Class #918

Postnatal Strengthening Mat

50 min - Class
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Description

This is the second class in a 3 part postnatal series that Monica is offering Pilates Anytime. Practice and learn the details involved in strengthening your entire powerhouse so you can get back in shape and feel strong throughout the day.
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

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Go ahead and lie down. Bend your knees. Let's go ahead and lie down. Bend your knees. Good. Have them a little bit shoulder with apart. Come up a little bit. That's it. Nice. Good. And we're just going to go review a tiny bit at a quicker pace. What we did in our first post, pardon class. Collette, I'm going to have you scoot over just a little bit towards the beach. Yep.

Great. Perfect. Nice. And we're going to bring your feet in a little bit more. So the first thing you want to do is identify your box. So we're going to draw a line from, let's take your right hand and point to your left shoulder and Jenelle grab your left shoulder. Perfect. And draw a straight line across to your other shoulder. So obviously there's a straight line there.

And then I want you to take that hand and go down your hips and now you're at your right hip. That shoulder should be right over that right hip. So it's a straight line and an overdue your left hip. And then back up to your left shoulder. And Go ahead and trace that again with your hand and just put it in common sense where we need to have a nice square box. So your shoulders, not one higher than the other one hip isn't holding a kid up higher than the other and it's because you're on the mat. Your hips should also be flush with your shoulders.

You're not supporting yourself by pushing your hips forward and, and getting into your lower back. So everything's Nice and square. Good. Now I want you to, um, just allow your stomach to sink into your back. It's really a nice time after you've had a child to not feel like you have to have the strongest muscles in the world. So instead of gripping right now and trying so hard, just allow your naval to sink down to your back and try not to tense your pelvis too much. Try to just relax. Great. That looks good.

So in an ideal world, our lower back is flexible enough to round and arch and our stomach is strong enough to pull into it and get the vertebra right nice and flat behind your lower back. But let's, let's work with our pelvis for a little bit. I want you to imagine that your pelvis is a bull suit and we're going to dump that bowl of soup into your chest. That's great. I loved it. You didn't lift up your whole bottom and everything just tilted your pelvis. Great. And so you're tilting it towards your chest. Now we're gonna dump it out towards your feet and a little mouse can crawl onto your back, right? Good. So that's your back is obviously arched.

We're going to do the opposite. We're going to dump it back into your chest. Great, nice scooped in belly, and then dump it out. Great. Now the ideal is when you're tilting your pelvis towards you, you don't do it by gripping hip flexors, but you do it by drawing your belly in and up towards you. And maybe gauge your glutes a little bit and then go the opposite way and go ahead and the stomach basically distends and you're stretching your back.

And let's try it one more time. Thinking about drawing in your belly. Good to get your lower back flat. So right now is your lower back flat or arched. If you're dumping your bowl of soup into you. Good. So it's making contact. It's clearly flat.

If you were going to use your legs when you, when we use our legs, I want you to make sure that that back's really, really flat. And again, ideally you're doing that by using your stomach muscles and that's what we're going to be thinking about. So I want you to go ahead and bring your right knee into your chest and enjoy stretching that leg to you by hugging it. Good. And the left leg is not doing, it's just bent and it's straight, but it's not pushing into the mat. It's not tensing just there. Straighten the right leg up to the ceiling all the way up. And then we're going to keep your bottom down. There you go.

And turn out your leg a little bit so that the knee and the toes point towards your right shoulder. Put your hands behind that thigh and pull it up towards you as high as it feels good to stretch it. Good. So super important for us is stability. Of our hips. Okay, so in plots, while we're getting strong, again, I want you to make sure you work in a little bit of a turnout. So if I brought this leg down a little bit and I let you roll in your knee and stretch it to you, the hip is no longer straight across from the other hip comes up and it doesn't feel as hard of a stretch right now. But if we again turn it out a little bit, now the hip bone is straight across from the other and when you stretch it is a bit harder of a stretch. Keep the knees straight straight as you can. There you go. Good. So the difference here, you can feel how it rolls up and there it is. Good. Bend the knee, hug it, place that foot down. Let's go onto the left.

So pulling in the left and straighten that leg up and feel the difference of stretching behind your thigh, pulling it towards you with your knee, slightly pointing to your left shoulder. And then what happens if you roll it in? What happens with that hip? Can you feel how it comes up? So when we want to have nice, slim hips and Nice, I'm tone, outer thigh muscles, if you let your knee roll in and we don't get to contact all those muscles. So you want to make sure you have that knee turned out a bit good and then bend your knee into your chest. Good. And place that foot down. All right, so one of the most important things that happens when we're one of what we're going to try to work on today or emphasis is what happens is we're moms while we carry our babies a lot when they're born.

