Class #1082

Upper Body Mat

45 min - Class
34 likes

Description

Monica teaches a Mat class that focuses on arms. She uses many props like the Magic Circle, Hand Weights, and Poles to make sure you feel your arms working for each exercise. Monica adds in the Rowing Series and High Bridge to the intermediate Mat work to make your upper body work a little harder. Your arms will be ready for summer after this class!
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights, Pilates Pole, Magic Circle

About This Video

Jun 15, 2013
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All right, well I'm so happy that you guys are here to join me and doing a great arms. A class summer is coming and we need to really get our arms in nice shape. So let's stretch them out first actually starting with some nice uh, arm, some shoulder circles. We're gonna use a lot of props today. So we're going to use two pound weights, which you could use two soup cans or two cans that are, you know, if you don't have weights at home or something like that, we're going to use a weighted bar. Her PR, preferably like a two to three pound bar. If you don't have that, you can always just use the weights, but it's a little watching the evenness when you work on it. Definitely a magic circle. Hope we have that. And then finally, a really nice long six foot, um, pole.

These what you could use a broom when we need to if we don't have it. So trying to get some really good arm work out of our, our standard mat. Same amount of time, but just have a really good arm workout. Okay. So let's start with the shoulders and let's do some nice delicious shoulder rolls always with the feet. Let's do um, heels together, toes, partner, Pilati stance. Let's push the earth away with the ball of our feet. Lift your arches, lift your inner thighs, lift your powerhouse and open your collar bones.

And the crown of the head is nice and floating to the ceiling. Now let's lift up our shoulders like we're really just tense. And then we're going to roll him back. And then we're going to slide our shoulder blades down. And we're going to close the chest as we come up. So open, go all the way down before the shoulders come up. Close the chest. So try that.

Yeah, and now bring it up. Take them back and slide them all the way down. And now let's reverse it. So we're going to go back and then up and forward, good side, all the way down. Then open the chest and then up and back. Good and down, and then open. All right, now let your arms hang. A lot of times we're doing a lot of see curve in pilates and that's really important to strengthen our stomach. But try to take it to the next level and don't make your whole body like this up here, but keeping the strong stomach.

Try to see if you can feel those shoulders and those shoulder blades and cavities. The collarbones kind of open when you're doing a nice c curve. And so we're going to work a lot when we're doing any of the arms to really roll open the shoulders, feel that nice strong line and then go for it, whether it's triceps or whatever. So does that sound good? Let's grab our bar. I'm to give you a bar. Here you go. And just do one more stretch with our shoulders. So hold it. You might need to hold it Kinda wide. Good.

And we're just gonna bring it up to the ceiling. Take a big breath and then exhale. Tried to get this far back behind you as you can and then bring it up and then bring it down. Good. And you gotta do it. The stretchy band too, so you can go wider and then probably lower. Let's do it two more times up and then try to really open up those shoulders. Good and forward and down. We're using a lot of props today.

More time because arm work at arm work really needs a lot of closed chain, um, work. In other words, resisting against something else. It's much easier to feel your arms. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and take those bars for you and hand you a magic circle to start with our cit and I put these next to you so that you're ready to go. But if you would just tighten your arms, like if you do that exact same stretch right now, go for it. Pretend you're holding that bar and then lift up and reach it back. You really lose a lot of that.

So you have to do a lot of the work as a closed chain, meaning you have something to push against or something to resist. And then all of a sudden your muscles are like, whoa. And you feel everything. So we're going to have to use a lot of our imagination. I'm going to hand you this circle. Hold it. When we hold a magic circle, it's going to be between the heels of your hands. So right here, and then you're going to lengthen your fingers. Okay? And we're gonna always try to hold it, um, with straight arms at the same level as your shoulder.

And you're going to slightly bend the elbow a little bit more. Sorry. And exaggerate and drop that elbow for me. Nice. So this is what we don't want to do. Okay? I want you to always use the back of the arms, shape that arm to lift that elbow up towards the ceiling up. We're going to bend the elbows a little bit, little more. Good.

