Class #1024

Flexion and Extension Mat

50 min - Class
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Description

Kristi Cooper teaches a Mat Workout that gives you a good balance between flexion and extension. You will use an Overball almost the entire workout to add more intensity to some exercises and the assist you in others. The ball will be used between your legs, behind your back, alternating between your hands and ankles, and in other ways to make this a very interesting workout.
What You'll Need: Mat, Overball

About This Video

Apr 10, 2013
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So it's a good night. It's a special night. We've gotten new people in the room, but not really new to [inaudible]. You've got Nicole from Minneapolis, we have Hakey from Finland. Helen is back from being sick. I'm back from being sick. Aaron's just as fun as she always is and everyone else is excited. I can just tell Bonnie's here for the first time. All right, so we're going to use the ball and the request was to arch with the ball. So that's what we're going to do. Let's see.

Put the ball down between the ankles and the spacing. You will, let's face the ocean, don't you think? Yeah. And maybe just behind the mat you can stagger so you don't feel like you're going right into someone else. Um, there you go. And so I think the easiest way to think about arching or bending or anything you want to be working on is to start with stability and start with kind of grouping and collecting yourself. So with a subtle pressure on the ball, not a lot. Don't go crazy. You don't want to go down on anything. We want to lift up naturally on everything. Here we go. Inhale. Just breathe.

Exhale. Go ahead and roll forward to feel how your head can go first without your chest changing. Then your upper back. Okay, so we're arching officially right from the start. We're just not going the way it was requested initially. We're to the floor and if you can just imagine down here that you could draw the ball upwards towards your inner thighs. Not by squeezing in on the ball, but literally just sort of like imagining it, drawing up. Inhale, exhale. We roll back up. Your feet are flat. They're not gripping. It's for me, it's a subtle sense of the hips pressing forward. They're not actually, they're rotating on the hip joint, but so I don't go back. One more. Inhale, exhale. Down we go. Connecting your head to your ankles.

Feel what that relationship is or if there is one, there we go. Notice your feet. Are you rolling in or out? How hard is it to hold the ball? Do your knees change a lot? Hopefully not by much. Inhale and exhale. Would come up continuing the theme, looking good, of bringing some solid feeling to the body. We are going to rise up on the toes or the ball of the foot without leaning forward. Exhale. It's like you're reaching into your own hand.

If your hand or on your head or the ceiling and then lower down. It's okay if the feet wobble, feel your feet. Exhale, rise up, and then stretch yourself back down. Stretch from the waist. I'm just doing five. Number three, inhale. Exhale, rise up. Try and kind of spread out your toes when you're up that high if you can, or your arms and down. Okay, good. And one to two more depending on the rate that you're going.

And I'm going to get one more out of that. Alright, let's from here, just roll down one more time. Take the ball out. Before you come up though. Keep your feet apart. You just holding the ball lightly. No real squeezing it. You're just going to start to bend your knees. Round your back for now.

So you're bending your knees, you're sending your knees forward, your back is very rounded and you're reaching the ball forward almost like you're squatting. So really get down with an ease down with the button. Okay? Then before we do anything else, I want you to flatten out your back, so feel it come from the tailbone first so you are rounded, you're on your feet pretty evenly. Going to start the tailbone, extending it not into an arch just yet, but just to nice and long. Your arms will have to go higher to accommodate that. It's okay if they bend if the ball is too small, but let your head come with it up above the arms in the arms, I mean, and then just hinge to stand all the way up and to the mat while the train goes by. Okay. It's going to keep going by for a while, so we're going to keep buying.

Put the ball between your knees roll down or we're going to do a pelvic curl just for a few to warm up the spine more and then position yourself so you can be flat with your feet as much as possible that they are a little bit apart. Feel the back of your body pressing into the mat and then from there we inhale. Exhale to roll. Lightly squeezing the ball. It's more or less force are your hips, your hips. There we go. It's more or less your a, yeah, I have no idea what I was going to say. Awesome.

I can say go ahead and roll down. I don't know. I'm sure it mattered and we're at the bottom. Can you imagine that the ball is still between the ankles too, so you don't roll out. Exhale hollowing. We roll up. Imagine reaching the knees over your feet. You're long and inhale and exhale from the throat. Be Easy with it, right? You use the resistance where you need it all the way.

Stretching down. Long inhale, exhale. Off we go. Stand on your feet. All right. We're not meant to be trying to float in space or use the back of your legs. Push down, really pushed down. If you Cranfield, just shake it out. Inhale, exhale down. We go. Upper, back, middle back. Stretch your spine. It's not just around it. Alright, last one, up or go and then from here, inhale and exhale down, right both become off NIESR, uh, 90 let's take the arm straight up, palms facing each other and just check that your, it's like your arms just fall down. You don't have to pull them to your waist.

