Class #580

Energizing Mat

50 min - Class
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Description

Join Meredith for this energizing and invigorating workout for the whole body. Flowing through all ranges of motion, Meredith focuses on finding new ways to feel the upper back extensions. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Dec 08, 2011
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Okay. So we sit up and we're just gonna sit comfortably and you can sit with your knees however you'd like to or with straight legs and just hold on somewhere. And I need a minute there. Just a couple of breasts. So let's all join me in a minute. Breathing in and breathing out. And as we do this for just one more brief moments, let's feel the spine extend and thinking about how we can commit to supporting the spine with little effort feel on the inhale, the spine lengthening and on the exhale, the musculature, rounding the spine, just contracting to support that position.

And let's inhale one more time and this time we're going to exhale and we're just going to start to shift the pelvis underneath us. We'll curve back, pressing the stomach into the spine, may keeping the shoulders pretty much where they are. And inhale, we lift. It's still a little gentle movement in the spine. We curve backwards. Shoulders stay in place and inhale to lift. Think about this as you curve your spine. Can you make it longer meaning go up and slightly forward and lift and one more curving. The spine, but creating length ban left and bring the knees together, reaching the arms forward.

We inhale for pausing, we exhale. I still haven't got it together yet. Hi, we rolled down [inaudible] and inhale and exhale. Just moving a little, not a lot of stress or strain in the movements. Lifting the spine tall. Exhale. If you prefer your knees out, Deb, go for it. Curling back. Really add in here and just bending the spine.

My favorite visual these days is of the spine is a slinky. So if one part of a slinky ever moves right, the rest of the slinky has to respond to it. Yeah. And we inhale and exhale. And my second favorite visual of the moment is how can we curve the spine so much or to the maximum first without even moving the shoulders and then bring it with us and it's kind of comes back into hinder a piece if we think about it that way. Lift your arms up, bring your arms around to your sides, lift your arms up again, but drop the abdominals down into the mat. Bring the arms around to the side and Corolla. As we get to the top, we're gonna open out the arms and lifts the back, pressing the arms up and getting a little back extension and reach forward, pushing through space, curling back. Inhale, the arms go up.

Exhale, they pushed through space so we get a little bit of activity. Create our own internal resistance system and rolling and lifting and pressing the arms and reaching the arms and reaching. And one more like that. And reaching and rolling. I'm going to change it just a little bit here. We're going to exhale to roll down. Now's the time to bring your knees together, Deb.

And then everybody slide your feet a little closer to you and then pick up the arms in the knees and push the arms in these back down. Keep the back stuff and lift and push and lift and press the chest towards the thighs and the thighs. Go away from the body, but then keep the chest there so it's getting more and more left as we continue this movement pattern. One more time. Hold the arms up, put the feet down. Bring the arms around to the side and with that rolling and lift the back and reach the arms overhead and turn in my direction. Dropping the ams in front of you as you peel down that side of your spine, Mel to come crossing by center. Exhale, rolling up that side. Starting to lift the arms up and returning to center and inhale, rotating to the back, allowing the arms to drop down.

Inhale as we come across center, working deeply in the obliques, rolling up as the spine extends so to the arms and the arms. Carry the spine up further and we go again. Rolling and reaching and coming across. So speeding the movements up a little bit, getting a lot of mobility in our bodies and center and one more and we're rolling back. Can you get the low back? Was super connected to the mat and then spiral around the spine as you come up and center and inhale and exhale. Whirl back through the center and hold that sliding the feet a little closer to you. A little closer. Still. Take one arm back and exhale at home. You can hang onto your leg if you wanted to and XL at home.

