Class #591

Mat Fundamentals

45 min - Class
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We are proud to introduce to you the winner of The Next Pilates Anytime Instructor competition Zayna Gold. As a 20-year veteran of Pilates, Zayna brings her expertise and clear teaching style to you in this class which artfully demonstrates the fundamental components of the Pilates Mat exercises. See for yourself why Zayna garnered the most votes in a competition full of talented instructors. Welcome to Pilates Anytime Zayna!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Jan 01, 2012
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Hi, I'm Zayna gold. I always tell my clients 30 Pilati sessions. Every three months will give you results. This workout today is very, very basic and choreography. Anyone can follow it even if you've never done plots before, but it is killer intensity. Once you know what you're doing. Don't be impatient if you don't even feel anything or if you get confused the first few times. That's really common when people start [inaudible]. Every time you do the workout, you're going to get a little bit more out of it and soon you'll just be shaking during each exercise cause you'll have the proper form. Let's get started.

I'm gonna have you rock your pelvis so that your lower back presses into the mat and then you're going to arch. So rocking and rolling your pelvis and just letting your back get very relaxed. Very comfortable. Good. Let's make that rocking and rolling a little bit smaller. Little by little, until we [inaudible] find a place where your back is just nice and comfy, nice and heavy on the mat. Are we there? Good. Let's place our hands around our ribs and we're going to get very connected.

Breathe in through your nose. Give me a great pick. Exhale. Again, breathing in and on that exhale. Feel how your ribs release into your corset. Inhale again one last time, and exhale. Very nice. Now keep your hands there. You'll feel that sense. Of course, sitting. Breathe in through your nose one more time. And on the exhale, pull your lowest abs under your ribs again.

Breathe in on that. Exhale. Pull the lowest abs under the ribs. Can you feel that connection one more time? Really go deep as though the abs are right inside the spine. This time. Very nice. Place your hands right behind your head.

Do you feel that little ridge in the back of your skull? You're going to give a little traction to that for a nice lengthen neck and curve up your head and shoulders right from your ribs. Now stay right there for a moment. Open your jaw, soften your cheeks and make your head heavy. So right from where I'm touching, curve up and one inch down and curve up and one inch down. Excellent. And as you curve up, there you go.

[inaudible] Mandy just adjusted her head so it's real heavy in her hands and I'm sure she's not enjoying it quite as much. No. Four more. Good, nice, heavy head. Three more. Beautiful, big exhale. And one last time. Exhale and up. Stay right there for me. Of course you can take a break if you need. Now these lowest Dab, this is where a lot of us have a problem. Engaging. Breathe in. Exhale. Three percussive breath. Exhale, two, three. Excellent. Breathe in. Big exhale. One, two, three. Nice job.

Do that three more times. Exhale. And Isabella, do you feel that nice in your lower, lower abs? Excellent. Last time. Good curve hop. One more inch. If you can feel that shaky place and roll down, bring the knees to the chest. Very nice job. Bring your knees to your chest. So we'll start our beginner Matt. Flow, just rock side to side to relax your back. And that percussive. Exhale, two, three will become the hundreds are classic [inaudible].

Start to any mat workout. So let's have our knees to our chest. Everybody just let your knees fall. Doesn't matter how close they are to your chest. Just be comfortable. Place your hands again behind your head. Curve up as we did in our warmup. Stop right there.

Inhale on the exhale. Exhale, two, three. Pull those abs right away from your thighs. Do that for me three more times. Exhale. One, two, three, two more. One, two, three. One more time. Pull away from those thighs. Now stay right there. Reach your left arm long past your hips.

Reach a little further as though you're trying to curve your chest up. That's it. Breathe in five counts. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, percussive. Two, three, four, five. Inhale, curving up feeling of right there. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five. We'll do two more with this arm. Inhale, reach my arm right over here. Beautiful. Last time. Inhaling and exhale. One, two, three, four, five, both hands behind your head. Curve up just a little bit, just a little bit. Pull, pull, pull, pull up through your pelvic floor and now the other hand, reaching lawn. Breathe in and exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale for five counts through your nose and exhale. Beautiful. We'll do two more of these.