You don't have to pull them into the mat. Just let them fall into place. Coming toward the front of the room, towards the window. Inhale, rotate slightly, squeeze the ball and bring it back to the back. Inhale, rotate. Still kind of work in control here. It's not that satisfying in terms of a stretch, but still important. Inhale, your knees are lined up. Exhale. Nice. It might be worth thinking about in that you, everyone here is doing great that your feet don't come together, that they stay the distance of the ball. Let's do two more to the window. Whoa. And to the back.

Then come back center. As your feet go down, your arms are going to go back behind you. So let's inhale. Touch your feet down. I've got my palms facing up now. My feet touch, my hands are close to touching. Exhale, scoop the belly. So feel the breath. Start and press the arms back up and the knees [inaudible]. Inhale, feet down. Try not to move your back. It's basically neutral or long, however you see it. XL Scoop belly and Poreska through the air as if it were solid.

One more like that. Inhale, exhaling up, changing the next one. We're going to go to the a hundred with this. Inhale, reach back on your exhale. You're gonna bring your head, neck, and shoulders up with the feet. Curl all the way forward. Extend your legs if you're going to, and now just inhale two, three, four, five and exhale. Okay, now squeeze that ball just a little bit tighter, but not with the M so much energy that it sucks your legs into your hip joint. Rather a light squeeze and let the legs be long in front of the hip and for two, three, four, five, exhale. Exhale.

Do you want to change it? Grab the ball, place it up at the ankles. Two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Inhale, same exercise. Just leave it moving the weight out to the end. Inhale and exhale. Are you filling up the lungs? Are you just counting with little puffs of air? Thank you, sham. I love it. This is probably it in you. We're going to go into a neuron. Exhale, pull the ball and take it out from your legs and just rock yourself up. Set the ball behind your back. It's most likely going to be touching your back and we'll adjust as you need to.

Should feel right in the center. I like feet apart so it's not so crampy here in the middle, holding on underneath just for the moment so that you can really let the leg bones rest in the hip joint. Exhale. Here's the trick. We're gonna roll into the ball. They're kind of blown up so you're not going to get very far. You can roll into the ball but you're not gonna go down to do it. If anything, your upper body is going to feel like it's going backwards. Okay.

Go ahead and do that. Lovely. Let go and we're not going to move from here except to try and pop the ball with the exhale so you don't need to see anything. You need to feel it. Exhale and just draw the belly in. It might pitch you forward a little bit. That's not a goal and maybe not even good in him. Meaning if you just go forward and taking the weight off the ball. If anything, it's like the low back is trying to curl more but not because you're using your legs.

And now on the next exhale started as if we're going to stay here, but we at the last second, we're changing our mind coming forward in up. Yeah, no big deal. Hands behind your head. Inhale. It's the ball move. Put it back where it was. Exhale, it's the pelvis moving. You can always walk your feet away or even have the feet flex. That's not a big deal. So there you are curling into it more. I want you to use your feet.

This time I want you to push the heels into the ground or the mat and chuck more. Okay? Your upper body isn't to move. Take an inhale here. Exhale. You can use the feet to drive more energy into the ball, but you're not to go back any further or forward with your upper body. About three more breaths. Tempting. Don't you want to curl more? You can curl your low back more, but nothing else. Oh, I feel it. Next one. We're going to exhale and we'll come on up and we sit up dog, right?

Move the ball up your body a little bit and this one may roll out from UC. May Have to adjust it when you get down there and let's go roll back. So I have it now about mid heading towards the upper back. So there's a little gap that my lowest back from here. Arms are reaching forward for the moment.

We're going to take them up and now further behind you if your shoulders will accommodate that. But your intention is to get up some. This time I am asking you to sort of think of curling right under the chest and inhale, reach the arms further back. Exhale, single, plugging into the ball trying to pop. It is almost a vertical line. That's it. Inhale, you can round the low back all you want and back. Beautiful. Nicole. Just don't move your upper back. It's pretty small. It's from here. It's just the arms move that you can take your body forward there and then the arms come back. That's it. One more. Keep your body there.

Beautiful and then roll yourselves up. You can grab the legs if you want. It makes sense. Sort of one more like that. Exhale down this time. Take the arms up and back. Hands behind your head. I laced my fingers. You could do hand over hand. Push your head backwards, not down.

Just straight back and pressed into the ball to curve you more. I don't want you going up just pushing from there. We're going to come forward two or three inches almost off the ball and back down. Forward. Push down into the ball. To let you go forward. Right. It shouldn't hurt on the back at all. If it does, you may have to adjust the ball. Good. Looking into it. Good, good, good, good, good. Nice Gym. Excellent. Next one. You're coming all the way up. Yes.

All right. Oh, you're working. I love it. Move the ball up to the shoulder blades, mid shoulder blades, and you may have to just lean back on it so it doesn't roll away from you. All right, so it's like we're chilling, right, and we're just on the beach. We're not totally rounded, but then you can round just a smidge. That's cool. From that place where you feel like you're not arching and you're not overly tucking, you're going to hold the lower body. This is for your Hakey.