So can we feel not only the rotation, but the length and that side of the body as we turn and the length in the side of the body as we reach and back, and let's do one more and back on the last one and back in [inaudible] and just reaching past the legs. Separate the feet in. You can see them scoot them are right up close to the hips and place the head and chest down onto the ground for the pelvic curl. Breathing in, breathing out as we undulate through the spine, leading with the pelvis, keeping the ribs below the pelvis in space and in here, and exhale, the chest goes down, the ribs come down, the belly hollows out. We press bone by bone through the spine into the ground and inhale. Exhale, hollowing through the abdominal, letting the shins press forward towards the knees. Weight bringing them, I don't know, and roll down. What I meant to say was this. As you roll yourself up, push your shins forward and, and allow that feeling to create a little bit more room for your back to move and rolling down. And we're going to do two more. So as you move back and forth up your spine and you feel that you're moving straight through the center of your spine, and as you're rolling up and down through your spine, can you feel a sense of the neck lengthening behind you in the arms pressing into the mat. And here's our last one in here, and exhale to come, uh, and keeping the Tuck in the pelvis. Inhale and exhale to roll down. And as the pelvis touches them at, we're just going to slide our arms out to our sides, bringing the legs up one by one, gluing the legs together, spine, twist supine towards me. Inhale, exhale deep.

And through the center of the body we curl back or we just, I don't know, it's more of a shift back I guess. And exhale. So as we're moving across the center line of the body, can we feel that the opposite shoulder stays connected to the ground? Feel that for a moment. I'm going to change it on us just a little bit. So as we go again, just let your arms hover and can you keep your upper body just to still with your arms about one inch off the ground and inhale an exhale. And last one. Yeah, next half. And inhale and exhale. Take the hands behind the head. Slide. Interlock the fingers together. Place the feet down one by one. Inhale, prepare.

Exhale for a pelvic curl, curling the head and chest. Sta Holding. As we breathe in, keep that hike in the body, but now curl the pelvis. So moving or mobilizing the spine in a slightly different way. As the pelvis reaches back towards the neutral, can we intensify the curvature of the upper spine and we release, we need some breath, don't we? Exhale as we pick the head and chest up. Inhale, let's curl the pelvis up. So the challenge on the inhale is can we keep the abs working and breathe in?

Exhale, lower the pelvis down, lifting the chest, inhale to pause and exhale to go down. I'm changing the breath again, but here you go. Just follow. There's our XL inhale. Here's our comes our curvature just to the bottom of the rib cage. Exhale to lower in nail to take the body down. One more to go.

Exhale, hadn't. Chest inhale, hollowing out through the exhale, letting the pelvis come down, but sending the chest a little higher. Inhaling to come down, bringing the legs up again. Once again, exhale, lifting the head and chest. Now we do the same thing. We curl the pelvis up, we place the pelvis down, we take the chest down and the chest up and curl the pelvis towards the ceiling and place the pelvis down with control and take the body down. And one more like that.

We left and curling and yeah, and the body goes down and the body comes up. I'm changing it again. So we're gonna to bring in the opposite rib towards the opposite thigh. Come higher as you come through. Center and twist and higher as you come through. Center and twist.

If your knees are shifting up and down on one another, that's the sign of your pelvis shifting. So let's try to minimize that. Crossing the body and lifting through center and crossing the body and the lifting through center and last time and coming back and here it is and coming back and we hold there. Reach the arms forward without the hands heavily behind the head. Can we get a little bit higher now? Let the body come down. The arms come with you. The hundreds are going to go like this today.

Xcel pickup the head and chest. Start to pump the arms and inhale, send the legs out, four, five and exhale. Pull the legs in. Four, five an inhale and exhale, two, three, four, five and three and dig deep. And so getting that same idea of curving the chest into the thighs and that we pump the arms from our back muscles and back. Two, three, four, five. And last, I don't know, I've lost count. Let's say two more after this. Five, four, three, two, one, five, four, three, two, one. Exhale. Two three, four, five or I don't know where I am. Pause and hold. That was the 200 grab onto your niece.

Rock just from the pelvis to the ribs, not by kicking the feed into the hands, but by deepening the curvature of the spine, deepening the contraction of the abdominals and in one fell swoop, Rola, placing the feet down on the ground. Let's stretch him out. Sitting tall, arms outstretched, breathing in. So we think about the same thing I mentioned at the beginning. How much can we curve our spine without actually changing the position of the shoulders? And then take that downwards, that curvature downwards. And from there we go out and inhale and exhale. We feel the abdominals, these stack the spine.