And so the area between basically our bottom and here it gets really compressed. We ended up shrinking a lot, so we end up going like this a lot. And then that pulls all the upper body posture as well. So we lose our nice upper body and we got the rounded shoulders we wanted to the opposite today. So we're going to be really focusing on pulling our stomach, not just in but up so that we're going to stretch this area. We're going to support our lower back and stretch that area.

The other thing besides pulling the belly in and up is you're going to have to lengthen your legs way. Basically when you want to stretch something, you're not going to pull one thing and the other one goes in the same way. You could hold one stable, which might be our goal today, and then pull the other one in the opposite direction, but the best stretches if you could pull them apart. Okay, so that's kind of what we're gonna do is like the stomach pulls in and up in one direction and your leg length ends in the other. Then you get this great length and we all look like models or just super lean. So let's go ahead and bring the right knee into your chest. Good.

Hug it and how's your back? Cause it flat. Good. Straighten your right leg up a little bit, I mean all the way and turn it out and stretch it towards you again. Good. Now place your hands on top of your hip bones. So we're going to bring this leg just directly up to the ceiling and your hands are there. Good is your back still flat? So we're going to pull our belly in and now without your hands lifting up towards the ceiling, in other words, your hips are going to stay right where they are.

You want to reach that leg as long to the ceiling as you can. Try to touch your toes to the ceiling and literally keep the turnout and feel that the muscles have pulled your thigh boat a little bit out of that hip joint instead of being heavy. And Go ahead and stop reaching so much. Let it just relax and it should feel a little bit heavier in your hip joint. And then try to use those muscles to lengthen again out of the hip to the ceiling. Now we're going to keep our belly pulling in and almost up towards our chest and reach that right leg down towards the floor, only as low as you can.

Keep your back flat and of course down the middle of your body. So you're trying to reach while that belly is scooping and when you don't feel like you can keep your back flat any longer, go ahead and lift it and do that two more times. So we're trying to really use those muscles to lengthen in the leg instead of grip and get stocky or overbuilt. We're trying to engage them but lengthen them and pull them up. And one more. How's that feel? Good. And one last time sweeping down, you can even increase the tempo because otherwise it might get a little too stiff also and pulling up. Great job keeping your back flat. How'd that knee in?

I'm going to do the left leg. So the right foot goes down and pulling in the left. Good. And then you're gonna straighten it up to the ceiling, turning it out of it. Good. And the hips are going to stay there and you're going to reach that left like long, long, long.

And then go ahead and relax it and feel how it gets heavy again and the anchor your belly and reach those muscles long, long, long. And then reach them down as your belly keeps your back flat and it keeps pulling up in the opposite direction and sweep that leg two more times. Looking very nice, reaching long, beautiful, long muscles. That's what I want to see and pulling up. Gonna do it one more time. It might even feel your bottom.

Work a little bit there and scooping up. And then go ahead and hug that knee in to your chest. Great. Go ahead and put that foot down. Maybe bring your feet in a just a tiny bit. Good. And grab that magic circle next to you. So you're going to put it between your thighs right above those knees. Great.

But so like we learned in the first class, there's no rocket science to this. When you have baby, your pelvis just needs to get strong again. So we're gonna really focus on our pelvis right now. So think about the triangle bone, the ends your spine. It's called your sacred, and it's right here. And you want to really think about how those hip bones connect right to that triangle bone. Okay, so right there it's just a lot of cartilage and then they connect in the front. So that's all the anatomy detailed. We're going to get into that, but there's not like muscles and all this stuff that we're going to really strengthen.

It's actually a lot more imagination and sending a connection, sending a message to those nerves and and all the connective tissue to wake up and start working again and help support us. So I want you to imagine that your pelvis is in a vise, okay? That we're pushing our hipbones tight against our sacrum. We're not like engaging the glutes quite a bit. We're actually just thinking about the bones.

So just pull your bones together and then relax. Imagine that your pelvis is in advice. We're going to pull the pelvis. You don't even have to squeeze the circle yet. Like I know I'm being really nice. You're just going to internally pull together, try to see if you can wake up a dead zone. Okay?

And now I want you to start adding stuff. So now we're going to collect. I'm also going to have you bring your feet just a little more under you. Good. So we're gonna press those bones together. Then we're going to use our bottom, our glutes to squeeze as well. You're going to add your outer thighs and your inner thighs.