You're going to inhale, stretch yourself long. I'm going to go over the ball and maybe touch the back of my head without thrusting or letting go at the lower back. Right. It stayed where it was. Then to come up, it's your head only first, so don't drop your chest yet. Just look at your chest. You can still be pressing your head backwards a little. By the way, now your chest presses into the ball and it's like you're trying to push the ball away from you with those shoulder blades. Yeah, and go back again. Inhale, arching back. But keep the pelvis somewhat engaged.

This would be a good time to have a ball between the knees too. I'm not going to, but I could bring your knees a little closer together though. There you go. And back. So the impetus for movement almost comes from that exhalation. Yes. And one more chin to our chest. First look down a little sooner. Next time.

Nicole, that was good though. Generally and on when you're up into the forward flection part of it. Stay there. Everyone's pushing your head back, right? It's nothing you'll see. It's just something you do on your exhale. Pick up the right knee, bring it way in, way in, way in.

You can go towards it a little. As long as you're not reaching from your face. Put it down. Same side. Exhale, scoop again. And imagine picking up the thigh from the waist. It's not just that the hip there. One more time for four. Put it down in Hail. Other side. Exhale. Feel that where you want to right.

I won't have the down. I want to feel it right on the other side of that ball. Act like you're getting up Hickey. Act like you're going to get up more energy forward. Everybody says three that yeah, that's a four. Okay. Put it down. Reach the arm forward if we come. Oh boy. Yes. Go Chemco beautiful. Right.

All right. We'll come back to some flexion or extension in a minute. Take the ball and place it at your ankles if you can and into your body. It's a small ball. So if that, if you can't do it at the ankles, you just bring it up higher behind the knees or if you have any situation, I would go behind the knee instead of yeah, and so when for this one, if you go really close, you probably are gonna need to separate the knees if you don't need to. That's cool to try and pop the ball with your calves. Not your arms but your calves. Elbows are wide.

And then what we want to do is pick the knees up towards your forehead. Not from the hip joint though. Do it front. I have to fake it to show it to you instead of I can't do it very well. So instead of just bringing it close like that, you're gonna, you're gonna think to pick it up from here. That makes sense. Okay, good.

So you're drawing this music from the low back. Now inhale, roll back. Exhale up and inhale. Pick yourself up and back. That's what starts it and shifted and deepened. One more time. Great. Take the ball out. Place it between the ankles.

Slowly lower yourself down. Double leg stretch you want. Circle the arms today. Okay. Just stretch your legs out. Exhale, bring it in. Grab the ball. Inhale, reach back, legs together. Exhale back. Place the ball you can do at the knees if that's better for you. Inhale and exhale. So I'm just alternating it. Just getting you to think.

If you don't like it, you keep it there and stretch. Squeeze the bulb, pull it in. Squeezable, push it back, bring it in, push it back, bring it in. Meanwhile the whole body still in. Last one out. Bring it in, hold it head down from there. Curl right back up. And just for fun cause we haven't done in a long time. We're going to place the ball mid shin. I think you'll curl up with your hands behind your head.

And what you're doing is extending one leg. As you draw the ball up the other foot, you come back to center. I'm not going to twist yet. I might with this, probably not. And then the other one, okay, you bring it in and this is just single leg stretch. You most likely will have to adjust the ball during the exercise.

And there we go. Everybody happy? Oh we're going. Okay. So extend. There's a subtle inward pressure. Don't let it go. The knees out too. And reach three. You can kind of adjust that ball with that other foot and foot. And in five thinking of the midline and six and up, take the ball to the ankles. Head goes down.

Now take your hands out for a second and just place the thumbs or even part of the upper palm, right under your hips. So there's a little bit of a lift there. Check out what your back feels like. Feel your arms just resting on the ground and start without lifting your head. Start to lower your legs and before your back changes. And if you tighten up too much, it's going to change really soon.

Exhale and bring it back out. One more time. Inhale, think long if you tighten the legs. I just said that, didn't I? Nevermind. Exhale up. Curl your head up. Looking forward. Let the elbows come off now just sort of floating. Now you'll be able to go further, but you still don't want any more pressure on your hands than you did before, right? So you don't just drop weight into your hands cause they're there to help you.

They're there to show you and reach long, long, long, long, long and exhale, reach long, long, long, long, long. Exhale up. Last one like that. And take the ball out. Just fold your knees for a second. Set them on the ground. They're slightly apart with the ball in the air. Just keeping it there. Roll your hips up, pelvic curl and stretch through the front of the hips, standing on your feet.