We work from the front and the back of the body and we're going to inhale and we gonna inhale and open up the chest and we going to exhale and push the arms forward and inhale, lift a little taller and exhale, curve the spine, bringing the ribs down, letting the eyes start to drop forward. Then bend the spine forward. Then take the body out long and inhale and exhale. We curve through the spine, stacking the spine up from the front of the body. Let's inhale and reach the arms up and exhale like you've got 10 pounds in between your hands. You push are a big, big ball that you're squeezing and we bet Dexy.

And now take the arms up and keep the hands just above the feet. And now reach out with the arms and out with the spine. And now reach up with the arms and keep the spine out. And now out with the arms and forward with the arms and fold with the spine and Ah, and you'll breathe in there somewhere for me, won't you? And push and contract feel the energy being created in the body.

We take the body long, we press the arms out to the side coming forward on a flat diagonal line. We raise the arms up and send the spine a little longer. Taking the arms back forward, we pull the spine further forward as the arms reach forward. End Together and roll. How about one more? Oh, thanks. Stuff, keeping me honest and we reach forward and we curl. And remember about the abdominals are super critical here and we lengthen out.

And let's hold here for a moment and just press and press and press. And as you press, maybe you'll think about pressing this one longer and hold and now arms overhead. And now press back. I'm back. I'm back and back and sit all the way up and bring the arms out to the side and step the feet together and push the air through the center of the body rolling down through the Rola, allowing the arms to reach overhead in how we bring up the head, the chest, the arms, and we exhale. Curl forward, creating that long round c shape at the top. Add an inhale and exhale to go down. Feeling the mobility in the pelvis that allows us to create that movement.

So thinking about the pelvis is a dynamic piece of the spine or the where the spine is connected to anyway, and lift in the role, maximizing the articulation in our bodies to more feeling the center of the spine. Lots of us are over developed or more developed on one side of the other. So we'll feel that side of the body more or heavier into the ground. So if you know that about your body, can you find the other side, the less developed side. And now we're going to come back up, we're going to roll all the way and I take the body all the way forward, flexing the feet, grab on, let the head come down and pull your body forward.

And then lifting the spine out long, allowing the arms to help you as you come through. Back extension. I'm kind of moving a little closer to my toes. I'm going to pull my feet back and then we're just gonna let go and we're going to sit up and it should be nice and easy now on hands behind the head and we're going for a twist. So it's a double and center and the work happens at the waist and center and we lift a law and turn and keep the head still in the hands. So the head is the top of the spine, not a separate piece of the body. It just moves as the spine moves and as far as the upper back is concerned, we feel the shoulder blades drawing down and I'm been playing with Paul trying to pull my elbows apart from one another and changing and center and changing and center and two more. Nope, three more. Watching this, shifting of the feet, keeping it at a minimum and then stop center, raise the arms overhead, go back through the curvature in the spine, reaching the arms forward without using your arms and without losing the curve.

Can you start to glide the feet into your body? Not Super Well on the mat. I realize that. Then we pick them up and we hold on and we just rock back nice and smooth and even through our spine and inhale to go back and XO and email to say, okay, I don't quite have this one in my body yet, but I'll try harder. So let's play around with how little can we use the hands and keep the feet still and how little can we use the legs and last one and from there just hold the Nice Tuck, the tailbone round the spine. Try not to lose, what do I want to say? Go towards straight arm. So you're just curling and then press the chest towards the knees rolling back up. Looking down at the pelvis. Don't let the back arch, we just talk more so that pubic bone reaches up into the eyeballs.

What a w interesting Q and. A. This is admin. We curl or the nose that's maybe more appropriate. Okay, last one. And then just bring it all the way down into the double leg stretch position. And here we are in the double leg stretched position, enjoying the breeze and we take it and we bring it around and we've got a little peacefulness in our body, but we've also got a little energy in our bodies, right? Creating the work. Where does it come from? It comes from the middle, no power house. The center.