And now you should be able to squeeze that magic circle pretty well. And we're gonna end up going into a pelvic tilt. But when you do, I want you to actually think about your pelvic floor also. So I want you to try to pull your pelvic floor in and towards you as you've dumped the bowl of soup in towards your chest. And then continue that tilt by lifting up your tailbone off the mat and lifting up your waistband. You can relax your arms by your side and lift your bottom up all the way until you are a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.

And that was really nice cause you both did not use your back to do it. Hold your bottom right there. Eyes Like Eagle, eyes on your hipbones and see if you can drop your chest bone before your bottom. And then your ribs and then melt down one bone at a time until your bottom gets to relax. Good job. Now because I'm starting to not be so nice. We're going to add some beats up there. When we pump the circle, we're not going to lift your pelvis up and down.

It's actually going to stay on a steady plane and you're just going to be pumping the circle in and out. Okay, so we're gonna press your bones together. Get that first. Squeeze your glutes, outer thighs, inner thighs. Start pulling your pelvic floor and your powerhouse in and up. And you're going to start tilting that bowl of soup rolling up. And you might even think about stretching your thighs to get your knees forward over those ankles. And we're going to 10 beats. One, two, three. Good job.

Keep it nice and steady. Seven, eight, nine and hold tight. And we're going to keep your bottom there. As you rolled down here, I might even let you bring once you're down your feet in a little bit more. And what I want you to do is work towards making a straight line through here. No little dip in here because those, there's tight. I'm sorry. Not towards each other, but towards you. There you go. Alright, so last one. We're going to go for a set of 20 how are we doing, Colette? Good.

All right, so we're going to press your bones together first before you start to Elting. Then add the glutes, outer thighs, inner thighs and pelvic floor and start coming all the way up. Good. Good. Relax your chest. Yes. Excellent. Trying to create. That's a much straighter line. Now there was a little bit of a dip here. 20 beats one, don't dip. Keep it up. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 10 more. Keep reaching forward with those knees.

Hips up, bottom up. Five, four, three, two. Hold it tight and drop your chest bone before your bottom. Our lower back gets so stiff that we really want to roll through it. Nice job. Okay, so did we wake up our pelvis a little bit there. We're going to take our circle away, put it down next to you and I want you to get, you can actually have your heads towards each other and we're going to get on all fours so that your hands are right underneath your shoulders and your knees right underneath your hips. Okay, good.

And we're just going to go over old fashioned cat-back. So we're on the same plane. Same idea here. So once you lift up your heads and look at each other, smile, there you go. And Go ahead and let your back actually hang. Yep. Good. Like a really happy dog. When you come home from work, they're actually really happy to see you. They like, you're super excited.

No dog love or anything. Okay, so head up. There you go. So this is what we call an arched back. Now bring your head to your chest and round your back up to the ceiling. Good. Alright, so this is what we call around back. All right, lift up your head. Look up the spine. Starts between your ears. We talked about this last time and it ends at your tailbone.

So when your head is, your chin is off your chest like this and you're looking at each other, it pulls your spine naturally into an arched back. Also, I want you to open your, drop your, lift your chest up a little more. There you go. It also opens up your chest. Your chest is up. Okay. Bring your chin to your chest and see what happens. When your chin goes to your chest, it's much easier to round your back, much easier to round it up to the ceiling. When your chin is to your chest, it's also easier to pull in your chest and pull in your ribs so that your upper back is really nice and round. So the chin to the chest and you can feel the ribs pull up even a little bit more for me. [inaudible] pull up into it. There we go.

And what you're doing is you're really protecting all your organs. Organs got pulled in. Go ahead and lift up your head and arch your back. Now the ribs have opened and your organs just hang out. So if you're a boxer and someone threw a punch, this would be a really vulnerable position. So we try the v beginning applies to really work on pulling in those ribs and protecting everything. So head to your chest, you can pull your chest up, ribs in Oregon's in, and then very easily you can see that your lower stomach has also pulled in deep to your lower back. It's an easy position to get into, so your lower backs and nice and round as well. Beautiful. While you're here, I also want you to notice that your tailbone is now pointing towards the floor.

Go ahead and lift your head and arch your back. So we got head up, chest open ribs, open belly basically is hanging, which is fine right now and then the tail bone is up towards the ceiling. Good. All right. Also I want you to focus your hands were on your hips. What happens to these hipbones right here? So bring the head to your chest and then pull up the ribs and your organs and your belly. And these also end up pulling up away from the floor or for a lot of exercises that we're going to be doing.

I'm going to say pull your belly away from your thighs, your hipbones away from your thoughts. Go ahead and lift up your head and go to the arch back. Now those hip bones have fallen towards the floor and they get closer to your thighs and closer to your knees. So we're gonna try to avoid that in our exercises. Okay. That's a dead giveaway that we're using our back. Okay. All right.