Give me a great big pull. You are doing beautifully beautiful connection in these ab muscles here and now if your neck is okay with it, reach both arms long and give me a great big pump. Like you're pulsing into the water. Make your arms so vigorous that your upper body feels like it can't hold still, but with those deep abs, you're gonna hold your torso still and I'm going to do it with you. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. One more. Curl up, one half of an inch and exhale knees to the chest. Take a great big breath. Inhaling and exhaling.

Place your hands behind your thighs. Roll up with momentum to a seated position all the way up. Good. Now stay right here for a roll up and roll down. Bring your legs together. Reach your arms long. Just like Mandy. Hug your shoulder blades together so you get beautiful wide. Collarbones.

Now begin to roll back and Mandy, stop rolling back. When you feel that you're getting just a little bit shaky, show us where that point is. Stop right there. Then let's try to pull these lower abdominals up. Tip the pubic bone towards your chin and roll back up. Beautiful and arms lift to the sky.

Roll back again to that same place. The place where you're not as comfortable. The place where maybe you don't know if you can stay. Stay right there. Then with these lower abs, tip the pubic bone up as you roll up. How are we doing? Good rollback down.

Come about halfway down and this time just stay there. Stay right there. This is the part of your body called the sacrum. Underneath where I'm touching on Mandy, I'm going to have you exhale. Two, three. Exhale two, three and again. Exhale, two, three. How is your back? Isabella and Wendy. Okay. Your stomach's not. I know, but your back hopefully is okay. Right? Could one more time? Are we shaky? Yeah. Tip the pubic on as you roll back up.

You guys are doing on believable. This is wonderful. Let's go back to that same place again, guys. That same place again. We're only going to do two more repetitions. Good. Let your say crumb, get very heavy on the floor. Stop there re then exhale, one, two, three, two more reps of that and please feel free to bring one or both hands behind the head if your neck hurts. One, two, three.

Can you guys stay there for five seconds? Arms Up. Exhale as though you're pressing against a heavy lever. Inhale. Exhale. Beautiful connection here. Nice job. One more time. Inhale, give me a great big shaky breath and roll down. Knees to the chest. How are we doing but not too good, right? We don't want to be too happy.

We'll be happy when our jeans fit better. Okay, let's do a roll up again, I'm going to show you how to roll up easily and then as we progressed you can progress through the layers. If you choose to, Mandy, bring your hands behind your thighs again, roll up all the way with momentum. Then on the way down, reach your arms nice and long. Travel through the shaky place that we just became familiar with, and then all the way down, arms up to the sky, roll up. You can reach hold of your back thigh if you need to and otherwise very beautiful and lifting up and roll down eight more times. Now while they're doing this, let me explain something. If you cannot roll up, it probably has nothing to do with your fitness level.

So many people have scoliosis, spines that are a little rotated. Maybe you have a really tiny waistline. All of those factors as well as a few more can mean that you cannot roll up so it's not fitness. And if you're having a hard time with it, just bring your knees to your chest and roll up with momentum. Good for this last one. As you roll up, tip the pubic bone. Exhale, a good, strong exhale. We'll do wonders. Beautiful. Very nice. For single leg circle, it's rolled down. Place your hands beside you on the map. Very nice.

We'll start with both knees bent for single leg circle and bring your left knee in toward the chest. We'll begin with niesters. Just put your hand right here. Good. Just like what Mandy has. And then just stir your leg around across your midline, around and up. And when Dan, Isabella, this is just to feel good. Does that feel nice? And if you push your knee down just a little, do you feel how that makes you very comfortable in the hip?

And let's go the other way. So some of you will want to stay with our knee stor others may progress to the next level. Mandy, if you'd like, straighten up this leg for me, flex that foot and bring up this leg up to the sky. You can bend it or straighten it. Also, you can turn it out or just have it parallel. It's your choice. I'm going to dig my fingers right into your low abs here. Cross your leg over the midline, down and around. Exhale as you come up.