How much can we involve our arms? Creating a little bit of dynamic energy. Last three, two more. One more. Hold it there. Bringing the knees into the chest. Let the head come down. Double leg, stretch the rivers, arms over the shoulders.

Inhale into the a hundred position. Exhale, just arms. Inhale, two inches up at. Keep the low back down. Bend the knees, bring the knees, roll right into the nose without losing the lower back and down. And inhale to the a hundred and exhale with the arms. And now we take it three inches and we keep it and we bend and we press the chest and the legs together and we come all the way down. We're going to stay on the low back. Today we're just going to, we're just a hundred challenging around.

That was keep the low back down, but try to bend the upper spine up, bend the knees, grab the legs and bring it down. One more to go. Reaching it up, taking the arms out and around curling two inches. Keep that height. Bend your knees, hold onto your left and stretch the right leg out and change. So again, creating a dynamic energy. The back. The back of that leg is tight and strong as it pulls the leg out of the hip joint.

The other leg is pushing inwards and the chest continues to try to fight to press right up to the thigh and for three beautiful two hands behind your head please. And into the crisscross. Go Higher and center higher and center. Feel the legs squeeze together as they pass by one another and lift and keep the elbows wide. And here's another place where the neck doesn't move. It just comes with you. And three, three, two and one. Both knees in, chest lifted. Hold the legs, separate the legs. Once again, we just rock back and forth on over our lower backs and then we rural and then we left and then we do the open leg rocker like this, curling the spine back. Keep the elbows wide, pull on the elbows. I away from one another, I mean rock back, rock up.

And as you lift your back, not only using your back extensors but think about that, that pulling the legs apart, but at the same time squeezing the legs inward. That should generate some pretty significant upper back work, which as you know, I enjoy [inaudible] pull out, squeeze the legs in for resistance, rock back, rule a pole, lifting the spine. Let's take it a little higher if you want, if you want, you stay with the Benes and we do the same thing. We squeeze the legs towards one another, but we try to pull them apart and then we roll. And we have just as much control over our bodies here and we elevate the spine and we rock back. So as you're rolling up, start thinking right now about being light in the spine, allowing it to be buoyant.

Mm. Yep. And one more, bring it up and let the legs go and drop the legs down and bend them together and stretch forward. And then as you roll back up, begin to separate the legs again, taking them out. There'll be wide heading into the saw here. So nice, tall spine turn. Easy, easy in the spine, Henry and Lincoln. So sometimes if we, who asked for easy today, some candy. Hi. No, hi. And I said pull out. This is an easy, I'm sorry, but now I'm kind of liking the idea of letting it be easy and we know that it's never easy, right?

But creating that ease or believing that there's ease in our body can potentially make it easier and try to reach and we'll lengthen out to come home and try to reach, reach out through the spine and come back on one more. Hear each forward, we left our bodies up and center entered and reach forward and lifting our bodies up. Bring it home, bring the hands behind us and bend the knees, my Mike back on and get going. So we're gonna do a little tricep work on you. Have a band nearby. Got It. Alright, so fingers facing in or out. Kenny, if you want, it's fine. It's fine. Okay, I'm going to go with me and we lift the body and curve the spy and bend the arms and straight in here and bend the arm and straighten the arm. So let's think about this. Can we keep the shoulders down as the elbows bend? That's probably the biggest challenge is not just losing shoulder stability.

Can we think about the abdominals drawing inwards? So we're making it into like an upside down pike here, squeezing the body down and pulling the body down and that's how we create some resistance for our arms. Did you switch arms yet? Helen, did you switch your arms yet? Good switch arms and we'll do some more and down and up and down and ha and keep the elbows going straight back and down man. And I don't know you almost even Helen Kay. One more everybody and sit down and I'll stretch the right leg out.