Life before imagined, bringing the pubic bone more towards your chest. Inhale and exhale down. We go from there. Your knees come up, extend your legs, curl your head up, ball right over your head or forehead and then just bring the right leg to it. I'm just giving you an example. If you were to push the ball into your leg, that's where your pulse pulse comes in. Just switch this for fun. Give it a wall to push. Push. Now you don't have to do it that way. You can just hold the ball and touch it. Touch it, switch.

You can let the other leg go a little longer. Long reach, reach, good reach, reach, train. Look a little bit forward, Nicole. Slightly good, good. Look down your body a tiny bit, Helen, just to save your neck. Are we even good? Bring your legs down. Arms down. We're going into the double leg stretch for this one. We'll go either knees or ankles. The knees are a little easier to control, so I'm going to teach it from there, but you can do it from the ankles too.

And this is this Chris Process. Some of you, most of you probably know you curl up. You're going to inhale, stretch the legs. So we're going to rotate upper body to the front, squeeze the ball in the knees and get up right up near that knee. Inhale, everything stretches out and go the other way. Now what you're trying not to do is you're trying not to let the knees go across the body. They stay right there in the center. And where were we? Stretch and twist and stretch. Squeeze the ball throughout and twist and stretch and twist.

Keep both knees together, Jim. Actually you're doing great. Nevermind. This is a good variation. I take that back. A, this must have to be the last set and one more to the back. Nice. Jim does it the hard way. Back to center. Alright. Take the ball out and place it under your sacred please. Hi, how are you doing? Everybody's all right.

Fine. What? Awesome. Okay, good. Something's burning I heard. Awesome. Great. All right, so we're going to take the legs up. Swing and enjoy. Not quite a rollover yet, so we have our arms down my, I'm like super wobbly tonight for the moment. We're just pressing down into the ball. In fact, it might even be you're pressing down into the space where the ball isn't at your low back so that you get a little bit of a lift of the pelvis. It won't be much. I know you won't get off the ball on that, but I just want you to get that sentence of squeeze, release, squeeze, release.

[inaudible] feel the triceps work into the floor. All right, now from there actually you want to exaggerated, let one leg cross over the other and let the knees bend a bit so that the feet thighs drop towards you of tiny bit. Now contract and really feel yourself lift off with the triceps release fully so you get that little bit of an arch and then up again. So what we don't want to do is once we start to lift, then you don't want the legs coming any closer. Once you're kind of into the, all right, uncross your legs. Now you know what I'm going for. I think we're going for rollovers from here. You may want his arms closest together as possible underneath to the bottom and go too far. Here we go. We lived off.

Do not close at those thighs into the body anymore than you need to. You're looking up not at your your belly. Flex your feet separate. Lower the legs. And now look for the ball from your chest, for the ball, from the back of the ribs. Find the ball somewhere in your low back. Be Aware of where it is in case it rolled up too high. And then if you can, you lower the legs down. Inhale. Exhale. Go up first up first to go over flex.

Separate down you go. Melts into beautiful Nicole there. Circle clothes and one more like that. Up and over. Nice Helen thought. Okay, now think about your body. What does your body needs? Stretch. Flex at the ankles. Yes. All right.

Then for a moment take, I'm gonna change the emphasis. Take your feet down, take the ball out and place it on your belly. Now the trick is to not lose the ball and not pop it either, but you'll find the balance where it's just there. Here we go. Exhale, keep contact with the ball especially right here. Keep it. You can't separate your feet. I'm sure. Just flex them. Put a lot more pressure on the ball going down. Come on now you can try and pop it and then adjusted if you need to point and if we go keep it and flex and separate.

Now if the ball's really small and you feel like you're compressing, you don't need to do that, but the point is just simply to feel. Try not to feel a difference in pressure on the ball. Last one, as you go over flex, squeeze a little through the back of your body and down we go. Just roll yourself up to seated. I'm not going to use the ball for the spine stretch. I'm just going to move it. Spine stretch with the arms behind your head today. At least initially, pull yourself up, narrow your hips so you get the sense of strength real strong through the feet.

Beautiful. Flex your feet a lot. Yes. All right. Inhale from there. You exhale yourself in here a little. You look really ready to go. Xcel round over head first. Nice. Nice. Here. Inhale. As you roll back, just right back up, straight back up. So high-key slightly slight variation for you.

Instead of coming forward, we're going to go down and then straight back up and then I'll do the variation I think you're headed into. All right, from the top, you're being pulled up your, you can see them. They're not way behind you. Here we go. Exhale down. You're still thinking of lifting through the spine. We're thinking top of the head, right between the knees. Then flex, strong. Inhale, roll back up and down again.

So remember the idea is get all the error, prove it to yourself. You can either let the elbows fall forward. Sometimes I think we get too caught in that. That's better for now. Yes. And then inhale, let the need to inhale, bring you back up. Like let's work with the body that's not control it so much.

