going to be a better idea. So out. Let's start in a flat back with your arms just out in front of us. Shoulders down. And I think this is actually going to work really nice. Like pulling up. Have to be light on the ball. It's going to roll to your fingertips. Press the pelvis forward and inhale, stretch out.

Are Your hips stay right on. Um, I'm trying. Well I think cat stretch. So we're flat and then we curve and press the hips forward and then try to keep the hips still as you lengthen the spine out. I like this one much more than I liked the other one. Excellent curve of the spine.

Rolling the ball and dropping the shoulders and inhale, stretch up and excel curve is fine. And inhale to stretch out. Let's do two mornings. Yeah. And maybe we'll get a little longer each time. And this'll be our last one. So see about rounding and all them. Him maybe wolf finger walk, spider finger, the ball in, sit down. Bring the ball with you, come onto your back. This is a nice one.

You might actually like me going after this. Okay? It really deciding that you're hating me. Don't, don't decide yet. The ball's going to go underneath your sacral area. So the best way to do it is just to lift into a pelvic curl and to slide the ball underneath you, okay? And find a comfortable place for it. And then for the first couple of moments, we're just gonna let the spine arch, so let the tailbone reach into the ground and then pull the body back to neutral via abdominal support. Just do that a couple of times. It's kind of a, a gentle extension of the lower spine and then back.

All right, so we're gonna pick up the feet, stretch the legs up, look for neutral pelvis externally. Rotate the legs, stretch them away from one another. Pull in from the abdominals and squeeze. Now in this position, you can watch it. The legs move evenly. He might wobble a little on the ball, but try not to. Inhale, open, exhale, pull in, inhale, open, and exhale. Paul, feel free to find this stretch and then come back from it and the stretch and then come back to more. And last one. Okay, so we're going to do the scissors. You're going to bring, let's say the left leg back, the right leg down.

Just look for control on the ball. The right leg won't touch it, just splits and then come through center [inaudible] and split and come through center and Split. Pulling the top leg back and using the back of the bottom leg to control. And there's a possibility for hip flexor. Stretch down there and then change and let's go two more. It's okay on your tailbone. Za Yeah, scratch [inaudible]. Okay, I'm here. Sorry Deb might not like me, but a helicopter goes like this. Careful how low you go.

Just start making it small. Reach all points of the circle as you come around and then if that would feel okay, you can make it bigger. If it will feel okay, we're going to come back and go the same direction. One leg up, one leg down, circle around, check in with your shoulders. You tend to tighten up without our noticing. One more reaching out and around. And then let's go the other way.

Had to concentrate to keep these fluid and even and [inaudible] little bit of Ab work necessary as well. Keep us balanced on the ball and last time and back. And then just bend your knees and place one lake down at a time. Lift your pelvis off the ball, so push it in. Like you're going to do a pelvic curl, like the ball is the floor and roll up. And then take the ball and place it a little bit lower and then just start to roll yourself back down.

So the ball is holding our hips up in the air. And here's another place where we can look for reflection. Okay? So allow the ball to assist you as you continue to Tuck your pelvis. And then just for about five breasts, we're going to inhale and exhale. Just pull, try to pull the abdominals into the ground.

They probably won't touch, I don't know, Deborah, maybe you can prove me wrong and then just release a little and then hollowing out the ABS. Try to just tuck the pelvis more and maybe the back will get a little bit more of a stretch. Oh, let's just do one more and then we're just going to live. Take the pelvis gently. Roll the ball out from underneath you and with control and as slowly as you need to. Just peel yourself down. All right. Walk. Yeah, that feels good. Yeah. Walk your feet to the outsides of your mat and this isn't just another rotational exercise. Kind of gentle.

Drop the leg furthest away from me into the center and the other leg is going to go out. So just a cross and then change you. Okay, Deb. This one good and across like windshield wipers, kindness, and not a ton, ton like a grippy s abdominal thing that just gently, just gently staying engaged. Just a few more and a cross. Yeah. This one I could do all day. We're going to stretch your legs straight. [inaudible] roll up.

It's the roll up any easier. I don't know when it felt easy fall comes with you. We're going to go onto our stomach. Okay. This is a hamstring exercise, a hamstring glute exercise. So what you're going to do, I, you may have done it with the magic circle before.

You're going to take it and put it right where your hamstring and your glute meet. I don't care. We know where that is by now. And then bend trying to, yeah, you're going to have to push it a little further and then let's just, I'm kind a cramping, cramping. All right. Sorry. I'll get this over with. Lifting chopper, back extension. Lift the leg. Oh, and just press okay. Is every, is everyone cramping as much as I am or, well, that's what I'm doing. I'm squeezing and pretending like it feels great. All right, let's leave that. Get the ball. Stretch it away.