And always trying to lift the elbows. That's right. Very nice. Okay. That's where all the work is right there. So we're gonna pull our belly in, squeeze that circle, and keep lifting up. Put One foot in front of the other. There you go. Or behind either one. You can always think about it two different ways. And then you're gonna lower yourself down to the mat.

Squeeze that circle so you can keep lifting, lifting, lowering down to the mat. Nice job. And then go ahead and lift your bottom back. Put The circle down to your side. I want you to grab that bar again. So you're, I'm going to be throwing props at you left and right. Go ahead and lie down, taking the full length of the mat. Good. And lift that bar up and take it back as you exhale. Good. Kind of the same stretch, but try to keep your powerhouse and inhale, lift your arms up and exhale. Bring your gesture. Head Up. Good. And now draw your knees into your chest and slip that bar under your legs, under your thighs. Good. We're going to do the a hundred like this.

Straight legs up to the ceiling and we're going to pump. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Very nice. You've got your powerhouse. Your stomach's in, you're pulling into the mat. We've got that, but now can you think about those shoulders and roll them open a little bit? Good school. Make sure those thighs are squeezing and lengthening to the ceiling.

Don't lose anything else, but think about really pushing down a heavy weight with those arms. Yeah. Good. And in with the air. That's 50 at least. And exhale, feeling the upper stomach, feeling the back of the truck. Still Open those collarbones a little more. Yeah, give me two more big breath and you're reaching up are far from your thighs. Don't let it skim your thighs. Reach it passed good.

Put it underneath your knees and draw to you. I liked the effort. Rest your head down. You're going to pull it in underneath your knees and pull to your good first stretch. Now take it out and you're gonna reach up behind you. Good. I'm gonna. Good, good, good. Straight in your legs. I'm going to give you a nice strap here. If you are doing this at home, you don't have a strap.

You can always slip your feet under like your couch and you're going to reach your arms up to the ceiling and hold open those collarbones. Slide your shoulder blades away from your ears. Okay. Think about that while you try to lift your ears between your arms. Yep. Good. Now press that bar down as you roll up one bone at a time. Curling up. Oh, all the way forward. Head between ears between those arms. Yeah.

Good. Now slide those shoulder blades back from me. There you go. And roll back using your belly so the shoulder blades are pulled back. Your bellies pulling against this strap or the couch, whatever it is, reach it up and reach back. Good. Arms Up. Check those shoulders. Shoulder blades. Aha had comes up and pushing down with good strength.

The bar's going to be parallel to the floor and now pull back those shoulder blades again. There you go. This is your start of how are we going to work those arms? Hold it right here with the arms up. Thank you. Drop your shoulders deeper yet. Lengthen your arms further to the ceiling and then reach it back so there's this little extra OMP little up and back. All right, now that's enough slow.

We're gonna double time that arms head. Curl it up. Try to keep thinking about what we're doing with those arms and roll it back parallel to the floor. Lower back, middle. Reach it up and back and arms first. Then the head, curl it up. Touch your toes. Good, and make sure those shoulder blades are sliding down. Opening the chest, good and arms and head and scoop it up. Reach for those toes. Good and rolling down, keeping it nice and parallel and reaching up and back. Two more arms. Head parallel, pep push down instead of up to the ceiling for me and rolling back that sometimes you want to roll under a low ceiling.

So here's my low ceiling arms head and now under the ceiling under there yet. Go good and roll back under that low ceiling. There you go. Good job. All right, that's enough of those. We're going to sit up and do some rowing, so sit on up bar next to you. Let's grab our two pound weights that I hit over here and we're going to keep our feet under that strap. Okay, so we're gonna scoop in your belly, but actually hold your arms right here. Open your shoulders, slide them down.