Good. And that same intensity as you felt during the three breaths and exhale and every time Mandy circling, I see her low abs hollowing. Okay, that means she's really working. One more and we'll go the other direction. Start at the top and outside, across and up. So when we first start this, you may just feel this as a little stretch and when you get advanced, you will feel what Mandy is feeling.

This incredible core connection right here where I'm touching. One more time. Good. And now hold onto the back of your legs. Roll up and just climb up your leg like you're climbing up a tree right up to the ankle. Good. And just kind of hang off your back. This is your little reward for what you just did.

Very nice guys. Beautiful. Let's roll right back down. We'll do niesters on the other leg. So rolling down. Let's bend both knees to start and place your hand on the top of this knee. So Mandy, let's just do a little knee stir across your mid line. I'm going to add a little something here.

Can you feel your shoulder blades very heavy and equally weighted as you're stirring the knee? Keep the shoulderblades equally weighted. And can you feel the challenge there? Let's circle the other direction. So your shoulder blades are equally weighted even as your knee circles. Beautiful control. Let's go into our next position. If you choose to straighten your bottom leg, bring the top like up and remember we can parallel or turn out so our arms are down. Can you feel your shoulder blades equally weighted?

That's where I want you to stay. Now Cross your midline around and up and the whole time the shoulder blade state. Absolutely even. And can you feel how that adds a little something? Good. We'll do two more and then change directions. So this is an example of how every single time you do this workout, you will be able to add another little cue, another little cue that helps you intensify two more of these and exhale up. One more. Exhale up. Beautiful. Let's climb the tree up.

Go with whatever range you want. Very nice, good. And now roll back down all the way down. Bring your knees to your chest and you'll roll up to a seated position per rolling. Michael Ball. If you have neck, back issues, please don't do the roll and you can do one of the exercises we've done before for rolling like a ball. Place your hands right on your shins. Push your feet very, very strong into the mat.

Keep your feet very heavy as though I'm pushing down on your knees. And Mandy, I'd like for you to roll back maybe two inches right there. Okay. From here, pull your abdominals away from your pubic bone away from your thighs. Are you feeling the app connection? Good. Now keep that nice c curve, but try to make your spine and an inch or two longer you feeling a little more intensity. Good. So breathe in on the exhale with your abs. Lift your feet up, maybe an inch, just an inch. Good. Are we still in your abs?

Elbows are out to the side. We're going to push our hands, earth, shins, and push your shins into your hands. Does that make sense? Okay, right here. Stay in that form just like a statue. Breathe in and just give me a great big exhale. Now Roll back to your shoulder blades. Exhale, roll up, hover, hover, hover, roll back. Exhale, tip the pubic bone. As you roll up, let's do eight more and remember in our half roll down, we tip the pubic bone. The minute your shoulder blades hit the mat, start tipping the pubic bone up and sucking your stomach in. That's the layman's term, but it really works.

Tipping that pubic bone up. Very nice. The harder this feels too on the way up, the more you're engaging your lower abs. We'll do for more relaxing your neck. There you go. Three more and you should feel that it gets harder and harder as though you barely can roll up two more. Barely rolling up because you're tipping so much. Beautiful job. One more time. Very nice.

Plant your feet on the mat. Reach your arms out nice and long. Go through that shaky place on the way down. But guys, we're going to start the app series. I only want the lower part of the shoulder blades on the mat. Okay, right. Perfect. Now see how Mandy just put her hands here on the back of the thighs. Could you guys do that and see Mandy, if you can come up maybe a half an inch and down, a half an inch and down, you're using the strength of your arms on the back of your legs to achieve a little bit more range of motion.

And can you feel how that gets you into a place that's not very comfortable? Two more good. One more. Hold it right there. Bring both hands to the back of your neck right here where that little bony ridges bring one knee and then the other interior your chest. Can you feel your sacrum heavy? Send your left leg away from you. Maybe an inch. And then change legs and change.

