Class #712

Mat for Posture

45 min - Class
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This is a class about posture. Monica gives a lot of tips and cues to help you through the exercises that are sure to achieve better posture by the end of class. Work on your timing of the movements with your breath and walk tall the rest of the day
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights

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Okay. So I would love to go over posture more keeping certain things. Exactly. We um, can lose 10 pounds, feel 10 pounds lighter as well as I know I could do that. You're, you're such a good sport on we do, we do a little bend in the knee, kind of brace in there. Um, a lot of times when we stand, put our lower back into it or we stand really wide and put our lower back into it. And most commonly we stand on one leg, but we don't realize that when you stand on one leg, you can't engage your stomach. It's almost impossible. So your stomach like bla hanging out and it has a lot to do with the pelvis where the placement of that. Um, and then the shoulders, it's like your ball. Your body's like a pinball machine. So the pinball has to go back and forth.

If one thing's pushing forward and one thing has a sink back and then the other thing goes forward and it happens not just when we're standing, but also when we're sitting like on the car for the computer. None of us sit up. Nice and tall while we're at the computer, we usually get a little closer to it and then our net goes a little bit and then our back at the end of the day is hurting. We're trying to figure out why. So we're just going to do a simple map, but we'll do a lot of posture work and I want you to really think about it while we're doing our mat work. So let's come forward to the front edge and hitting a plotty stance, which is great. And so just start off with our frame. So we have a straight line from one shoulder to the other and a straight line from one hip bone to the other hip bone right there.

And those should be straight across, which sounds easy enough. But if you're standing on one leg then this one's going to be higher. So that's where you're standing with them. And if you stand, if it's Kinda ridiculous to stand in a plotty stance all day long, at least stand between your hips. So if you're going to stand with your feet apart, don't let them be wider than your frame. Cause then your lower back has to push forward on. That's very hard.

So at least stand with your legs here so that you can hold your stomach. And if you don't want to seem like you're, you know, a Greek statue, so straight line from one shoulder to the other and one from the one hip. Again, when you're holding something on, you're walking down the street. A lot of times we just think our bag is so heavy that we have a big lift on our shoulder and that really throws off that one. And then you can have some real bad problems with your upper back or neck.

So keeping those straight across. And then we want them also directly over our hips. So if we're standing with our legs too wide and our lower backs pushing forward, then that line is in front of here. And that's not good, right? If we did the one that you originally did, which was the little Ben in here, then we take our shoulders forward and we, and we actually stand like this a lot when we talk to people. It's a bummer. So one of the biggest things I see also is the shoulders.

We don't use our upper back muscles enough in their neck muscles. So we don't open the line of our shoulders and slide our shoulder blades down. So what happens is is we kind of get really tight in the chest and that really makes us look very heavy. It also pooches out our stomach. So we want to really keep our shoulder. Everyone, you know, your mom or grandma always told you to pull your shoulders back and that is a really great line. The problem with that is a lot of people do it by dislocating the rib cage, so we'll work a lot on that today and of making sure that that is still in while you're working open being them. Finally, while we're standing the pelvis, these two hipbones, which everyone can feel that right here, uh, need to be like headlights looking directly forward. Okay.

Lot of times there's talk of neutral spine and all of that, right? Well, if you're neutral spine or in good alignment, your hip bone should be pointing directly forward. They don't want to be looking down at the ground. Whenever your hipbones are shining down, then your belly is going to distend again and your lower back skin to engage too much. So you want those hipbones to point directly forward and hopefully you do that, not just by changing the alignment of your bones, but actually thinking, I'm going to pull my stomach in and up what we do in piles and that will make your pelvis point forward way than Candace. I'm doing it and it looks good. Sounds good.

So let's do a little bit of shoulder rules while we're standing. So I want you to just bring your shoulders up by your ears and open that chest and down and then close that chest and then up and open and down to really just getting some nice movement there. And one more good. And then let's go the other way. We're going to open and up and forward. Good. And open and up and forward. And one more time. Good. And going one more the other way so that we end with them really nice and open.