Be Very aware of your shoulder placement. You're going to roll back your waistband as you row into yourself. Weights together. There you go. And scooping in one. Open the shoulders and the arms to hold. Push back the shoulders. Three.

Then come together. Don't bring the arms all the way together if your chest can't open. So you want your shoulders to really open and bring the arms as close as you can. Then lift your arms up to the ceiling and big circle back to your ankles. And again, waits together. Sitting up tall. Scoop in one.

Open two shoulders are open, right. Press back. Three, pull back four lift up your arms with open collarbones and circle back. One more time and scooping and one open to pull it in your powerhouse pushed back three and then keep pushing back. Scoop and then good arms lift up and around. Good. Alright. Right angles sitting up tall. This is going to be a straight back the whole time. Really.

You can flex your feet here if you want to pull on that strap, but you want to lift your belly in and up as you go back as far as you can and then come forward. Reach your arms down to the side of the mat and from the shoulders. Pull your shoulder blades back, crack a walnut, opening that chest. Lift your arms up and circle back to your feet. All right, again, right angles scooping in one goes back to nice and straight. Back. Hands inside shoulder blades. Pull back three, lifting up and big circle. Good. One more time, right angle. Good. Lifting the elbows as you go and coming forward.

Good hands to the side, but pool with the back of the arms and the shoulders. Squeezing. Lifting arms is how high can you get them up? High, high, high, high, circling around. Good job. Alright, now we're going to do from the chest. So literally elbows are by your ribs and your hands are from your chest and you're going to scoop up one. Hold it here, open those, roll those shoulders down. That's it. As you press down, lift and posture, even more. Opening the chest, lifting up, up, up here. I like to imagine I'm hanging between two buildings and I got to pull myself up so I don't fall. Go ahead and or a superhero comes and sees me. And here we go. One and push down, lifting open, chest up, and it's a tall back, not an arched back. So keep pulling in your belly.

And one more time. Scoop in open collar belts. Push down with the back of the arms, lift your chest. Good lifting up to the ceiling. And now push down as we lift, lift, lift. And that's enough. And we're going to flex the feet and your hands are by your heads now and we're going to bring our head nice and dive it down to your knees. Slide your weights on the mat all the way to your heels.

Now roll up your spine, one bone at a time, stacking your vertebra. Open those collarbones yet. Try to something away even more. And then come up to the ceiling and again, hang between two buildings and pull yourself up as he pushed your yields away from your hips. Inhale, exhale, rolling up your spine. Shoulder blades, slide down, open. Collarbones. Inhale, push something away as you lift, but don't compromise that up. Collarbones and push and push and press one more scooping it in.

Stretch. Roll up your spine, exhale inhaler and try to keep inhaling and exhale here. We're going to sit cross legged and your arms go to the side. Here's that soft elbow and you're going to basically think of lifting those elbows until your weights come together. We should really be a little forward, so push into your weights and lean forward at a diagonal. Bend your elbows behind your ears and straighten. Bend your elbows way back. Slide your shoulder blades down.

Now lift in your belly and waist as you straighten and again, and lift in your waist to more. Bend your elbows behind your ears and lift in your waist. One more and we'll transition to the hug and straighten and now keep energy in your arms as you switch legs. Elbows are still lifted and hug around a tree. A big crowd formed around you. Push them away with energy and inhale and exhale and inhale. Hold this Juliana. Lift up the elbow. Yeah, push away.

Stay here. Take a breath and exhale in with the air. Push away with the back of the arm and exhale. Inhale, open those collarbones. Squeeze the shoulder blades together. One more exhale and inhale. Lift those elbows. Push away and rest your arms. Great job, but your weights away. We're going to lie down on your back for the rollover.

So just put them to the side line out onto your back, straight legs. And now that your arms are warmed up, we're going to really learn how to use them for the roll over. So bend your knees into your chest, straighten your legs up to the ceiling. Open those collarbones. Sigh those shoulder blades down and push the earth away with your arms.