And I have my hand right here and Mandy's gonna pull away from my hand every single time her legs move. Good. Can you pull it just a touch more. So she's doing an incredible job, but part of the role of the pilates instructor, it's like you have a little Nag right here on your shoulder. More, more perfect. And now full range if you'd like. And Mandy, press your head into your hands a little bit harder. Beautiful. And when Mandy did that, I just felt all of these muscles come to life.

These are the skinny Jean Muscles. Okay. And we really want to work these good. Using your breath to pull in. Beautiful. That was a great connection. Very, very nice. Two more. And one more. Can I hold it right there? Failure. Sacred is still heavy. Bring both knees in and hold onto your shins with your hands right here.

Now guys at home, you can rest anytime you want. So stay right there for me. Push your legs into your hands and push your hands into your legs. There you go. See if you can achieve maybe a half an inch. Yes, right there. Do you feel how that's more abs now. So my hand is going to stay right here. Reach your arms and legs up to the sky all the way up. And now hug again.

Reach and hug again. Reach, pull away and hug again. Two more. And Hug. Now I'm going to stand out of the way cause if Manny wants, she can start the circle with the hug. Reach, circle and hug. Big, big exhale. Lift the chest toward the thighs every time you reach. Beautiful job, Isabelle. Nice work. Wendy and Wendy is doing such a wonderful job. If you guys can see she's keeping her shoulder blades off the mat.

That takes so much strength. One more and hold it right here again at home. Please feel free to rest. Poor Mandy isn't given an opportunity. I just have her completely under my control. When you feel free to stretch, as long as you need to bring your right leg up to the sky.

Good. And hold on. Where ever you want to hold on so that it's comfortable for scissors. Bring this bottom leg up. So it's the shape of a scissors. So right up to my hand, right here. And can you feel how that made your sacrum nice and heavy? Yeah. Good.

So pull, pull that leg and switch legs. Whole pole switch. Pole pole switch. Now if you're a flexible enough, you can reach your arms all the way up to the ankle. Good. And the more you reach your arms, all the way up to your ankle, you can push your leg against your hands to achieve more of a range. Can you feel that? So every time you grab hold of the back of your leg, use the pressing of the leg into your hand to get a little bit higher.

Wendy, how is your cramp feeling? Yeah, definitely. And as a Vela, how are you feeling? Good. And that isn't that a great feeling just to feel that. Okay. Only two more. I haven't forgotten. I've been counting in the back of my head. I mean not really, but that's okay. Ring your knees and and rock side to side.

I think counting is very overrated. I just say until you think you can't do anymore and then do a couple more for good luck. Lower end lift. This is our fourth out of five. We're almost there. Hands behind your head. Bring your legs up toward the sky. Your knees can be as bent as you want. Now we're going to do this a little bit differently today.

Let's bring our knees a little bit far apart. Like a frog type of position. There you go. And let your legs just really sink. Isabel. A few can bring your heels towards a together if that's comfortable. Now keep the shape of your legs. You can have them really bent or just a little and lower your legs, maybe an inch or two right there.

Remember those three percussive breaths? Exhale, two, three. Hold it. Use these lowest dabs to lift the weight of your legs up. Lower percussive breath. Two, three and lift lower. And exhale two, three, lift. One more time with those three breaths. Beautiful. And now let's do a single count down.

Exhale, lift up. Exhale, lift up. You can switch the breathing as well. Two more. Exhale. Give me so much hollowing. There you go. Just like Mandy's doing. See how her abs are really coming in just so beautifully.

One more and rest. Very nice work. Ah, can you see I get happier the more they're working. Okay, we're onto the last of our um, ab series so you can go for it. Okay. Hands behind your head. Curl up your head and shoulders. Bring your left elbow to the right knee. Send your other leg away from you. Okay, good.

Now stay right here in this position. I'm going to have you reached the back elbow is far back, Mandy, as you can. Yes. And now try to lift the shoulders up and don't let me push you too far. Okay. Stretch the this elbow away from that foot. Now as you come to the other side, lift your chest up and go to the other side. There you go.