So us bringing them down. Good. Go ahead and take your mat line down however you feel comfortable. And we're just going to start with the knees bent and the feet flat lined down completely on your mat. And I want you to place your hands, make little L's and play some right below your bra strap or right below your chest and have all your fingers there. Good. Just so that we are, can really feel the rib cage and inhale and let them flip the ribs float and exhale, they're going to go down, down, down. Nice job in with the air. And exhale, really allowing the chest bone, the sternum to be able to sink down too. And with the air.

Good and exhale. You should feel your upper back really flat on the Mat. Inhale up maybe a little mouse, not a mouse, maybe a little bug girl inchworm. Exhale down. Could crawl into your upper back when you inhale and go ahead and inhale. Eventually I'd like you to be able to inhale and keep it down.

But for now exhale, it's okay that it rises up and most importantly, that sinks down. Inhale up when you exhale. So when we are working on those shoulders and opening your chest, I want you to feel secure that your back is in alignment right there when we work at. And exhale. Great job. Good. All right. And rest your arms down by your side. Does that make sense? Does that feel pretty good? Good.

Now let's talk about those hipbones but your hands on those hipbones good. Right now, both of you look like they're looking directly up to the ceiling, which is great. That's where we want them to be. Okay? So when you're standing, a lot of times our lower back is very tight and our stomach not strong enough so they actually dumped towards the floor. So let's do the opposite right now, which is we're going to pretend it's like a bowl of soup and dump it into our chest. Good. And so now that pelvis is tilted towards you and now let's go the other way and dump it out. And it's like a little mouse can crawl under your lower back.

Right? Well you can feel how it's hard to engage your stomach right here. And this is how we tend to stand a lot. So we want to make sure that we don't go actually all the way to a pelvis that stump our bowl soup into you all the way into here when we stand. Cause then we'd walk around with like our bottom tucked underneath us and that would be silly too, but that is just somewhere in between. Okay. So that those, those uh, hipbones are pointing directly up to the ceiling and you have awareness of it right now. That makes sense. Great. Okay, so let's start off with the a hundred that way we're going to take a big breath.

Exhale, engage your stomach and bring either one knee at a time or both knees into your chest. Good. Oh, you know what? I'm gonna add one last awareness thing. Let's go ahead and put your feet down. Good arms by your side. And we're going to work on all the bones above your bra strap or above the bottom of your shoulder blades. Okay. All the way up to between your ears because your spine starts right between your ears and goes all the way down to your tailbone.

But the bones between our bra strap are for men, the bottom of their shoulder blades up to their ears. It's really hard to articulate and especially when we're sitting, when we're going to do spine stretch forward or the saw, we kind of roll those all up at the same time. So we want to work on articulating, okay, so let's place one hand over the other behind her head. GS. Good. All right. And I want you to inhale, just lift up your head and look at your belly, and exhale, pull it in more and lift up as high as you can and then roll down your back. Great. I'm gonna do this a few more times. Inhale, lift your head and look at your belly. Exhale, pull it in and come up as high as you can.

Now think about your spine and roll down one bone, the next bone, the next bone, the next one until you finally go between your ears. Good? Yes. And I want you to also add a little stretch in your neck by right now. Try to stay on the mat. Take a big breath and saying on the mat. Exhale. Pull your stomach in so you, it's really engaged and use that strength of your stomach to push your head into your hands right now.

Feel some stretch there in the back of your neck by pushing your head in your hands. So while you're rolling down your upper back, I want you to be pushing your head into your hands like that. Okay, so let's start with that lift again. By inhale, lift your head up, looking at your belly. Exhale, pull your stomach and more to lift up as high as you can. Good. And now start rolling down one bone at a time as you push your head into your hands, really articulating. Let's do it two more times. Inhale, lift up your head. Exhale, lift up higher using your abdominals, and now start rolling down, pushing your head into your hand, but really focusing on one bone at a time, especially through the back of the neck. One more time. Inhale, lift your head, look at your belly. Exhale, come up as high as you can, pulling your stomach in. Beautiful Christy, and now roll down pushing your head into your hands too. Don't forget that. There you go. And really rolling through a fantastic good. All right, rest your arms down by your side. Now great job. I want you to inhale, lift your head up and look at your belly. And exhale, come up a little higher. That's it.

And bring your knees into your chest. Give them a good hug. Good. Now straighten your arms by your side and reach her butt up off the mat for the hundred and reach your legs forward to a 45 degree. Great job. Start pumping. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three. Good. So we're going to use the outer thigh muscles more. That's it. Good, nice work. And exhale, really pulling in those ribs and your stomach in with the air. Two, three, four, five. And exhale, two, three, four, five. Inhale.