I lifted the body up and hold onto the last leg and pull the back nice and long and now start to bring the leg a little closer to your body and then start to flex the spine, bringing your body down into the ground, working with control, taking our time. Look down at your pelvis. Is it level? Once you get to the bottom, let's draw the leg a little closer to us. Anchoring with that bottom leg and we sweat. It's a poll, Paul and I, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, and it's not the arms pulling, although it is, but it's the chest reaching into the thigh and the elbows y and here we can play with that. Elbows pulling away from each other gig again and pull, pull and take it back to the left leg. And I'll do my best. And so will you. We take the leg a little bit away from us. I'm anchoring down with that straight, like let's walk up the leg, hold on wherever you want to hold on to and pull the back really long.

And then let's bend the arms and drag the shin back towards the forehead. Bowing the spine into the leg here. The optimal place to look down again at your pelvis and see that it's still level. And then lifting, setting that leg down, pick up me picking up the ride so the spine rises. So you reach up on a high diagonal with the leg and then it comes with us. So again, we've got to move that pelvis, bringing the leg close, anchoring with the backside of the bottom, like bringing the leg into the body.

Deep, deep, deep, deep abdominal work. Dread the leg a little closer to your body and you change. Nice and peaceful. The biggest challenge here, it's to keep the trunk stable throughout the movement and again and hold [inaudible] and start to reach the chest towards the leg, pulling the leg forward, rising through the spine, bending [inaudible], bringing the mission in towards the forehead, bowing forward into the lake and lifting and allow both knees to come into a bent position and sit just behind the pelvis and lift the legs and lift the spine and reach forward and curve the spine. Just get to the bottom of the ribs. That's it. Just there and come back up [inaudible] and do it again just to the bottom of the rib. Squeeze the legs together. Keep them still and lift up and let's do it again. Let's go down. Okay.

Getting the low back down. Good, good, good. Helen, you keep doing that. You stretch your legs out, you bring your knees back in and you roll up. Sure. Whoa. Yes. And let's go again, tucking the pelvis. Use your arms if you need to. That's really helpful. If you have trouble there, stretch the legs out. Bring the knees in and Rola and one way rolling back.

Stretch the legs out. Hold there, hold there. Just keep the arms reaching forward. Take one leg up and one leg down. Press the leg down and pull the leg back and change and Shane and hauling the abdominals to bring that five on. Right up close to the nurses and change and change and change and change. And we twist to the top leg and twist and squeeze like see others say paths through center and two, two and one and one in both legs in the air and the head and chest down on the ground and we roll over and we flex the feet and separate the feet and start to bring the body down, pressing the upper arms into the ground, feeling the weight evenly distributed throughout the entire body. Circling to touch on in here and rolling off and flexing and separating and rolling down and circle. Touch one more in here and exhale and separate and circle touch.

Now here as the pelvis starts to come down and the legs begin to come together, we're going to lift the head up. We're going to fall the knees into the body and come up into ruling like a ball. I've done this with some of you. We're going to do rolling like volume to Jack. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Here we go. So we rock back. We can roll over. We push the legs away from us.

Lifting the spine into the air into a nice vertical shape. We're gonna break in half at the waist. Bend the knees, hollowing through the ABS. Here you are upside down in rolling like a ball. Start to roll up and reach for your feet. Coming up to balance. We'll go a little faster. Rolling back the arms, leave the legs, the legs, reach over the top. Inhale your reach up. Exhale, we fold it the waist. Inhale, bending the knees but hollowing out through the abdominals.

Exhale to come up and balance in the wheelchair. Nice job. Rock back and rule over. Excellent. A push the legs up. Oh, I have just changed the breath, but you'll live. Just breathe and bend. Find a breath pattern that soul's appropriate for you. Last one, rolling over. Reaching the legs up lightly. Lightly extending the spine a little bit more.

Breaking at the waist, bending the knees, rocking, holding at the top. Place the feet down. Cross the outside. Lay over the inside leg. Turn towards me. And here we are. Side Bend. I do. Did that transition? Not really work. It's just been one of those days. When do to be honest with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry everyone. Here we go.