And lift and twist and lift and twist. Beautiful. And when the, again, you've got that incredible flection here, which is very nice, so I'm sure you're really suffering. Yeah. The nice thing about Peloton is you're just going to do five more on each side. The more advanced you get. For example, Wendy is lifting so high because she's been doing this awhile, so she's going to get a really intense workout at home. Maybe you've never done this before, you're not going to lift as high, so it won't be quite as intense. So your body has its way of protecting. How are we doing, Mandy? Do we have one more? No. No. Okay.

Well I'm going to go with her and rock side to side. Okay. Let's roll up with momentum to a seated position. Bring your legs, Matt, with apart and straighten them out. Now if you have 'em a little bit tighter hamstrings, just prop yourself up on a towel or some sort of box for this mine forward. We're going to have our arms at shoulder height.

I'm going to stand behind Mandy here. She's going to bring her back ribs right into my hand right there, and can you feel how that's a little bit more abdominals separate 10 that I have my hand here for you get two inches taller. Good. Now, right from those lowest dads, let's start to curve up and over, but stop. When you're in the down position, good. Look straight down into the mat. Stop there. Pull your lowest dabs up off the thighs.

Pull your mid abs off the thighs, your ribs off the thighs and roll up all the way to a nice tall spine. Very nice. Wiggle around a bit and sit right on your sitz bones. Feel that way. It's centered slightly in front of your sits bones, spine, stretch forward, keeping your weight in front of your sits bones. Rounding over good. Keep the weight in front of your sits bones. Stop there, look straight down into the mat.

Keep the weight in front of your sits bones as you roll up low abs. Roll up the middle ads, roll up the ribs and sit. Nice and tall. Beautiful. Let's do that four more times. Sit Up nice and tall. Exhale up and over.

And Isabelle is going to keep those back ribs right into my hand. Beautiful work. And then roll up, sitting really tall. Get a little taller, a little taller, every single inch in my like. Excellent. Breathe in. Exhale up and over, pulling those back ribs right into my leg. Nice job. And then rolling up.

Get every single inch of your back into my leg. Beautiful. And let's just do two more of these. Breathe in, sit up. Nice and tall, long neck. Exhale up and over. Beautiful, windy, very, very nice and articulate up one vertebra. Beautiful. Really creating that nice space in your spine.

Good job. So now for the spine, stretch forward. One last time, up and over, and then rolling up. Lifting from those low abs. Excellent job. Let's do the side stretch. Bring your arms by your side and let's just have a little side stretch here. Very, very nice and come up straight.

And then to the other side. Lengthening. Very nice. Come up to the center and stretch to the other side. Beautiful Wendy. Nice. Beautiful. Long stretch. Very good. Lift up into my hand. Lift, lift, lift. Good. And now the other side. Great job. Hmm.

Very nice. Let's not bring our legs a little wider apart per saw. We'll start with the hands on our shoulders. Okay, so breathe in and sit really tall. Rotate to your right side as you stretch your arms away from each other. Very good. Reach your pinkie finger to your pinky toe. Now just stay there. The opposite hip.

The left hip is going to get nice and heavy. Reach your fingers apart and then roll up to the center. Hands on your shoulders again. Good exhale, rotate the other way. Reach your fingers away from each other. Nice. And this is just such a nice stretch. And then come to the center. Hands on your shoulders.

Beautiful. Exhale. Pinky to Pinky as you twist and now you're going to exhale and saw two, three. Nice work. Roll up to the center and other side. Last time pulling this opposite hip back as you reach. Pinky to Pinky. There's a dolphin. I wish you guys could see it. There's a beautiful dolphin in the water.

Isn't that nice? And come on a can. Let's do a little stretch. A cobbler stretch. So soles of the feet together and round over. Oh my goodness. There are two dolphins right near the shore. It's just so beautiful. Let's round over.

When did you want to take a peak real quick? It's just stunning. I think they just, they just dived. But what an ideal look. Beautiful. Beautiful. Oh, the dolphin is coming up and down just so gracefully. That nice. Doesn't that rev you up to do the rest of the workout?