So right here it's easy to start getting kind of concave in your chest and you really want to keep those ribs in. But open the line of your collar bones of your shoulder, your clavicles, they're opening. Good. Almost there. Two more big breath. I also want you to think of bringing your underarms closer to your hip bones, but open that chest for me. Open. That's it. Last exhale, pressing your lower Baghdad and hugging your knees to your chest. Rest your head down. Great. Holding onto your legs. Go ahead and sit up.

Place your feet flat and hold underneath your knees. We're going to do the rollback. Good. Show me how you sit up really tall now. Super, super tall. Good. And now I want you to use your belly to pull back into a round back position and squeeze your bottom so that you rotate your pelvis as well. Head is deep into your chest and we're going to roll back just your waist. Bam.

Leaving your legs there. Use your belly to pull back, rolling back your waistband. Take a breath and exhale, come back up, scoop. And then great. And let's go down to the bra strap. Take a breath and exhale. Rolling back. Good. So you're going to go down one bone. The next, the next. There Ya go. Until you get to the bra strap, take a breath and exhale. Coming forward. Lifting up just one at a time as their bellies, hugging them to your back. Good.

Keep the hip there more and stretch the shoulders all the way forward. That's nice. All the way down into your head. Now taking, uh, starting off. Inhaling and moving with that inhale, head to your chest. Roll down your lower back and exhale the rest down. Keep going all the way down to your heads on the pillow. And Inhale, lift up your head. You've got to move with your breath. Inhale, lift up your head. That was an exhale. And now you want to exhale.

There you go. So I'm going to hold down your feet so you can do this exercise. Okay? But I'm going to take this away for now. Okay? And I want you both to straighten your legs straight. There we go. And imagine that you're going to be standing by the time you're down on the mat.

So you're working on your posture. Okay? So we're going to round your back. Reach for your ankles as if you are standing and touching your toes. And now start rolling back. As you inhale, you start the exercise with an inhale, roll back, gotta move and exhale all the way down. Imagine you're standing. What's your posture going to look like? Good. Just keep your hands down by your side. Inhale, lift up the head. Exhale, roll up. One [inaudible] a bone at a time. Scooping in. There you go.

You've got it round and round and round and read it. Your ankles. See, looking good. And again, rolling back. We got to make this a little quicker so that our muscles stay engaged the entire time. Good job, Candace. Good inhale, lifting up your head. Exhaling all the way forward. Good, good. Now this time on the way down, really focus on the Vertebra right above your bra strap, so and he'll start rolling back and exhale roll down, or you're putting down one a time, especially through the back of the neck.

Beautiful. That was a big difference in, it'll lift your head up. Exhale, rolling it all the way forward. Look at that. You guys were together now reaching, reaching for your ankles. We're going to add your arms since you did so good. We're going to roll back. Inhaling, still focusing. Exhale on those bones right above the bra strap. Good.

Reach your arms to the ceiling and continue the exhales. You reach back. Inhale, arms come up to the ceiling head as well, looking at your belly and exhale, pull it in and come up one bone at a time. You got it reaching forward and roll it back. Inhale and start exhaling and really focusing on articulating each bone and continue that exhale as you reach back in the [inaudible], the bra strap stays down. See how I can put my hand under your back here. You've got to reach your arms up to the ceiling and press me down.

That's it. Now reach back without letting this go. You did beautifully. That's what you want to do. Always stay connected in your center before you ex extend the range of motion. Okay? Yeah. Big Difference. Arms press down by your side for you. You're going to bend your knees.

Candace. I can't remember if you'd like to do the single leg circles with bent knees or straight legs and we're going to hug the right knee into your chest. Depends on the day, right? Okay. How'd the right knee into your chest? Good. All right. Now this is a leg circle exercise, but our upper body is really working. So you need to stabilize with the upper body.

I want you to bring that leg up to the ceiling. Place your hands behind your hamstring behind thigh or or the cath, but never the knee. Watch that knee. Good. And it should be a little turned out. So we have our frame on the mat. We're going to bring this leg just down the middle of your body a little more. Get Arms, press into the mat. You should feel the back of your arms.