So now go ahead and round your back one more time. So you're in a bull, those hipbones. That's awesome. Wonderful. Scooping in and keep that nice round back and just go ahead and sit on your heels. Get the NYSE. He can Rick, keep your hands on the floor actually. And just stretch your back. Walk them the hands as far away from you as you can. There you go. Good. Nice. And here Collette, I'm going to do the same thing.

And I want a lot of space between those. Hipbones. There you go. And now crawl your hands away. That's it. Nice. So that we can get that lower back. Stretch a little bit better. Beautiful. All right, let's turn around again where our feet are facing each other and we're going to lie down and start our hundred. Good.

Good. All right, so we're going to go ahead and bring your feet in a little bit. Good. Oh, the final thing I almost forgot is our ribs. So we need to make sure that our, we're not displacing our ribs, right? So we're going to make two ELLs with our hands and I want you to point back towards the floor with your thumbs and bring your fit, your fingers all the way to the bottom of your bra strap. Yeah, a little higher. There you go. Lie Down your fingers so that you feel all the rib bones. Okay.

Rib Cage, little high over here. Miss Ginelle. There you go. So you feel your rib belts take a big breath. Good. And exhale. So we're just like reviewing what is our body doing basically so that when we'd go over certain cues, you can really nail it and make a difference in your posture and make a difference in how you're toning your body and all of that. When you know all the specifics. So if you inhale, those ribs float up to the ceiling and when you exhale, they float down good. And when you inhale and they float up, so does your bra strap or the bottom of the shoulder blades.

And when you exhale, you can make sure there's no space behind your bra strap and you're really flush with the mat again, inhaling up or let, let them do what they're gonna do and exhaling when you're super advanced and polite, as you're able to open your rib cage more sideways, like a fish breathing through their gills rather than moving it up and down. So that's a f long off goal. But right now you just want to breed naturally and see what happens with that rib gauge. Again, we talked about if your ribs are open and your organs are out, you're very vulnerable. If you would get hit or anything like that. So you want to really support your body, support your spine, your ribs, support your spine when you've exhaled and pulled in and your lower belly supports your lower back. When you've pulled that naval in case we want to act like almost like a core set. Always pull in everything and together. Good.

How are we doing with those ribs? Does that make sense? Okay. All right, so we're going to inhale one more time and exhale. Good job. Now we're going to straighten your arms on the mat. Good. And we're gonna really engage all those arm muscles. Don't just like lie him down like he's meat. You're just going to engage those muscles.

Lift them a few inches up off the mat. Good. All right, you guys ready to start cooking here? So we're going to inhale pumping him up down. Take a breath just like you did with your ribs and exhale just like you did with your reps and think about those reps. Big breath. Did I let them float up? If I did what I'm going to Exhale, I'm going to really press them down. Good and take a breath.

And this time when I press down my ribs, I'm going to lift my head up like a seesaws. As ribs go down, my head goes up. Good. Now, eyes on your belly. Good and big breath. Keep Up. Stay up the whole time. Now we don't get to blow our head. Now exhale good. This time on your next exhale, you're going to make your belly disappear even more and bringing your right knee, using your stomach muscles, ring in your right knee. Exhale and bring it in. Curl up your shoulders just a bit more. There you go.

Big Breath. And on the next exhale, bring in your left knee. Good. And so now the most important thing that you're doing is just really pressing that lower back flat into the mat with your stomach muscles. Good and exhaling. Good. One more time. You can have your knees and feet together on this one. Good. And then hug in those knees and rest your neck. That was technically probably 70 or something like that.

But we're going to grab this circle and we're going to put it between our ankles now. Good. All right. And rest your head down. We're going to do the a hundred again, but really 50 with the magic circle. So what I want you to do is I want you to think about pulling those bones together right now, those the pelvic pelvis together. And I want you to engage your glutes and your outer thighs and then your inner thighs. And I want you to straighten the legs almost to the ceiling, but a little bit lower. So there are about right here. Good and beautiful turnout. Good.

Now take a breath and exhale. Press your ribs down and lift your head up, looking at your belly, and then try to pump for 50 in with the air. Thinking about a stable pelvis, your rockstar, that's perfect. Good. Well maybe even just a little lower for you. Good. And you don't look like you're feeling this too much in your stomach. You look like you could use more challenge. So if you, if you want, it's about right here for you. There you go. Good. And now your stomach is able to really scoop in.

Squeeze your glutes more to squeeze that circle. There you go. Keep pumping. Keep pumping your arms. I know it's like too many at one time. That's it. Big Breath and pull it in your stomach. You're just really trying to press your back now. That's it. One more. I left you over the Ginelle. How are you doing?