So that was my last thing. Nice. Now we're turning the corner. Okay, now the shark. Yeah, that's enough of the dolphins. We're onto the sharks. Let's lie down on your stomach. That's called prone. And we'll do a series called swan to start with. We'll place the hands underneath the forehead. Okay. I call this baby swan and it's very good for sculpting this upper back.

So the first thing I want you to do guys is pull your abs in off the Mat and Tuck your tailbone just a little bit so you feel a slight glute connection. Now at Manny, I'm going to keep my hands right here to remind you to pull your abs. Breathe in on the exhale, keep your abs up and lift your hands, your head, your chest up as a whole piece. So Isabella, just like this. Exactly. Perfect. So do you feel that right here? I'm going to have you lift up from these muscles, lifted n Chan lower lift an inch and lower.

And really give me these muscles, Mandy, right here. There you go. Yes, right here. Eight more. These are muscles that particularly for women, we are not used to working them. So when you first start doing the baby swan, it's very difficult to activate this. So I'm going to just put my hands right here so you can see shoulders away from your ears. Four more. That's it Wendy.

And if you think about widening your shoulders. Yes, exactly. One more time. Lift and lower. Let's sit back into a child's pose. If you have calves that cramp or feet like so many people do, just tuck your toes under. Sometimes lying on the floor with your foot pointed can exacerbate that cramping. So be careful and be good to yourself.

Now for the regular Swan, let's lie down. This time the hands will be slightly in front of your shoulders on the Mat. There you go. We're going to lengthen your, say chrome away. Hug your bottom as you tucked slightly so you stay in a neutral. Lift up into a swan position. Lift up, pushing your hands into the mat. Very nice.

And then as you lower yourself, reach your heart center forward. Lower there. Beautiful. Inhale, reach your heart center forward. As you lift up, pushing your arms into the floor, your hands into the floor, and then lengthen down. Feel that nice elongation one last time. Inhale up. Any long get your spine on the way down, hands behind 'em hands underneath your forehead. We're going to do um, a little, uh, cellulite reducing thighs slimming variation on an exercise called single leg stretch. You can flex your feet or point them on the floor, whichever is most comfortable. Lift up your left leg, maybe an inch off the floor. Good. Tighten up your bottom.

We're going to lift, lift and lower. But with a straight leg, Wendy, it's just a little variation that I really like. Lift, lift and lower lift, lift and lower alternating legs and lift. Lift and lower. Good. And you're going to feel this right in the buttocks. What I'd like to you to try to do is try to feel even the high part of the buttocks as you lifting. Beautiful job and continue to pull your abdominals off of the Mat. Very nice. Isabella? Yes. Beautiful.

So even though we're working some back extension, we're working these very powerful muscles here. You're also always using your core. Let's do two more of these on each leg. Lift, lift and lower. Beautiful. Lift, lift and lower. And we'll do one more on each leg. Very good. Let's come up into an all fours for some cat stretching all fours.

Round your spine, getting a nice stretch in your back. And now arch your back. Good. Round your back. And as you arch glide the shoulder blades into your spine. Beautiful. One last time. Nice.

Nice flexibility and arch. And sit back into a child's pose. We'll go into a child's pose just for about two or three breaths just to relax. So we got the back of your legs warmed up and now it's time for our side leg series. So let's lie on our side. Take your hand and measure yourself along the back of the Mat. So Mandy, I'll have you move back. Just a touch for the position of your head.

Isabella's in a propped position. It's about, would you mind going back up? Just so people can see, Isabel is in this prop position. You can also go down where your hand is supporting your head or you can go straight like Mandy is. It's really all what's comfortable to you. If you feel this bone here digging into the floor, simply bend your bottom leg all the way in front.

And I would say 50% of the people feel that way. So just bend your bottom leg. It takes, does that take care of it for you? Yeah. Does that feel good? Okay, so sidelight series, we're going to start just with lower end lifts. Reach that top leg long, long, long and the bottom here. See how I have my hand right here. My fingers are showing through. I want you to imagine that I could shine a flashlight underneath your waist using the side of your leg and hip muscles. Lift and lower.