Side Bend. So what's most important here? Perfect is shoulder stability, right? We've got the ribs pulled in. We're ready to go. Lift your body energy through the head and the feet. Call it like our laser beam and then we lift and we go light on that arm in the top. Arm reaches over and it's a stretch, right? So find a stretch and then come back and bend.

Helen, what about one knee down like this? Still too much and oh where we go and we bring it back and we'd bend to come away from the arm and down on. How about one more over in a, maybe a little lighter. And then let's come back to that side plank position and hold it, I don't know. Pick up the top leg. Oh, that's me. That's me. And now top to the front and up and tap into the back and on one way and ah, um, and uh, and cross and bend and swing the legs all the way around.

And here we are lifting up away from the ribs. Opposite arm is down, run laser beam Candice, your teensy bit high there. Come down just a little bit with your body. That's it. And now go up and take that top arm and stretch it way over the head and then find the straight line and then bent and then left. That's better. And then up. And remember your legs will help you here. I had to find a lot of stability from different places in our body.

And one more. So what I mean by that is the leg squeeze together. The glutes are tight, we will lift, we reach over. Nothing is being neglected and down. Oh, sorry. Did I give us the next one up? We go pick up the top play. I get up now touch the front and touch the back and touch the front and touch the back and cross it over and bend the knees and slide onto the knee.

This could be done sitting. If you want. Arms out to your sides. Feeling along lifted spine. We're going to go this way. It's like an airplane. The arms stay level with one another. And then we pull up and like an airplane, we're just floating through space but also generating a little internal energy. Yeah, I know.

And reaching over and maybe we'll go a little longer this way and uh, and over and um, and then take the arms down next to you and press the arms back like a conveyor belt as the arms press down and back, the chest lifts. And then we're going to bring the arms all the way back in a circle, rising them up. And we're going to bring the body to neutral, dropping the arms down, kind of like a circular motion, if that makes sense. Push down with the arms, elevate the chest, keep the chest just here. Bring the arms back, start to bring them out to the side, spreading them away from each other, lift them into the Er, and then as you return to a neutral position in your spine, they just press down the front. Let's do it one more time. Pressing down, lifting the chest, bringing it up, and then bringing the house down and out to the side and over. Lifting that free leg now. So let's keep it bent for a minute and check out the pelvis. Good Helen Gray, and then stretch it and then take the free hand and bring it behind the head and take the leg down into the mat and ah, and down away from you.

Think about it and, and whole way and uh, and no way and up and one more and up and forward now and back and forward again. Good. Keeping that leg elevated him back and three more. I keep a little attention into the arm that you're supporting with and I think this is one. Let's take it down to the ground slightly behind us. Take the top our mountain over there is our stretch. Bring the leg out, bring the arm, start to lift.

Oh, don't bring the knee in yet Deb. And just set it down and that's okay. And stretch over so and joy. And then maybe bend into the leg a little bit. Come back and now as you come up you can drop that knee head. And here we go for the other side. Checking out the Palo. It's real hot today, isn't it? Dolphins, jet Ski Co and and, Oh, we kept the knee bent and we checked the pelvis and then we stretched the leg out and Brock, the hand behind the head just going to go down and go out and go down and go out. Good, good, perfect. You could do that.

Hell and you can keep your hand like that. It would work. Here's our last one. Think about your ass. Bring the leg forward and back and forward and back and forward and back. And to, I'm back and here it is and we take it to the ground. Let me stirrer at you overhead with our arm.

And then we lift the arm in the leg, bringing the leg to center and the leg just starts to lift lower Amy. And then we see if we can lift without lowering the leg yet. Oh and then me. And let me go over the top and don't put a lot of pressure on that knee. A lot of torque. If it needs to soften, it can. Nice. And let's come all the way back up. Turn onto your mat and place your hands on the mat.

Preparing for a plank position. So we stretch the legs out, maybe one leg at a time and get them nice and strong. And from that place we're going to pick up the right leg and it's just going to go up and, and just a little tuck in, a little lower with the pelvis step. And now it's going to go up into the air when the body comes into a up stretch. And then we're going to just lower down and top the toes.