And then hug your knees in and rest your head down. Nice. Okay. Take that circle away just to the side and we're going to sit up. Rock up and knees bent. Feet flat. Place a circle between your thighs again, right above your knees. Okay, so we're just going to do a roll back now and bring the knees up a little bit more. That's it. And the hands are right under the knees. Well for sitting nicely. [inaudible] tall, nice and tall. Right here.

Then our shoulders are right over our hip bones. Okay, but we want to do, think of that cat back. You know how we lifted our head and rounded and I want you to think about those hipbones and we're going to pull them away from our thighs and use our stomach to do that. And then keep your shoulders still curled over the hip. So a lot of distance between your thighs and your hip. Beautiful. Pull back a lot more Collette in the pip boats. One more there. Okay, great job. Okay, so if you can try not to actually tense everything else in the body, but less tense, just the pelvis. Try to pull the pelvis together.

Try to squeeze your glutes out on your thigh and draw that pelvic flown. As you start rolling back your waistband, you're going to keep your hands right there and you gotta pull back your waistband until it touches the floor. Oh Man. Good. Take a breath and exhale. Keep your belly and as you come forward, good. Rounding that lower back so, so hard. And press your hips together and then roll away. That's it. Getting this bone here. That's it.

Take a breath and exhale. Try to move the upper back, but not the lower so that you increase that curve. It's a good stretch for you. And two more. Press your pelvis together and rural down through your sacrum. Roll down through that triangle. Go. Nice job and take a breath and exhale, curl forward. Good. And last time. This time we're going to roll all the way down though.

So press your pelvis together and roll back those hipbones right, right. One bone at a time goes down. Keeping the feet there. Just roll all the way down. Great job. Nice. We're going to take that circle away. Put it down next to us. Knees are bent. Knees together. Good. Good. All right, so now we're going to do single leg circles, but to test what your leg should be, go ahead and relax your ribs a little bit.

Yad. Nice. Hug your right knee into your chest for a moment. Good. Straighten that out. Like we did this just a moment ago, but I noticed that it wasn't really hard for you to straighten your leg to the ceiling. How about you Janell? Is this as high up or can you pull it a little bit closer? A little bit closer so you both probably could afford to straighten the left leg on the mat. Good. And then you're still trying to keep the belly in and this like always turned out. Let's do a nice flowy, um, circle. So it just cross around, up, cross around up. Okay. So that's going to be the rhythm.

Hug the knee in first. Second, hold it for a second. So what you don't go ahead and bend it for a second. Wait, I think I saw you doing really good. But what I want to make sure is that we're not circling all the hips. Those are going to stay perfectly squared and you really just want to reach that right leg and circle it independently of your hips. Yes. Good. So let's try that together.

Bring that right like right back up. Okay. Crossing your body down around, up and there you go. And it can be small. I'd rather it be small like here around in a good one more. And let's go the other way. Down. Cross around up the cross is the best part and coming up towards your shoulder. Really Nice. Good. Stability. Two more. Yes. Last one.

And Hug in that knee. Ben, you're getting good. Left, right, like down, left knee in. So if you couldn't straighten your leg to the ceiling, like if this was, if that was a straight as you could than a Debbie, bend the other leg, but your, your flexible enough. Stretch that leg towards you. But now I know it can come up that high. So pull it up that high every time.

Cross your body and jam around enough crops around it. Up. Beautiful. Just work on keeping that right hip from rolling. That takes your bottom work. Whew. Nice. Last one. And now we're going to go the other way down and use your stomach to pull it up. Don't let the knee roll in when it comes up. [inaudible] down around it. Up.

Good. Down. Cross the body. Good. Two more. And last one and how good that knee, those look. Good ladies. Really Nice. All right, so now we're going to do bring that leg down and just sit up any way you can and bring, bring yourself a little bit forward. Cola. There you go. And get back into this rollback position. So what you did on the rollback is you rolled your waistband or your lower back first instead of moving like from your shoulders.

So you create a nice round back, right. Okay. So let's put your hands under your knees. Good and see if you can do another back. So I want you to pull your hipbones away looking at your belly, right? Your Chin has to be on your chest. Have a nice round back, right?

And now exhale, come forward with your stomach. Scooped out. Perfect. Stay like that. That's awesome. Again, we're always trying, especially right now, we can afford to not be all muscling through it. So relaxing the upper body, just super tight stomach and see if you can lift the right knee up a little bit without losing that nice scoop and then rest and now scooping and let's see if he can lift the left knee up. Beautiful. Good and down. Pulling into your lower back. So your right lower back, super round. Those hipbones are pulled back, back, back. Let's bring up the right knee pulled.