You should feel the triceps, you should feel your collarbones open. We want to bring this shoulder actually just a little down more. There you go. And of course your center's working. When you use your belly to pull that leg up, crusts around and lift. It's nice and quick. Cross around the nut. Nothing in the middle circles, just the leg.

So crossed around and up scooping. That's what I wanted to see. Christie. Beautiful. One more and then go the other way. Good. Your shoulders look good. The net looks good. All that posture. Two more last time. Good job, Candice. Hug in that knee. We're gonna bend in that knee. Hug it and switching legs.

No, did it crack. Nice. So you're going to keep this bent or straight. Straighten that left leg up. Give yourself a stretch again first to know how high can that leg go up and that's how you want it. And now let's rethink about that upper body. That's it. Drop in the ribs, great back of the neck. All right, quickly around and up. Really lift as you cross. Try to get that opposite shoulder. We go in the other way.

First can is always crossing the frame of your body first and look, as soon as I don't even have to poke anymore, I just look at your belly and it just pulls in beautifully. Let's go the other way. Around and up. Good. And around and up. Two more. Good. Last time. Cross good hug in that knee. Nice. Let's do a little rolling like a ball. We're going to bring both legs down. Sit on up. Any way you can, and you're going to bring your bottoms forward just a little bit towards your feet. Good. Alright. Hold underneath your knees to start.

One hand underneath each knee. Everything's together though. Good. All right. Because instead of bracing and holding yourself, it should be relaxed and we're just trying to create some, create a nice supple spine here. Okay. Some adult tumbling. So don't right now. Uh, Christy, you kind of popped forward and try to support yourself with your back. Allow it to relax and allow this to tighten instead. And you're going to roll back. Inhale, roll back. Exhale.

Roll up and hold this tight. Beautiful. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Rola. Don't hold your hands there. Candice, I want you to hold one [inaudible] and I do want you to roll down until you get to your neck. So inhale, roll back. Let me see that head. Get on the mat. Yes. Exhale. Nice. Inhale, roll back. Heads on the mat. Exhale up. Good. And one more. Inhale, rolling back and exhale up.

Good. Rest your feet down. Nice. Okay. We're going to lift our bottoms up and back and we're going to go into single, the series of five. Okay, so it's all this abdominal work and we're going to concentrate on how are those shoulders, are they all going like this or can you keep a nice open collar bones as well as those under arms instead of the shoulders rising, they feel they should feel like they're always going towards the hips. Okay. That is what creates a much lighter look and feel to your body rather than going like this. Right? And come in like that. So even during your series of five, let's open, pull down those underarms. K, while our lower stomach does all the work to bring in those legs. So roll down your body, stop at the bottom of your shoulder blades. Look at your belly and bringing your right knee, right hand on your ankle, left hand on your knee. Hold your stomach like that. Switch those hands for me, Christie. There you go. And then the left legs gonna raise at a 45 degree angle.

Oh, let me see. Nice shoulders. Ah, beautiful. Now let's switch. Left, right. Pull in. Good. Everything's easy though. Shoulders, staying long away from our ears. Good. Scooping in. I love it. How you're holding up your elbows as you're switching, because then that works the back of the arms as well. So you want a full body workout when you do these exercises. Okay, we're bringing in the right hugging in the left. Don't move those shoulders.

Work them. Last set. We're going to go right into double. Bring both knees in, grabbed both ankles. Come up a little higher. Not with those knees. Just your upper body. Yes. Inhale, reach your arms up to the ceiling. Just your arms and exhale, come back in and everyone, let's rest for just a second. You could you, that was helpful. So I want you to put your hands behind your head again.

Good. And Inhale, lift your head up and look at your belly. Nah, that's a blowing out your air. Exhale. Let's try that again. Make sure you take in the air as you lift your head up and then exhale to come up higher. All right? Okay. Now reach your arms long by your side. Good. And I want you to focus you there to a canvas. You can put your feet on the mat.

There you go. You feel how every bone from above your bra strap is up, right? Nothing's down. And you're holding yourself from your upper stomach. Do not move any of your bones. Just your arms reach to the ceiling. Beautiful. And they circle back to your side. Just your arms. Don't lie down. Yes. And around one more time, just your arms and around. Now go ahead and rest down your head. So during double leg stretch to keep a not a working on that posture and the strength of your powerhouse, you don't move with those arms as a circle.