I really mean that right now. So blow it out. Prove it, prove it. That's it. Hickey. That's it. More, more, more than when you know you have to come up. Just inhale. It will force you up. You know that's it, Huh? Yeah. Okay. Adding on x, say [inaudible]. From here, we now will go into that long diagonal from the tailbone.

You're going to grow out on the line of your body. As long as you can extend your arms alongside your ears. Inhale, refold them. They get longer still in your body and exhale. Here's where the hipbones pull back and you try and fit in between the knees again and roll back up and exhale, rounding over. Good. Let your elbows fall forward. Yeah, you feel how much that drop? It's good. Let that happen. Go, go, go, go. Then inhale into your long flat back first. If you're already there, then you get to exhale the arms and it's like they attach from the low back.

Gorgeous. You can go more forward. You're more flexible. Good. Inhale refold and exhale down you go. Excellent. My favorite. Last one. Exhale round. [inaudible].

Inhale, using the backs of the legs too. Feeling both sides of your body. Exhale the arms up. Then changing it. Lower the arms. Don't change your spine. Just lower the arms so they're more in front of your chest. Inhale, expand to a t or a wide open position. Exhale, push forward like you're going to round back, but we're not going to lean more forward like he got pulled with the arms. Check your ribs. Inhale Open. Feel the length of the back of your neck. Exhale, squeeze and lean into it. More work happening at the inner thigh too.

Still long in the back in here. This time we will exhale and actually roll back. Push to the feet. Roll yourself down all the way. Keeping it apart. Hands behind your head. Uh, feet. See? Yeah. Fits can stay apart a little bit today. Oh, did I really call for this one?

I didn't mean to do that. Here we go. Netball. Inhale, look forward. Look at your feet. Exhale, come up. Come up, stay curved. You can always let go, but put them back and you're down. Now stretch your spine. You guys stretch it. Inhale, sit back up. Squeeze the glutes a little. You're going to hinge slightly. Doesn't mean you're arching your low back. Now as if your feet got pulled. You round at the low back, the middle, back and down. Right back up. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale that pulling you back up. Hindering Angie. Make those hipbones. Move. Flex the feet. So you're pushing as if your feet were in the strap. And then the last one we called try and flex more from the ankle. You do what I do, which is from the toes. Do it more from the eco. Yep.

All the way. We're going to stay up when you get up here. Good. Alright. Uh, oh. I just forgot what I was going to do with this one. All right, that's right. Close the feet. We're going to the front. Inhale. Rotate. Exhale. Center. I got it. Inhale, rotate. Feet aren't moving, but you are working strong in here. Stay here. Uh, the, I think it's the front foot. The foot closest near. They're going to push down on just down on a little more as you arch your upper back, but only in back this time you're going assist yourself up, up and exhale back through center. Inhale, rotate to the back. I'm just putting a little more pressure on the back leg now as I pushed down to rise up and arch, that upper back head is supported and centered.

Inhale, exhale, inhale and exhale. [inaudible] in him. Finding your resistance. Good. Lift the chest. Lean forward a tiny bit. Hakey just little and yes, and back to center. All right. Wouldn't have that been fun for the legs were apart, so in how rotate is not what we're doing. Just saying. Exhale, reaching forward. Elbow to Shin. Roll back up and switch. Exhale, get that rib cage over there. Gorgeous and Baca.

You're all doing really well. Keeping that opposite hip down and up. One more sort of hand over. Good. Good. Keep that rotation and up. I'm going to change it a little bit here if you can. When we go, if you can set your elbow down, do. If you can't, you can just put your forearm down a little bit and then back away from it in your spine. So you pulling back. I'm going for a little more curve tonight. You can also use that forward l or the, it's the back elbow reaching toward the front opening.

Use it to leverage you a little bit to open up. That makes sense. Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Good. And then lift up. Roll up the forward hand. Now it goes down very close to you to give you an extension without it coming from, you don't want to do it from your low back. Keep your glutes a little tight and get that extension of their return your hand. We'll just do one more to the back. I'll do my best. Rotate rounding over.

Find a spot for the arm or forearm and before you torque and yeah, I don't want you to tour you just pull your hips away from it a little and then see what you can. You got it on the rotation and then roll up. You're still facing that way. The hand that's closest to the back of the what direction you're facing goes to behind you. That's right, and now you're straight spine. You push down, glutes, engage, and then try and arch set up or back again on that rotation. All right, free it up and close it up.

You guys up for scissors and bicycle? Okay, here we go. Nicole, like really down we go. So are going gonna bring your feet in. If you are not someone who wants to be on their risks, you can play with this with putting the ball underneath you. Just show you real quick so that if you don't want to do a risk to situation, you're going to be doing your scissors more in this fashion. Still though, you're going to be, everyone's going to be focusing on that lower leg. It's just the differences of your may be able to touch the ground here.