Let's add the left knee in. Valance Janelle's on the zone over here and we're going to put our feet down. Let's do the left. Me pulling in the left. Awesome. And then, oh we got the lower back popped forward anticipating it. So give yourself even more exaggeration. Awesome. Let's try the left and now super loose leg cause it's just here.

We're going to Bula. That's good. And rest down. That is exactly what you wanted. Do you want to just keep working at that? You know what? You want it to stay as and then one day it's just like I got it and it's not. It's because your back is so strong that it also is trying to help support you and that pushes out your stomach. Exactly. So that's what you're working on.

Let's try it one more time. Balancing with your right leg up and then see if you can add your left. Good. How are you doing over there? Good. All right. Rest down your feet. That was awesome. Now I want you to go ahead and lie down on your back again. Very, very good. All right. We're going to bring our right knee into here. Actually, I'm sorry. Let's keep your feet down. So is your back flat?

It doesn't need to be super flat, but I do want your stomach to be engaged so much that it's your stomach that's going to bring your right knee into your chest. Can we bring your right knee in and just give it a hug but it down and pull in from your stomach to bring in your left knee. That's good. And Dam and pull in your right. Beautiful. Stay there and we're going to think of those ribs again. Put both hands on your right knee for me. Good.

And we're going to think about our ribs like a stat seesaw image I gave you. You're going to press your ribs down, your head's going to float up and you're going to look at your belly. Good. Okay. Now put down the right foot and pull in your stomach and bring your left knee almost to your left ear and then put it down and pull in your stomach and bring in the right knees almost to your ear. Not out to the side, but a little more centered. Good. And then down and bring in your left knee.

Is it okay? Good. And then down and now scooping and bringing your right knee. Good. Now hold that right knee with both hands and this left leg, I want the fire to stay right where it is. I just want you to straighten it, turn it out a little bit. So you engage the outer thigh and gloop and in region away from your stomach. And let's switch. You're going to bring in the left knee as you squeeze, not too low with that leg when it goes out. Good and switch. Same thing, not, not quite too low there. And switch scooping in down the middle of your body.

Good. And use your stomach to pull in this light as a feather leg. It just as squeezing and working here. Good. Scooping in the Belle, use your abdominals and one more. And then bring both knees in and rest your head down. Good job. All right, so now we're going to grab that circle. Put it between your ankles.

Good. So when our legs take over, our lower back is going to want to pop off the mat. And right now I want you to do not let that happen. So we're going to pull our pelvis together. Good. And you're going to squeeze with your glutes. Good. And let's [inaudible] go ahead and let your put one hand over the other behind your head. Take a big breath, an exhale. Pull your belly into, lift up your head and look at your belly. Beautiful. Okay.

I want your belly to stay just like that. Not like a loaf of bread rising in the oven, but scooped in. And I want you to squeeze your legs, not quite to the ceiling, but a little bit lower. Keep your belly in, in, in, and use your belly to pull those knees back in. So again, we're starting from a strong pelvis, right? Strong pelvis. Squeeze those glutes in length in those thigh muscles out, away from your belly and pull in. Nice and press the pelvis together and go out your pelvic floors even pull good and one more like that. Lengthening out. Press your pelvis, school good and bending in and then rest your head.

But just let your knees kind of come towards you. That's okay. Is that all right on your back? Good. We're going to do the exact same thing but make it look more like what the exercise supposed to look like, which is double leg stretch. So your arms move also. That's the only difference from what you did. So we're going to do that seesaw with our head where the ribs are going to go down. You're good.

But now take those hands and put them on the outside of your ankles and bring those knees towards your chest. Good. All right, so as to keep the knees there, we're going to, what do your arms do? All they do is float up and like you're in a pool of water just straight to the ceiling. Good. Lay in a pool of water. You would scoop up that water and go back to your ankles. Good. And reach up and scoop in.

Good as you reach up this time. Squeeze your legs straight and scoop up home. Got Complicated, Huh? And straight up to the ceiling. Up to the ceiling. Fala and circle back straight up to the ceiling. Knees not too low. Good. And pulling back in. Nice head. A little more into your belly and reaching up. How's that pelvis? Are we working the, that's it. And then pull it in.

Give me one more cause you guys are nice to me here. There we go. And pull it in. Scoops. Scoops. Good. Skip. Rest your head down. Nice. Awesome. Put Your circle down and sit on up. That was really good. So we're going to straighten your spine nice and straight again. Have your legs about three at your feet, three inches wider than your shoulders.