So we're hinting at the hip and we pull up from the waist and we reached down into, and we keep the shoulders stable as we pull up and reach down in tap. I'm going to change it right now. We pull up and now instead of flat, we curl the knee into the chest. And now we take the leg back and we curl the leg into the chest and we take the leg back and we curly liken to the chest and we take the leg back and hold it up and roll that top hip open. And Ben, that taught me opening up through that tough hip. And now stretch the leg back out and up into the air. Roll the pelvis forward. Place the foot down on the ground, drop down into your plain position.

Bend your knees and sit down onto your feet. And then we're gonna roll up through the spine and we're gonna set the shoulders just over the hands and separate the knees. So they're just under the hip for a little cat stretch. Inhale, prepare. I just got the urge to meow like a cat cut thing. I could hold myself back, right? Curling the pelvis under, Oh yes, and enjoy that stretch and inhale to neutral and exhale holding the pelvis. Still we extended the upper spine and we come back so that elbows pulling away from each other thing that we've been playing with today.

Curling the spine under it. It'll work here in that back extension segment. Have to think about it in terms of the entire arm but pull the arms away from each other, spreading out the back, making space for the chest to pull through and back to neutral and to more. Rounding deeply and back and lengthening out and up and back and rolling and back and lifting the chest out in a and back to neutral. Ready for the plank. Anyone need a rest break? Here we go. One leg in. The other finding strong strength.

There is no way that you can do this without a lot of different things. Working right legs, abs, arms point, the left foot in. Reach out and don't let it affect any other part of your body. And three. And Helen, you look fantastic and five. And now we take the body up as the leg goes up and we drop the opposite foot into the ground and then we come down. So what I mean is that right heel, it reaches down.

We stretch the hamstring as the left leg lifts and way up into the air. And what you're thinking about in order of lifting that leg is the back of it and down and letting the head just fall between the arms, not below the arms and down. And the last one we hold here and now we curved the spine. Instead of straighten it, we bend it deeply and then take the leg back and then the spine, and then take the leg back one more time. We'll take the leg back and here we are in our up stretch here.

Best keep the shoulders squared, but roll the pelvis to the sky. Bend that top knee. Reach it around towards the opposite elbow. Stretch it back up maybe a little higher. Now turn the pelvis back down to the ground. Step the foot in hold here. Just pressing back into our feet and everybody lift onto your toes and everybody roll forward over your hands and drop your knees to the ground. I don't want to see again to the seat back and then when your back has had a chance to settle, let's bring our bodies down onto the mat.

No want to set us up with the upper arms just next to the um, biceps, but with the upper arms actually on the ground. So I'm not underneath my arms. I'm just to the outside. All right, the forehead is down. We're going to engage through the abdominals, but also feel that the entire pelvis stays on the mat. Start to bring the head forward, lifting just the back of the head and then feeling the elbows dragged back towards your hips as you send the chest forward without lifting the ribs off the ground. I'm going to hold this position now. We just lift the arms effortlessly. Let them go. Why stretch them overhead.

Pull them back, squeeze them back in towards your waist, put them on the ground and take the body down and let's breathe. Inhale to pull the back into upper back extension, say strong in the apse XL to pick the arms up and start to spread the elbows wide. There's that pulling thing again. Inhale the arms overhead. Exhale, drag the elbows back in. You'll slide the elbows into the body and Xcel to come down. And two more. Just like that. Inhale the head and chest. Come pulling forward.

Exhale the arms just hover and roll. They go wide and now we lift them overhead and now we dragged the shoulder blades wide and apart. As we bend the arms in, he'll slide the elbows back to the body like breaststroke and take everything down on the exhale. Last time for the day, lifting the head and chest. Exhale, the elbows lift. They pull away from one another in space. We inhale, stretching the arms overhead, reaching the feet. Oppositionally excellent. Redone the arms ribbon the arms.