Nobody's going to go into a more significant arch because of movement. We're doing all right. Here we go. So you choose roll yourself up. We go those arms in closer to you, palms facing up and support your back. I know I tend to not say exactly where to put it because it should feel comfortable to you or sort of go into a little bit of an arch of your back, your low back and support it.

Now you don't want to do is drop your butt weight into your hands. Keep yourself more vertical even though you're in a bit of an arch. Let's take the legs up. Left leg is going to reach away from you, right leg is going to come towards you a little, just a little. Now as you continue to press your left, like I want you to think about lifting your hips out of your hand. It's going to be back work a little. It's definitely gonna be butt work.

Enhancing work slowly changes to get the feel on the other side. Holding back a little on the top leg, the left leg reach the other like long do you feel your butt tightening near hand? You should lift up, up, up and let's go a little quicker. It's pulse. Pulse. I'm trying to get the scissor right centered of your body are pointed straight up to the ceiling. Even if it's not very wide. Hold the next one. If you want to move to the next version, you bend the leg for this from you and cycle through. Remember, if you, if you just reached down, is going to hurt your wrist.

You're going to lift up out of it. You don't have to touch the floor. Lift, lift, reverse it. Oh, I don't know how to say it. Just do it down. Up, reach, reach. Ben, get a stretch. Reach, bend, reach, bend both legs over the top. Release your hands. You're gonna roll up and catch your ankles for open leg. Gropper okay, let's go up. Oh, nice. You guys are good. Here we go. Remember how we rolled before from the waist? That's what we do now. Exhale. Send the hips up and then down and then are you are, send them up. It's like you're pulling legs up out of the hip socket. Maybe down, keeping the shape. Subtle change there at the end when you get to straighten. Now two more.

One more, and all right, close it up. Bend the knees to tabletop for a teaser. Prep. The hardest teaser there. We've just size where they are. Roll down to your shoulder blades. It's from the pelvis. Just learning that. If you look up here, you'll get up more easily than if you look down. It's weird logical perhaps, but it's like, oh, Kara kept saying that he'd look up, look up.

Where are you going or are you going, oh, I'm going there. Right. Lovely. One more. Let's get easy as the breast sort of [inaudible] right. Set it down and let's go onto our side. So just face from your lie all the way down. No, let's not. Let's go straight to the side kick. So I'm going to say I'm going to do it on forearm tonight.

Some of you like to go all the way. That's cool. Or you can even do it on the form, which is how rail would do it. I mean on the elbow. I'm going to go form for now a leg slightly in front. Okay. And then we're lifting up away from the ground with the ribcage top, hand up or in front. It's up to you. Lift the top leg, stretch it longer.

So you really almost going into a arch here in front to the front. We kick, kick, kick, take it back. Which chick? Chick, chick, chick rouge. And then this is sort of an odd one out of freedom and strengths. Freedom. Straight press. Press one for two more. Reach looking. Good. [inaudible] next one. We'll take it to the back. Hold it there. Take the top arm down just to, and keep it close to you so you can feel what you might do in your ribs.

Lift the, lay up all the way over and you're in front. You're not leaning into it, right? Pick it back up. Take it behind you. Oh, okay. You can move the leg and the hip joint doesn't have to stay parallel the whole time. You can try B. All right, here's the trick.

Not Trick. Might just be smart. Push down on the lower straight leg to help you. We got to use what we have pushed down. Nice. Huh? All right. Last ones at the back and then from there we're going to take it in front. Um, let's go down on this one to the upper arm. In the leg, in the foot and close.

Hip is open. Stretch the top like flex the foot and lift and really strong flex. Trying not to point down three and squeeze four. Nice and high. Five, eight, nine and 10 sir, get as high as you can. Take it to the back, way back. Prove it. Prove it as far back as you can and down when didn't go very high, but I tried back, back, back, still resisting. Still resisting.

One more that way, as high as you can and keep it high as you go back, reverse it. Take a back up. Bend forward, back up and forward, back up and forward and that is enough of that. We'll come back on that side later, but for now, flip legs a little bit in front. Top leg. Is that hand behind your head? If that's where it was before, reach the leg. Here we go. To the front. Kick. One, two. Sweet. Back kick. One, two, sweep back. Jim, come up. Out of that bottom shoulder just a little. I just getting a little. There you go.

Okay, good. Give yourselves five more to the front. To the back to the front, Nicole, just a tiny bit less of a lean forward. When you're legos behind, you're just there. You guys this last too. Thank you. We held it to the back. We put the arm down because your body's going to change a little on this one. Lift up and forward it way up Ben. Way back forward. You can put your hand down. If when Jim, you're being tough there and go, go, go.

Give ourselves three more way up there and touch and wait and back. Here's two back. There's three to the back. That's right, right. We went down to do our inner thigh. She questions. Thank you. I don't know. I'll go ahead.