You both are very flexible so you can sit with your feet flexed. But if you couldn't sit up tall, so Janell, I don't want you sitting at all like this. And that's from a lot of computer work. That's just what happens. We end up sitting a little bit more in our lower back. So then your pelvis is kind of tilted back.

So we got to get those hipbones right over the tailbone and then use your belly to lift up. And if you can't do that, then try bending the knees of it and seeing if you can do that. Perfect. Nice. And now arms and what? Your feet a little wider. Good. And arms up at shoulder height. Again, nice and strong. Good. So you're gonna pull your stomach into your lower back. And imagine that I'm picking you up by your head and you're going to touch the crown of your head to the ceiling. Good. Take a big breath. Exhale.

Bring your head to your chest and touch the top of your head down to the floor. It's just an image and a goal, but not necessarily attainable. And inhale, roll right on up. Stacking your spine. Good. Take another breath and exhale like a candy cane. Your back's gonna roll down. That's it. And Inhale, rolling up.

So now we're gonna think about how's our stomach do not do or is our pelvis flipping down as we go. Keep your pelvis right where the hipbones are over the sit bones. There we go. And go down. Sometimes when I'm down I take another breath so I can exhale and pull my stomach in even more. So right now Collette, this is leaning forward and I want it right there and the rest of you going down so that we stretch that lower back. And now roll up stacking your beautiful one more time, pulling into your back and exhale, curling and good. Good.

That's it. Nice. And you feel a difference in the stretch there. Great. And then pulling in and stacking your spine. Awesome. Relax your arms down. Good. All right, so now we're going to do sidekicks. So why don't you bring your, you're going to have your head this way and you're going to line up on the back side of your mat. So you're gonna line your right side. Good. And your right elbow is going to be all the way back at this corner.

Nice and flush and leg straight. Bring them forward now to the front edge of your mat. There you go. But lie down on your right arm so that you're like a beauty queen wrist. There Ya go. Good. Are you comfortable with your elbow off the mat or do you want to slide your feet as long as you're fine. I'm fine. Good. Alright, bring back your by. Just a tiny bit. Your head, shoulders and everything.

There Ya go. Good. And now bring your feet forward. Good. All right, I'm going to place a circle between your ankles. Good. So important to get your um, everything strong again. Alright, so relax the feet. Very difficult to do. Left hand is going to be in front of your stomach. This hip came up a lot, so we want to make sure it's straight above this one. And so that your leg, the pads are straight on top of each other. So if one pad is coming up towards you or rolling forward or rolling back, it's a real telltale, you know, so you're going to keep that nice and squared hip. Good. And turn the top leg out. Good.

And we're going to pull that pelvis together and we're going to use our glutes. And now use your inner thighs like crazy and outer thighs and press down that pad. One, two, three. Hold it. Sorry. Four, five. And coming up. Squeeze instead of press down would be a better cue. And we're going to squeeze for five, four, three, two, one and release. Almost. Perfect. We fell back with our body a bit, right? Good. So now even, why is that? Because keeping this hip here, now this has to work a lot more to get that to be on top. Right?

I'm going to leave you alone for the last set. So we're going to, oh, over here. We're going to rotate that thigh and knee. Good. And bring this just like her hip right there. And now use these muscles to squeeze down. Hold two, three, four, five, release. Nice job. Now we're going to put the circle our feet between in the middle of the circle, I should say.

So just stay there for a second while I help Miss Jenelle over here. Oh, the fancy things we do. Later on you'll be at, you'd be able to do this in your sleep. It's a beautiful choreography. All right, now you're lift that top leg and turn it out. This is intense outer thigh work, no question about it, but again, make sure your hips are stacked. Scoop and your belly always first. And now press up the circle for five, four, three, two and release.

Did you get into the outer thigh and pull your belly in and push it up to three, four, five and release. Very good with the hips. One more time. Scoop it in and lift. Two, three, four, five and release. Nice job. Good. Now we're going to take it away completely and I want you to swing it back and forth, your leg back and forth to do some fun sidekicks. In other words, we know how to keep your hips stack, so we're going to bring the left leg up at hip level. Just here. Turn it up towards the ceiling a little bit. Go ahead and like a pendulum.

It's going to swing forward and swing back, but you know what? Nothing in your box is going to move. So we're going to keep this still and we're going to try to kick your dose and then take it back to kick behind you and swing forward and back. Let's stay with that tempo and forward and back and forward. And that you don't want to control it too much and forward and back.

And two more. One day you will. But I want you to just be free with it and back and legs together. Good. Awesome. Swing your feet forward. And we're going to rely on your left side here. So I do, we'll want you to be extra perfectionist with that, but right now I want you to just get kind of a freedom of movement and stead. Okay. So whatever you want them to do with that. Sorry.