And that was gorgeous. Let's try that, putting that all together now. So we're going to inhale, lift your head up, exhale, come up a little higher and draw those knees in again and grab onto your ankles. So again, nothing changes in that upper body. Inhale, lift your arms up, legs forward. Exhale, circle everything together there. Inhale, reach. Exhale, opening those collar bones. Inhale, reach. Exhale, scoop it and eyes more on your belly.

Inhale, reach. Exhale, scoop it in two more. Inhale. Exhale, bring those, these all the way into your chest. One more. You can do it. Christie. Good. Exhale around and hold onto your knees, but rest your head down. That was really good. Let's sit up spine, stretch forward. So sometimes you sit on a block on this, don't you? No, it's so the only reason we modify this is for you is if it's in your hip flexors. Okay.

But sometimes the modification I prefer is just to bend your knees a little up towards the ceiling like that and see if you can then use your stomach to sit up tall. And I'm going to grab a really big pole to help you find your alignment here. Hmm. So when you're leaning against this pole, you can feel that it is straight and it is straight up to the ceiling. And what, where is your posture? You see that? Go ahead and imagine it's there. I'll get you in there in a second candidate and reach your arms at shoulder height. Take a big breath and exhale.

Bring your head down to your chest and now one bone at a time. Try to touch your head down to the mat. Go down, down, down. Great job. Feel how your waistband is on that pole there, Kristy. Now let's start rolling up. As you inhale and the right when you get to here, really focus. Get this phone, then this one, then this one.

Keep that head down. Work that upper back. There you go. Work the back of the neck and then finally the back of the head. Good. Relax. Good. Take another breath here and grow taller on the pole and exhale. Take one bone at a time. Touching your head down to the mat. Good. Go, go, go. Good. We're going to replicate this exercise in a little bit. Keep going down to you can't go any further by the wall when we finish up and now we're going to roll back onto this pole. Good.

Keeping the head down, especially right now. This is where it all counts for posture. Roll up the next bone. The next bone. Yes. Watch the back of the head. It's trying so hard. You got all of these in the back of the neck. That's it. Finally, Candice, open up those collarbones right here is your face like googly eyes busting out of your head. Take a big breath and grow taller on the pool and keep that height as you go forward. Exhale. There you go. Yes.

And now that you have this pole here, I'm sure you're going to keep your waistband attached to the pole, touching the crown of your head down to your mat. That's it. Keep the W. Uh Huh. It's really good to regroup. Keep pulling. Ah Huh. There you go. Wonderful Canvas. And now inhale, rolling up. Good. [inaudible] great, great focus and articulation. One more on your own. Pretend you have a pole there. Grow Taller on that pole and exhale down.

I'm going to put this away. That was beautiful and that's going to be used for the sauna moment. Very, very nice. And shoulder blades. Slide down. Open those collarbones pretty nice.

Just using this part a little bit too much. You've got to just pull into there a little more, but very, very good. All right. Felt a little different. Okay. Are you going to lie on your back and we'll do corkscrew. Avoid collapsing kind of when you get down to this, that's a good point. So a big, that's when the in and up really comes into play.

So you don't struggle there. You don't want to make it a small letter c when you do that. So a small letter c would be down here and just going down, whereas you want to pull in always, but then grow tall as if you're a puppet or a marionette. Bring lifted up to the ceiling by your ears. Okay, so complete length up using that and then you're going to go down, always lifting in that area. It's, yeah, I totally know what you mean. That it's easy to just go down into there, but it's starting by that feeling of that lift. When you start there, then you can keep it. But if you're trying to get that lift when you're down, you can't, does that? No, no. I mean there, there are people, people who can just sandwich down to the floor, um, absolutely can touch the crown of their head down. Um, but actually some of them aren't very flexible in their lower back.

They're very flexible in their upper back but not in their lower back. I, you know, come from an athletic background and I've never been able to just sandwich down. I'd never focused on stretch like that when I was younger. Um, but I can get pretty low, but not to where the goal in this exercise is to have the crown of your head between your thighs. Otherwise you do lose that. You can touch the crown of your head if you're all the way down into your feet or you know right into yourself, that's a different stretch to your back. That's [inaudible]. And we're all on this exercise completely focusing on stretching this part of the back. And that's when you, why you do that. So it is probably smaller range of motion for you right now.