Pull the elbows underneath the hands, I mean lower than the hands there and then come down and just slide the arms out in front of you. Staying low, pulling the chest through the arms. What about pulling the arms apart a little here? I don't know. It's my new thing. It's working for me. Uh, take the left arm in the right leg off the ground. Just going to do their swim prep today because I feel and reach that there's a lot of benefit to working small, a lot of places to explore. So as the one hands lifting off the mat, can we draw the other arm a little bit deeper into our shoulder joint and as the one legs lifting and reaching, can we anchor with the leg that's still on the mat? Can we seal that?

There's barely any movement in our spine as the legs just change and the arms just change. And let's go one more time and then let's go the legs down and let the arms lift off the ground and bring them to the sides. And here we are flying through space like an airplane again. Bring the arms back to the body, pinky fingers in, thumbs out and inhale out. And exhale. We just press the arms back, reaching the head forward and inhale out. And one more time focusing on our upper back extensors and reaching out and bring the arms back and rest. I like to just wiggle my pelvis a little and let my spine and do a little and then let's help ourselves up instead all the way back again and start to rule yourself up and just find a comfortable place to sit. So everyone happy on their knees.

Let's stay on our knees. Stay on our knees. You can face however, let's just do this. Let the arms, Oh let's play this game. This is fun. Push your arm soon to the ground and now we push the arms apart like the same thing we've been doing and we're going to hold and I want you to generate force there. Really candies, I'm generating force and candy Xeon. All right, push harder. Cammie push like you're trying to push too heavy a, you're arching, a little dead cut. Bring the ribs forward. There you go. Push, push and push down and push down a lot. And as you're pushing out and pushing down, lift the body and feel the body like a rocket ship.

It's going to take off and now just start pushing with your arms and let them flow. It's not fun. Take one hit. It's the doorway game. I used to play with that with my brothers for hours. And just take the head over to one side and just let that arm reach down the side of the body right down into the hip. Just gently stretching the neck. Feel free to play with this stretch a little looking up or looking down.

Oh and then let the head go and let the arms kind of flow back on. My arms are tingly. Anyone else? No. Okay. And just down and letting the hand come away from the head and bringing both arms up overhead. And I know we can get a little taller here. Lets just feel creating space in our bones, in between our bones. And now push the arms down.

But think that you're pushing the spine taller, taller, taller, maybe even looking a little bit where you want to be and not just let the arms float back up and let's push herself one inch more, one inch taller. So the spine goes longer as the arms press down. And one more time lifting and this time just bend the spine over. [inaudible] sitting back towards the heels, getting deep flection the spine, maybe even a little bit of a stretch. And then we just roll that. We're going to do that one last time, Susie and my friends all the way, carving out through the abdominals as we'd been in the spine into the ground and rolling.

Thank you very much.

Comments

Thank You so much for this class Meredith, it was fun and I loved the side plank work ~ oh my shoulders :) actually my back and shoulders feel awesome now !
2 people like this.
I always love the surprises that I find inside each workout. Loved the rolling like a ball into jack knife-very clever. Great total body workout. I don't know if your "students" ever know how much they help, but let Deb know that I often watch her positioning (especially since I know she is a consistant person in your classes)... if I can't see exactly what the instructors are doing, it really helps... tell her thanks for me! :)
I love the way you teach, Meredith. Thank you for another great class!!
I loved this! Thank you!
Thank you for your comments ladies. I truly appreciate them. Valerie I will share your comment with Deb. I'm sure she will be thrilled that she is helping.
Lovely...thank you..esp the SSLS transitions, coccyx curls with legs ext, and leg pull front variations. Thanks again!
Great class, love your cues Meredith, they make so much sense!
Do not know why, but with careful execution this class was challenging for me. I really appreciated your thorough cueing and sequencing. Another valuable pilates experience, Mary.
Wonderful class, great cuing, beautiful flow.... just amazing. Thank you Meridith!
Thank you so much everyone!!! Michelle its good to see you here...and, welcome home.
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