I'm just dealing with my little situation here on my growth. You're lying down. Top leg is in front. Yup, and flex and lift up one and down. Lift up two and three down way high. Four. You'll notice probably maybe that your foot wants to turn one way or the other.

Sometimes do your best to just keep it straight ahead, toasted, pointing forward. Three more. Good. [inaudible] next one. Stay there. I can reach it longer and higher up, up, up. Take it to the back as high as you can. Circle around. Come right back up for three years too. [inaudible] one more full circle and reverse it. Take it back, lifted up.

It's almost like a square. If you're not really sure where your enrages are yet. Two and three here. Okay, we'll come back. But for now you're going to turn onto your stomach with the ball for single leg Kik and placing the ball. Again, these are a little bigger than we've had them sometimes, so it should be relatively comfortable placing about sternum. Don't let it take your breath away and then kind of fall onto it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Think from there. Yeah, I'm going to share it below use. Yup. So your arms, I liked the way Bonnie has hers and Nicole has hers. Those are good.

Just sort of hand over hand. Wherever it naturally rests from that position. We're going to lift your head. Just look forward. Don't do anything else with your back. Just look forward and the more you look forward, the more pressure I want on the ball. When you push down on the ball, you can, a lot of you can look more forward. Aaron, you look great. It's good. That's how you're putting pressure on the ball. While you do that, I want you to, I want you low and then relax. Good.

Hey, come move your ball forward a little bit. I might be wrong about that, but I think not. And again, so we're going to draw the shoulders down a little. Tractioning the floor look forward and push down on the ball. That's it. Good. Really good. And Go back down. So both of you kind of resting on the ball as much as possible. Just your heads move. Sink into the ball. That's it.

Keep looking forward and drop into the ball. It's kind of counterintuitive. There you go. Now if you're going to lift any more, you push the ball forward. Don't get off the ball. You push it forward. Like you're going to do a back bend with your upper back. And does that make sense? Kind of. I'm trying to it.

Another way of saying it is try to feel your upper back. I'm going to move the balls this for the mic purposes, but you're not lifting off of it. You're rolling it forward. If anything. All right. Stay where you land. Reach the feet to the knees, slightly. Hover. If it's too high, just move the ball like the balls too. Blown up. So now you're all looking forward. Knees are Harvard. Kick, one leg kick, kick, straighten, switch, kick, kick, straightened. Dropped the weight into the ball.

Kick, kick, straighten, kick straight. Now alternate and says kick kicks, switch, kick, kick, XL four. Inhale and exhale. Inhale. Hips aren't moving. Lovely. And exhale. One more time. Inhale and exhale. Two, three, four. All right. Shum up onto your hands and knees and press back. Okay, Helen, this is, I'm going to move my ball to sit. Doesn't fall, but I'm going to show a first version, second version, third version. So everyone's going to get the opportunity here.

First version is your hands and knees. We'll go on for a tricep. Sort of getting prepared for um, Soltar stand. I'm not sure what to stand, but it planks, someone's ready go. Okay, so you're going to bend your elbows, check this out. So it's just bending the elbows and so we don't even worry about if the body moves, it will move eventually. That's it. Right? So that's version one. That's plenty.

You can do this on a wall to standing where if you don't have much weight on your arms at all, that's one version. If you put in the more weight you want on it, then you just lean into it. Don't go over it but lean into it. So you're taking weight out of your knees. Right. That makes sense, Helen. Okay. Next version. Is this basically the same thing?

You just moved the legs back and come into and long line so your shoulders are almost over your risk to start and it's the same thing down, up. Make it so it feels like you can go in between your shoulders or your chest, I should say. It goes between your arms. Okay. Version, whatever is going to be from a peer and I'm going to, I'm going to have us do 10 and see how we go. And you'd be up here sort of in the upstretched position doing it. Okay, let's go with that 10 of whichever version you want. I'm going to start in the middle. All right. Off you go. Inhale as you bend. It doesn't have to be far though, right?

You just want the elbows going straight back by your body too and I have to let your head reached three. It stays with you. Oh good and nice. Five good. Six. Excellent. Seven. You got it. And the a good aid. More elbow bend at Helen. No, there you go. That's what I'm talking about. You're doing the hard version. Last one and stretch back.

Makes Sense. Let's go again. Pick a version, pick a version. Um, if you want to, if you come out more over your hands, that's going to be even harder. So I wasn't encouraging that, but you can. Otherwise you're just back here. It's a good lat stretch or on all fours. Let's go ten one and two, three, four up. Fuck up. Six. Nice. Achy. So here's eight, nine, 10, take a rest. Yeah, don't one more set in you. [inaudible] if you do either, here's this variation.

I'm gonna do a single leg so you can either do it with one leg up, right? Or leaning into it or here. Five and five. Take your version, but it's an elbow band is not a shoulder release. Alright. One leg is up for five, whichever leg, whichever version. Here we go. Down up one, watch your head.