We're going to lie on your back and do corkscrew good. And I want you to bend your knees into your chest. Yeah, good. And this is a really challenging one, so I'm going to help you do it, but focus on the back of the arms or stay in place deep into the Mat, opening those collarbones and never sacrifice those ribs. We're going to start off by extending the legs up to the ceiling. Turn them out and squeeze. Good. And we're just going to lower the legs a little bit. Nope. Straight legs, lower, no straight. There you go. And then pull them back up with your lower belly.

Do that one more time down a little bit, and then scoop in your belly. Good. Now let's go towards the ocean a little bit and no twisting in the legs and then pull them back. Center away from the ocean fall and pull them back up and let them, fuck. That's it, Christie. And use your obliques. Yeah, sure. And Go away from the ocean and pulling center. Now it's going to complete the circle. Go towards the ocean, down a little bit away, and then scoop him. Center away from the ocean down a little bit. And scoop them.

Center good towards the ocean, down around and pull them center and then way from the ocean down around and poem center. Very good hugging. Those knees are leading any my help there. Christie, sit on up. We're going to do your, you're very close to not though. Very close. We're going to do saw now and saw is really, really great posture here. So we're going to reach your arms straight out. I want you to be just hurt herself. Okay. You know I'm going to actually get you two poles here, which I love doing. It's not just one.

So go ahead and place this behind your upper back. Put your arms over the bar and then hold it. Yes. Good. You get to walk around with this all day long. Talk about the creasing posture that they have. Something like this, like on dancing with the stars where they try to increase their, their frame. Okay, so let's go ahead and bring your legs together on for a moment. Good. And Flex your feet. You can bend your knees for sure.

That's it. Good job, Christie. Good. Now use your belly to sit up as tall as you can and then use the obliques to twist. Let's go towards the ocean. So we're twisting. Good, good, and come center and twist away from the ocean. Pooling in the stomach and center. Christie, keep your head up. Twist towards the ocean. Good. That was better. And center and pulling in.

Twist away and center. I'm going to grab this bar. Go ahead and reshift forward to your ankles for just to give yourself a little stretch, but now when you do saw, I want you to make sure that you're staying that open. Okay? All right. Open your legs wider than your shoulders. Good. And they're going to be again, not they're going to. You want to see them in your peripheral vision. So look at me, Christie.

If they're flying back here, I can't see them. So you have to see them and then you don't just want to hold them, but watch my arms right now. I'm just up. Now. I'm going to tighten every muscle and I'm going to lengthen them. That's what I want to say. I want to see every muscle working in your arms. All right, using your powerhouse. Let's twist towards the ocean.

Inhaling and exhale, reach past your baby toe and now roll up like you did in spine, in short spot and not short spine and m spine. Search forward. Twist your left and exhale reaching past that toe. Good, very nice. And then inhale, stacking up your spine as you come. Center, twist towards the ocean and exhale. Let's keep it in time with the breathing of the hundred. Inhaling up, turning two, three, four, five and exhale. Two, three, four, five. Inhaling up two, twisting, three, four, five. Exhale down stomachs. And now as you roll up, use that posture. Inhale up, roll up one bone at a time.

Twisting and exhale. Go down one bone at a time. One more set in how? Walling up. One bone. There you go, Christy twisted the other side. Start with your head first as you exit there and then stretch forward. And last one to the left, to the other side. Inhaling up, rolling up one at a time, twisting and start with the head. There you go. Great job. And inhaling, rolling up through the spine. Much better. And rest your arms.

Good. Alright, now we're going to go into seal to finish up our mat. Work down here. So I want you to bring your legs together and lift your bottom forward. Hey, I was very impressed with that. You are really watched your shoulders when you did that without even knowing.

All right, we're going to place your hands under your ankles. Good. And try to pull back with your stomach instead of just yanking up with your hands. So you're going to try to pull back with the belly and it changes your balance, your weight. Good. And Clap two, three, and inhale. Roll back two, three and exhale two, three. And inhale. Roll back two. Again, just really focusing on, I'm making the back nice and supple, and your stomach nice and strong. Add any overall back. Clap two, three and exhale forward two, three, two more. Inhale, roll back.