Good lifting and lowering. That's it. And Isabella, you can stay up like that or if you'd like to go down the way Wendy is, if you look at Wendy, Isabella, if you want to go down like that, you can, whichever you prefer. Really pulling those absent. And Mandy, show us where you feel that. Put your hand on the muscles where you yes, exactly. It's the side of her legs. So stay right there. Make that like even longer. And Hug and activate the muscles that you want to work. Let's circle five times to the front.

Very nice. Are you working in the butt as well? And now five times to the back. We want to get the butt working all the way to the high glutes. There's a tendency for us to forget that that's a muscle, so we wanna think of it as a muscle and activate it. Beautiful. Stop right there. Now reach your leg in front of you.

You can bend it as much as you want. Stop right there. You can bend it if you want or straighten and pull your abs away from your toes. Beautiful. Now reach the leg behind you, tucking your tail, kick it to the front kick, kick, reach to the back, kick, kick, reach to the back. Nice kick, kick reach to the back. You can bend your knee, you can keep it straight, but what I want is for you to feel those buttock muscles working very powerfully. We have two more of these kick, kick and reach. One more time. Kick, kick and reach. Nice job. Let's lie on our back and we're going to do a little stretch for that area.

Bring the working leg right here so that the foot is over your knee. If this feels safe for you, then bring the thigh up towards your chest. This stretch is a muscle called the Piriformis. This is gets very tight when we're doing side legs. One thing I like to do in this is if you'd like, you can push this knee away slightly.

You have to be careful as far as flexibility, but I love getting that little extra stretch. Good. Let's swing around. See your head is over here. Very good so you can bend the bottom leg if you feel that bone. Let's lengthen our leg as far as we can away and then don't start until you lift the bottom waistline off of the mat. Lift and lower again, using these muscles that we all want to tone and Isabella, can you lift this up off? Yes. Perfect. Lift and lower leg. Good. There you go. And every time you lift your leg, try to stay off of my hand here. Can you feel that a little bit more now?

Maybe a lot more. Yes, exactly. So as I said before, every time you do this series, you'll be able to work your body that much more. Beautiful. Very nice. Good Wendy. That's perfect. And then right where my hand? Yes. Did you feel that? So right where my hand is on Wendy.

She's already doing a beautiful job and she just got the tiniest bit more activation right here. And can you feel the difference? Yeah. Hold it right there. Now circle forward five times. Yes. And every time you go back, it's right here. If you're anything like me right there and right here. Right? Very nice work.

Let's go the other way. Five times circling the other way. Did you change directions Mandy? You have to watch. Cause when you're in pain, your brain stops working. So okay, good. Now stop right here. Reach your hip that much further away. Kick to the friend and reach long and low to the back.

Kick. Kick to the front and reach. Kick, kick and reach. Good. And Isabelle is bending her knee to the front. That's a wonderful variation to do. You can play with this a little bit. The more you vary the leg position, the more you're going to work. Every single area of the thighs and buttocks. One more. Good. And let's roll over onto our backs and we'll work the other piriformis.

So always start with the opposite leg down just to make sure you're safe and comfortable. And then you can bring your thigh up if you'd like. I know you know this side like series is one that after you finish it still hurt, but it does hurt so good. I mean, if you know that the place that's hurting is right where you want your pants to be a little looser, it gives us motivation. You know, it, it just never gets old though. That side leg series, it never, ever gets easier. Yeah. Okay. We're going to do the seal. So the hard part of our workout is over. Um, let's roll up. You're going to sit, so your heels are together in your toes are apart. Let's start our arms just in a prayer position. Sitting up really tall, feeling our center. Dive your hands underneath your ankles.

Good. And pick your legs up. So for this one, for today, we're to have our feet level with the knees. Yes, right there. Exactly. Now push your legs into your hands and push your hands into your legs. Do you feel the stability that gives you inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up. Good. Keep doing that.