Yeah, I've got to do the other side. All right. So anyway, we're in back extension and then lift the knee a little so you're in hip extension and then press and press. I had to give up you guys totally and full count now. All right. Thank you so much for bearing with all my crazy ideas. Here's what I know works. Take your ball. Put it underneath, like right around, right around your sternum, just underneath the chest. And then you're going to rest on it and the arms are just going to rest at your sides.

So I've got my forums just outside my upper arms and I'm letting my chest press into the ball. All right, from there you might want to go hire Lisa maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you won't be as high. Alright, so from here we're just going to gently guide the elbows downwards and then start to press the chest forward into the ball. It's not big and it's like you're trying to push the ball out from underneath you by lifting your back. Everyone with me, it's okay, we're rolling. We're liking me again and then relax, kind of decompressing through the upper back and then guiding me. Elbows down the shoulders, down abdominals and we just press the sternum into the ball looking for upper middle back. If it becomes too lower back, it's too high or there isn't enough abdominal support and then relax into the ball and let's do that three more times. Reaching. Yeah, and relaxing down.

You feel that the ball is supporting you enough to help you really focus on strong upper back extensors and then release. This is when I left. We didn't go there one more time. Don't use your hands too much cause I'm gonna take them away. Okay. And then write your mouth out like a t and then they're just going to go back like you're flying. So just back like back and back and nothing back and down and back and down. And now we're going to take the arms, bring the pinky fingers in if you um, and inhale, reach out. So this would be like, um, pulling traps too.

And, and what we want to really focus on is keeping the palms face downwards. Pinky fingers a little right into the hips. Yeah, I know. How about two more. And again, just letting the ball support you enough so that you're already lifted and you can really focus on where you want to focus on, which is right between the shoulder blades. Let's reach out and let the arms come down and maybe take a minute to let your back settle. And I'm gonna move my arm one arm forward so that I can just gently pull the ball out. I'm just going to let us rest on my hands for a second.

[inaudible] that the backfill await. And with that we're going to take our hands underneath our shoulders. We're just going to push up. We're going to around ourselves back and sit on our feet. That in your arms, reach out in front or, or you could reach around and hold onto your feet. So whatever feels comfortable, comfortable for you here.

This is where we're going to finish. So it's a pretty, it's kind of a nice and [inaudible] fairly interesting place to practice expanding through the back of the body. So as you inhale, feel the abdominals just slightly pull away from the thighs and feel the entire back of the trunk filling up with air. And as you exhale, keep the abdominals lightly pulling up off the thighs. But let the back just settle down again. Inhale ribs, expand the abdominals, deepen. Maybe if you're, or we all holding our feet and really try holding your feet for just a second and do that again. Inhaling. And as you inhale, let your elbows go wide. So it's like the elbows going wider, almost helping you pull, widen, and then just relax everything exam and when we're like that in here, and exhale, and then just relax it. We'll do whatever you wish to with your arms when they take three deep breaths. One breath for your mind and another for your body, honoring the work that you've done and another for putting up with my crazy ideas.

All right, you guys. That's it. We're all done.

Comments

1 person likes this.
this is just fantastic!! I am really amazed at all the things you can do with the overball!!! so versatile, And for my clients with back and hip flexor issues its priceless!! Ty for these informative classes Merideth. Your cueing is spot on! Jamie
Thank you Jamie. It's always great to hear from you!
1 person likes this.
I love this & all your classes..I just did this with you & am amazed at the many different ways there are to use the ball. I teach a mat class with the ball & you just gave me many new, fresh ideas. Thank you
CJ
1 person likes this.
meredith, I just did this class, how nice, I do not have to leave the house. I just love your programe. thank you.
CJ
1 person likes this.
meredith, I just did this class, how nice, I do not have to leave the house. I just love your programe. thank you.
1 person likes this.
Your new ball exercises offered challenging abdominal work. Continue to be creative. Really enjoyed this program, Mary.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I love hearing from you. See you soon Michelle:)
1 person likes this.
Loved the class..Thank you!
1 person likes this.
What brand is the overball you are using? Dimensions? Weight? I've tried using substitutes that I had around the house and they aren't satisfactory!
Joni....the brand is "overball". Try a google search. It should come up. Weighs next to nothing and I think there is only one size. Let me know if you need more help...
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