Two, three and exhale. Forward two, three. Let's do one last one and exhaling. Good. All right, now I want you to go ahead and see it up any way you can and get really nice posturing to get some weights here. So what you want to just come on forward and you're going to take away into each hand. All right, very good. And when you're holding the weights, you want to not grip them cause then we always change it to a hand exercise and we want to make it more of our full body exercise, especially an arm exercise. Okay? Want to really watch the elbow because women love to hyperextend and then we only exercise the joint and we don't exercise the muscles above it, which we really want change and always keep the tone.

So you have a nice Pilati stance and great posture looks like a leaning tower of Pisa. Or if a hurricane was coming right at you, it wouldn't blow you over because you're more on your heels. You would feel like you were strong and leaning into it and nothing was gonna knock you over. That's what you want to feel like a force to be reckoned with. Okay. So if you're leaning a little bit forward, your weight should be on the ball of your foot very little on your heel. Like you could slip a card under your heel and there should always be weight on the side of your foot, but never under the arch. It should be like a little grapes there and you're not going to collapse in your arch and squish that. Great. Okay, good.

Then if you're doing that, your knees will be a little bit in front of your ankles and your hipbones will be a little bit in front of your knees and hopefully your belly is behind the line of your hips, not in front of it. Depends on the day. Okay. And then your shoulders a little bit in front of those hips because we're leaning a little forward. So if, again, if we switched it to where our lower backs engaged in our hips, our shoulders are back, right? So we want to make sure our shoulders are a little bit in front of our hips in this position. Stomach super engaged. Now let me see those shoulders pulled back and down without popping forward.

The chest, right? Just keeping that good and see if you can feel like your head instead of it hanging. That, first of all, it's looking up. I straight ahead and now kind of push back through the back of your neck because we hold our heads a little forward in front of our spine. There you go. All of that place, the palms facing forward. We're going to bring the arms up at shoulder height. Okay?

Do not move the elbows from this point and you're going to pretend you're pulling two heavy forces into your shoulders, pulling them in, holding all of that concentration and resist lengthening those arms and scooping in your belly. Growing Taller and resist. We're going do two more and then pulling in and resist. We're starting to lean back a little bit. Christy. Lean a little forward and pulling in. That's the elbow. Stay at one level and now rest your arms down by your side. Good.

Now you're going to hold your arms in your peripheral vision, so they're going to come up right here. Go ahead. No, no, you're fine. Can't bring them right back down. Sorry, Christie. I want them to be palms up towards the ceiling. So we're leaning forward. Still careful not to lean back. And you're going to keep your belly in and lift your arms up in your peripheral vision. Now your elbows again.

It'll stay right there and you're gonna pull two heavy objects in and then resist as you lengthen out God and three more times and pulling in, always thinking about your spine and scooping in your belly. Hopefully we're not gripping in the quads, but grip in the bottom instead. One more. Good and resist and now lengthen down. Very nice. Good. Now I want you to, um, we're going to go over to the wall to finish up here. So I want you to put your back against that wall. And Christie, I'm going to have you put your back against that wall right there.

I'm going to put my weights down and have your heels all the way against the wall. Good. And a nice Pilati stance. There you go. And let your arms just hang. So we want those headlights pointing forward, not down. So we've got to pull them up a little bit. There you go. Good. Very nice. Alright, and now we're trying to get every bone against that wall.

I know. So if you were super flexible in your spine and at a super advanced level, you could standing here get every vertebra against the wall, but our back has to be very flexible to do that. So to work towards that, we're going to walk our feet away from the wall, just our feet. Good. And this is such an important exercise when we're sitting at a desk very often, often, and you want to do this to regain good posture. I'm Christy, I would go forward. You're look almost there, Candice. The only thing I would say is your hipbones are pointing just a bit down so that and then pulling in the ribs, maybe an inch forward with your feet.

Just to really nail that position. Good. And this is kind of hard to feel some times on your own when you're starting. This is pretty good. Just maybe one more inch Christie, so I can get those hipbones to stay like that. Aha. And pressing that away. Awesome. Okay. Now I want your arms not just to be like, like just a little bit down, but I want you to feel like there's a force pulling those arms down to the floor and now that force is going to be pulling them forward.