And then we'll add a little clap. Good. And one more time without the clap. Rolling back. Beautiful work guys. And this time we'll add a little kick, kick, kick, and Kik. If you're in the privacy of your own living room or bedroom, you can make seal noises at home. I would do that myself right now, but since this is going to be preserved, I, I think I'll, I'll save that when there's not a video camera. And one more time when they have, are you a little seal noise or wait until the privacy of your living room?

Yes. Huh. Okay. Beautiful work. Let's bring our feet down. Let's roll down one last time. Swing your legs around to the back of you. And we'll go into our last exercise today, which has pushups. So we're going to go into all fours and Wendy and um, Isabel, what do you have your head spacing each other. Very good.

Come into your pushup position either on your elbows. Actually, you know what? Let's all do, do the elbows. So come down onto your forearms like a plank and bring both like straight. Okay. So let's just stay right here. We're going to begin with hundreds breathing. Breathe in through your nose and then give me five progressive exhales. Very nice. Keep doing that.

Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Beautiful Work, Isabel. That's excellent. Just keep pulling him right where my fingertips are. There you go. Good. Nice work, Wendy. That's beautiful. Little tiny hug there. That's such good form. Very, very nice. Good.

Now stay there. We're almost done. I promise. Rock forward an inch. Rock back and inch. Inhale, rock forward. Exhale, rock back. Two more. Exhale. One more exhale and come down. Let's go back into a child's pose. But this time with wide knees.

So let's bring our knees really wide apart at this time. We're done with our workout. Remember that the first five to 10 times you do this, you feel confused. You may not feel it in the muscles that I mentioned and that's okay. Just give it time, have fun with it. You can rest whenever you need to and breathe through every single exercise.

Send that signal from your mind to your body for a really great mind body workout. Thanks for working out with me today and I'll see you soon.

Comments

I loved getting back to basics after the Holidays. This felt like a useful relaunch workout to reinforce fundamentals and start the new year off with a solid feeling. Thank you Zayna!
Thank you Katherine! I just did my own first workout of 2012. My clients and I are doing a challenge for January. 30 workouts for the month. Do you want to join us for some group motivation?!
Welcome Zayna to PA! So nive to have another wonderful intructor here. Really enjoyed this class. I agree with Katherine that its so nice not to mention important for us all to get back to the basics. No matter how advanced along we are or not! Great cues..I will incorporate them into my classes. Happy Holidays!
Thank you Jamie! I do this basic workout once a week-you are so right that going basic this way helps us to really enjoy the essence of each Pilates exercise. So happy to be a part of the PA family after being a fan for so long!
Zanya, great workout!! Nothing like the basics. Love the dolphins.
Hi Ann, I am sitting here in Boston with grey skies and windy cold-it is nice to know that each time we do my Mat workout on PA we will be reminded of the dolphins. It was a magical moment! Thank you for enjoying my workout!
Congratulations Zayna, I liked your class, sometimes clients do excercises knowing them but also in unconscious way and when return them back to basics, they find again the conection between mind and their bodies. (do know if I make me understand, my English is basic two jeje). When I do this in class my client ask ¿are we in the checking day? jejej. Great work Zayna!!!! carry on!
Pele
Wow! I immediately assumed that the class would be really sloooow and tedious but boy was I wrong. It kept moving nicely and I felt I got a good and balanced workout that wasn't overly wordy. I can't wait till you come up with more advanced workouts. :)
Hi Laura, I know what you mean about giving our clients the "check in days!" and it is interesting that if you go to the basics once a week this helps us to move through intermediate and advanced repertoire with beautiful form and that same mind body connection. Let me know what you think of my other workout-it is a standing workout that burns calories!
Hi Pele, that is exactly what i was hoping you would feel! i love doing a "slow paced" workout that gets deep in your muscles and makes you workout every single muscle. Try my other video on PA-the standing workout is a good cardio burn. Let me know how you like it. And I promise next time I will do Intermediate/Advanced. Just keep practicing the basics too!
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