Yeah, up to three, four down, other leg and one and two up three, four and five right and down where? Go stretching back. Release your arms up to your knees. But since we have the ball that's grabbed them all and it's just going between your knees even faced with the same way. I just wanted to show you, this is the thigh stretch gym. I don't know if this is a great one for you. Um, actually it might be okay. The way to test it cause we're not, we're still not quite sure what it is.

Right? So focus on the Tuck. And then if you lean a little, you'll get, you'll know quite quickly. So just don't push it. All right? So we're lightly squeezing the bar. We're for now vertical. I want you to everybody tuck and slightly look down. So there's your line of vision. It's like out in front of you. Maybe the edge of your mat. Arms are probably gonna want to counterbalance.

And then you hinge back. You're taking the thigh closer to the calf. Squeeze the ball. Squeezable squeeze the ball. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze the ball more. And up you come. Don't be shy to push your feet into the ground. It's okay. I mean the shins. Here we go. Tuck kind of downward vision.

Squeeze. Inhale. Exhale. Push to come back. Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Duck. Duck, duck, squeeze. Okay. So that's the thing is you could keep going with that, but I want you to give you one other option, um, which is a kneeling hybrid. So what you'll do, I'll say it more when we do it, but you're going to take, what should I say? I'm going to say left, left arm up. You're reaching up. Give me one second. I'm going to tighten as if I'm gonna thigh hinge, but that's not the ultimate goal. But there that's involved.

Then the other arm is going to swing up. I'm to grab my foot and then it's, it's up. So here's your arching Hickey, right? It's not back here. Now we've gone away from that part of it and it's up so that when you get up, it's like someone pulls you up and you're back. We haven't done, yeah, this is your chance to be dramatic. But the real trick is your button. Use Your Butt. What did I say? All right. Um, use your button. I meant I'm gonna look at you. So let's go left.

Left it as all right, I'll do left. Left. It's up. Squeezable now you're going to start to look. Don't lean back yet. You've talked a little. Look for your foot. Let the other arm come up and now you can lean your upper body back. Maybe your hip. Stay where they are. If that's not enough of a stretch, you bend the arm touching the down foot.

But you'd keep reaching up with the chest that's at Helen. Now reach the arm like someone pulls you up, swinging around, right arm up. Start looking for it. Tucked pelvis, shins in the mat if you reach there and if no big deal, you keep reaching up with the chest, lift the shoulder blades, come together, bend the back arm if you want. And then when mill yourself back up again, left arm up swivel. Look Ben. But keep those hips about where they started and we come. You could die hinge too, but that's, well that's fine actually. Just not what I was cuing. Good, good. More chest up, more chest up, more chest up and and just round forward. Curl the toes under. Keep the ball where it is and just stand on your feet folded over and from there a light squeeze of the ball or if you prefer you can drop the ball to your ankles and we just roll up opening the front of the hip, being laid on ourself, rotating the arms outward.

Take a deep breath in, just kind of stagger. Exhale. I want to get rid of the ball for our last exhale. So just take it away. Something about that just doesn't seem as elegant as I want it to be. So coming back up and here we are an now filling up.

You can archer up or back here. It feels good. Maybe Lisa. Fingers Urchin lengthen and stretch, stretch and let it go. That's enough. Good work. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Welcome back. Hello. Yay. Oh, feels good to be back, Huh?

Comments

Catherinedmr I love my new turquoise pants! Thanks for the inspiration!
1 person likes this.
UUU, that was such a great class - I am so happy you are back, Kristi! I missed you and your mat classes a lot....and your turquoise pants are terrific
3 people like this.
Wow! Thanks for the great class!
So happy I had a chance to exercise with you!
What a great group!
What a delight! So much self discovery in this class thanks to Kristi's guidance. I know that viewers are divided over whether teachers are filmed solo or giving instruction to a group. I still love the group dynamic and learn from the corrections that are given.
Thank you all! It's great to be back!
Hey do you have an auto detect option for this video? I was so glad to see Kristi's new video but I cant watch it for some reason on the other settings.
Thanks!
Jeanne~ Thank you for pointing this out to us. It looks like while we were encoding the Auto-Detect video format the connection was disrupted so it didn't do finish uploading. We are working to fix this right now and Auto-Detect should be available by the end of the day.
1 person likes this.
Super deep abdominal work ~ loved all the variations with use/placement of ball. Really enjoyed this session :) Thx Kristi!
2 people like this.
Ahh the marvelous miniball. Very nice. I loved the challenge of the rollover with the miniball at the belly, transition to OLR, and the kneeling high bridge. Learn something every time I study a session. PA - my best investment!
2 people like this.
Welcome back Kristi! Loved the class. There's always a little hidden gem or two (or ten!). In this one particularly loved the rolling like a ball cueing from the waist. A great reminder on form there. Thanks!
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