And then you're gonna circle opening up and down. All of this while your back is staying flat. So press your back into the walls. Your arms circle only as high as you can. Keep your back flat right here is what I don't love about the back and screw that scent around one more and Poole and in good, and now go the other way. Pull in right here. Scoop, scoop, scoop, and two more. Really like almost you're stretching your back by doing these circles last time, it should feel like a big stretch in your back. Good.

Now this is exercise we've done. Rest your arms about 10 times a day in different ways. You're going to press your stomach into the wall, slide up the wall as much as you can, as tall as you can. Then bring just your head forward to your chest. Then the next bone, let your arms just hang and then the next bone and go as low as you can.

Keeping your waist span. The wall stomach in arms are hanging good. If you're getting a lower back stretch when you stop, that's good. If you're not, keep your belly in and go down a little lower until you feel a good lower back stretch and then hold it there. And we're going to circle your arms. Three little circles, one, two, three and go the other way.

One, two, three and then let them hang again. And now we're going to roll up one bone at a time. Don't throw this exercise away. It really, really fixes your posture, especially when you get to the bottom of your shoulder blades. Keep your head down as long as you can. Working through those upper back muscles and Vertebra, the upper back of the neck. And then finally the head gets there.

See if you can open those collarbones anymore. And one more time. Slide up the wall with your belly in and coming forward. One bone at a time. Good. Lengthening each vertebra away from the next and come down to where you feel a good lower back stretch. A lot of times we're trying so hard that we grip in our quads here, so be careful that you don't do that or lock your knees and then circle the arms three times one, two, three and go the other way.

Looks Really Nice. Hope you're getting a good lower back stretch here and now roll up again. This is the most important thing. This is like the roll up on the floor. This is like the spine stretch forward. Even the saw when you're coming up out of the twist, good job opening your shoulders.

Really just seeing how much you can work on that and just lower them down. Just a tiny bit more. Last exercise here. Open the feet so that their hip width apart and there's parallel and then comm. That's a little wider than your hips here. Ricoh there and then probably come forward about how a little, a couple more inches. That's enough. Good. All right, few more inches to canvas.

We're going to go into a wall sit. And it's really important that the knee, that's good. Just a little wider, that the knee never passes the big toe when you go into your set, right? So your heads against the wall and heroes kind of Candice, what you are asking of the how do you not collapse in there? This is a great feeling of pulling into the wall and grows tall as you can right now. Really stay lifted. Even when you're going to sit down into your wall. Sit. You want to stay up in your body and your energy. So go ahead and start sliding down that wall. Sliding, pausing. When your hips are at the same level as your knees hold.

Try to get your head against the wall. Hold your belly and tight and squeeze your bottom to help come up. So use your belly and your bottom rather than your legs. That's tough. Good. The only thing I didn't like is yes, the head. It kind of looked down when you were coming. I forgot it did. Okay, let's try that again and we're going to pull here.

Velien our are going to start sliding down, but your energy is saying up. You're saying energy in and up, up, up and hold it there. And think of the back of your legs. Squeeze those, use those your bottom. And now really feel like your stomach's going up in your body as you come up. Grow as tall as you can. Could you feel that stomach pulling in and up? Great.

We're gonna add one last thing for our very last exercise and that is as you go down, your arms can simultaneously go up as high as you can. Keep your back flat. So start sliding down and let your arms just float up. But make sure every straight forward. Sorry Candace, that's it. As our back is staying right there against the wall, hold it. And the stomach's like an elevator where the people go in and now they're going to go up in your belly. That's it in the arms. Come down and you grow taller.

Your arms go all the way into the wall, pushing into the wall and walk your feet back into the wall. Good until your heels are against the wall. And continue pushing those weights into your wall and you're gonna lean forward. So that's giving you the opposition to regain that leaning forward. Don't leave your bottom good restaurants, but are you looking down? No.

We're going to keep our eyes up and that is, look at you gorgeous posture. Love it. Okay. We are all finished. Nice job.

Comments

Lovely simple class. Really like the use of the pole for posture in sitting to get feedback for feel of movement and position of back for spine twists. Thank you Monica.
Danita R
Great job, Monica. Loved the fact that you were teaching just normal gals that most of the population is like. Your cuing was clear, with great visuals. Thank you!

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