And then bring your chin out. Good position. Um, Collette, bring back your elbow. Yes. And your feet forward. There you go. Good. Somehow you managed to get two magic circles over here. I know you want them both. Ranger your feet. There you go. Good. That's it. Turn the knees slightly up. Awesome. Okay.

So we're just, we're working a lot on the outer thigh, a lot on the inner thigh, but definitely the pelvis. So we're going to pull in, pull your pelvis together and then press down that circle. Hold it for five, four, turn the knee up more to one and release. Good. And pulling in your stomach. Press down. Two, three, four, five. Release. One more time. Scooping in and press two, three, four, five release. You were able to keep your hip stacks so much better on this side. Yeah. And now putting this on the inside. Good.

It's a little bit more forward. There we are. And so now this is intense out or thigh scooping in almost the opposite of what we've been talking about. And push up with the outer thigh. Two, three, four, five and release. And use this part of your thigh and stretch my circle. Pushed down with the bottom leg. Lift up with the upper one one more time. Aunt's scooping in and do that and get longer. What do you think? Can we do that? That's a lot to ask and release. All right, I'm gonna take this circle and we're going to do that more freedom.

So bring your feet a little more forward. Cola. There you go. Lift your right leg up at low hip level, turn it out. And your goal is just to swing it back and forth without letting your knee roll or your box roll. So your square box and the knee tries to stay looking a little at the ceiling. Forward and back.

Good straight leg as you kicked back. Knee up towards the ceiling. That's it. And being a little bit more nitpicky this time, Huh? And well, I see improvement and I have to keep going with it. One more time. Forward and back. Good job. Alright, Janell. Swing your feet towards a collector and lie on your backs. Very nice job. Good. All right.

Bend your knees and place the feet flat on the Mat. Good job. And I want you to roll up and sit up any way you can again. Good. That wasn't very good. Anyway, you can. That's right. You can, you're allowed to move your, um, and then bend the knees and feet flat. And we're going to do one more thing. So it's almost exact same thing, but we're gonna challenge you a little bit more. So hands underneath your knees and if they're closer to you, it's a little no, actually, when they're further from you, it's a little easier for this exercise.

Squeeze your legs together and you're doing that by squeezing your pelvis. And I want you to roll back your pelvis. You're gonna pull back your hipbones roll back your waist, man, I should say. There you go. Take a breath and exhale, come forward. Good. But when you're coming forward, we always have to just go in the order of the spine.

Let me move this to the side. So obviously we're going to start rolling with the bottom of our back first. So we're going to roll our bottom of our back. Good. Just a straight arms, and then move your upper back, not your lower backs. So the shoulders come forward, not your waistband. Good. One more squeak. Press your strong pelvis together.

It's already strong after this one class back and then come forward. Upper back first. Not waistband. Good, Collette. Now, let's see if you can extend just one leg, the right leg, but the pelvis is pressing, the thighs are glued together, not shifting and do the same thing and exhale, scoop it in one more. Pulling in, roll away from those legs. Nice. Exhale, pull in, switch feet. Awesome. And waistband and pulling forward, keeping your waistband back. Oh, nice. Colette. One more. Okay. And scooping in and rest that foot down.

Nice job. And that is all for today. That was really good. Like huge improvement just from the star. Like you got more and more into it. Got this. And the legs weren't overworking on the last one they were reaching. It was really happy. Very good. Nice job.

Comments

How many weeks Patnatal can one start this
Monica Wilson
Get the green light from your OB. Approximately six weeks:)
This is a wonderful class Monica! When is the third postnatal class going to be published, I can't wait to do it!
Hi, is this workout suitable for diactis as well?
Monica Wilson
Hi Patrycja, This is a class that details the exercises I used to "rehabilitate" my body after having children. I say "rehabilitate" because I believe you don't just bounce back from pregnancy. You have to start from ground zero and rebuild and reconnect with your deep supportive muscles, i.e. the transverses and your pelvic floor. Retraining and strengthening these muscles are crucial in your recovery from diastasis. Having said that, it is always best to get a diagnosis with your doctor and let he/she guide you in healing this condition. If you have a mild case and have been given the green light, try this class but omit any twisting exercises and don't exaggerate the series of 5 exercises into too deep of a crunch, leaving the crisscross out altogether.
Monica Wilson
If at all possible though, I highly recommend you finding a Romana's Pilates Instructor in your area who can design a system specifically tailored for you to assure you are working with correct alignment and strengthening any muscles imbalances you might have. I hope this helps! Monica:)

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