Squeeze your hips together and touch the toes to the mat behind you or the floor. Ah, open the legs. They're hip with the part and roll down shoulder with, sorry. Shoulder with role goes low as you can with those like squeeze in over Energy and Oh and rolling down. Let's lengthen this side of the little mark and squeeze and over. That's the last one in this direction. Open and rolling down.

I'm going to stretch you and reversing it. So now open and over. There you go. And squeeze those inner thighs together and roll, Deana. Let's not forget about those arms. Slide deck reached down, open and over. Open over. There you go. Squeeze together. And as you're down, open those collar bones reaching, reaching one more time. Open over and squeezed together and really reach those arms long away from you.

Opening that chest. There you go. Right leg stays up, left leg goes down. And we're going to do single leg circles. So stretch that leg towards you. One more time. Hands behind the thigh or calf, whichever one you want. You can probably go to your calf and while you're doing that, you're like no, stretch that right hip away and open those collar bones. Yeah. And again, you're going to push your arms into the mat now so that you can feel your belly.

Poole, that leg up to nose and crust around circles cross down around us and crusts around up. Good. Three more. Think about your upper body. How's that neck is the back of the neck flat so you're getting more out of the shoulders. One more and reverse. Reach down around, up. Good arms are pressing down and reaching towards your toes. Two more around, up. One more time and hugging that knee. Lower the right leg.

Bend the left knee and straighten it up and stretch it while you're stretching it again. Stretch that left hip away from you so it's square. Open those collarbones. No concave chests here. Arms press into the mat with authority with strength. Leg comes up to your nose. Cross the body around, up, cross around, up. Cross. Reach away from your waist. Good. Reach as low as you can.

Keep your back flat and one more. And now reverse. We're going to read it. It's like down the middle and down. Reach for you around up. Good. Love the upper body. Three round up. Reach that hip longer this way. Two more. Crossing up. Yes, last time. Wonderful. Bend that knee into your chest, both legs on the Mat and we'll let, let's lift ourselves up. Okay, we're going to transition into rolling like a ball, but because we're doing arms, we're going to think about that.

So when we sit up, people love to slide their bottom and their shoulders look like this. So instead it's still an arm workout. So anchor your shoulders, scoop your belly and use your triceps as you come forward. Good. Grab onto your ankles. There Ya go. All right, knees a little bit apart. [inaudible] and we're going to roll back. Inhale, roll back. Exhale and inhale back. Exhale, lift. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Inhale, lift your bottom over your shoulders. If you can, exhale up, love it. Two more cause you want to stretch out that upper back too. And one more time. Inhale, roll it back. Exhale up, hold and lower down your feet. Good.

Same thing for the transition back. You're going to want to put your hands way behind you and watch those shoulders. Use your arms as you go back. Good. Then we're going to lie down and bring the right knee with you. So bring the right knee and just stay there. You can even lower down your head, right hand on ankle. There you go.

Left hand on your knee. Good. All right. Use your belly to lift your head up and lift that left leg. And now we're gonna think from this legs down in the middle about your shoulders. Open them. Open those collarbones for me. Come on Rebecca. Lower them shoulder blades down and I love the elbows. Can you lift up your elbows with strength? Good and switch.

Left and right and left. Good. And just keep switching scooping in your belly. Let me see that. Nice scoop. That's it. Good. Now we won't get any clicking at all because we've got that significant scoop. There we go. Reaching Nice and long out. Yes. Good arms.

One more left. Bend both knees and rest your head. Good. I'm going to hand you a circle. I want you to place it between the heels of your hands. Good. We're going to do double leg stretch with the circle. So it's going to go between the heels of your hands. Good.

Lift your head up and kind of reach it right over the ankles. Bend the elbows a little bit. Good just a little bit. And now you're going to reach your legs forward and squeeze that circle back in. He'll reach annex El Dolor at your elbows. Hyperextend in how reach and exhale.

Inhale, squeeze and exhale. Inhale, hold it back there and get longer in the upper body and then pull it in and give me one more like that. Inhale, hold at squeezing and longer longer and pull it in and put the circle down and rest your head. Good. Right leg up to the ceiling. Left leg forward, single, straight leg, right leg up and grab behind your ankle. And here we go. And switch and switch. Good. Open those collars. Good shoulder blades going down. Very nice. And it's a nice quick tempo. It's left and right and left and switch and switch and quick. And that's it. That's it. One more set and both legs up.

And now I want you to think of shaving hand over hand behind your head. Roll open those shoulder blades. Good. Press your head into your hands and lower your legs as low as you can and pull them up and the belly goes deeper and deeper and deeper and pull up. Great shoulder blades are sliding down heads pushing in with strength. One more. Open those elbows more. That's it. And now hold those elbows nice and why?

Behind your ears and bend your right knee into your chest. Good. Lower the left to a 45 and twist as much as you can. Leading with the shoulder, shoulder, shoulder, pull back that elbow and switched other side. Pull back your left elbow, pull it back. Lead with the shoulder and switch. Elbows are beautiful and why? I love how wide your elbows are. One more time.

You guys are making this look easy. It is not easy. Pull back that elbow, pull it back. Yes. And hugging those knees. Wonderful. Yes. Sit on up and we are going to very nice. We're going to grab onto the weights. Use your weights. That set and we're going to do spine stretch forward just a little differently. So we're going to sit up tall legs as wide as you can on that Mat and hold your arms here, roll your shoulders, scoop in.

And I want you now to push the earth away and kind of lift from your waist. Really lift as your arms are up. Good. Now bring them back here. Keep the lift in your waist and then dive the head and reaching forward with the arms and then roll up through your spine. Shoulders roll down and head comes up. One more and lift up the arms. One more with me I meant to say.

And now arms are going to come over and check it out and lift in that waist and keep your arms up at shoulder height and rolling back up. Roll your shoulders into joint, lifting the neck, arms go up. Good arms back forward. Nice. Drop the left one just a bit. Good. Lift in that waist, the bellies in and up as you go on forward. So keep these hipbones right here and get a significant curve.

And then lifting. Get that shoulder. Good arms lifting up from your waist. One more time. Arms forward. This time I mean it. And lifting, lifting, even off your seat and rolling up as you inhale. Good. And from your waist, you're lifting up your arms to the ceiling. Good. Nice job. Bring your arms down, put them down by your side, and we're going to bring your bottom forward just a little bit for open leg rocker, bring your legs up and balance.

If you can hold with your hands behind your ankles are up on your ankles. Yeah, there ya go. Good. Good, good, good. So right here. Strong shoulders. Yes. Do not bend the elbows in this exercise. Okay, we're going to go four. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up. Nice. And inhale, roll back. Exhale, wool up. Very good. No bent. Elbows roll back and exhale and inhale back. Exhale right up. Yeah, one more time. Inhale. Exhale.

Right up. Hold. Squeeze your legs together. She's got one. There we are. And you're gonna roll your body away from your leg. So walk down. Good, good. And make sure you're centered on your mat. So bend your knees into your chest and check out how much room you have on your mat. You're going to, you're like, I can't sit her myself. I love it. Slide back a little bit. And your shoulders. Just a TD, but good.

Bend your knees into your chest. Arms down by your side. So your left arms almost off the mat. So slide over this way just a bit. And head two. There you go. All right, so we're still pressing with those arms. Open those collarbones. Slide those shoulder blades down. Push the earth away. Lift your legs up.

You had squeeze your bottom and see if you can now bring your hips over and lift up your legs. Good. We're going to start up to the ceiling with your legs. I'm going to start corkscrew from here. Roll down your spine, feeling the resistance in your upper body, the shoulder blades, trying to stay open and circle your legs to the right down. Sweep the mat around, left and right on up with energy. Where's my app up? There you go. And come straight down. So we're going straight down. But working on that. Yeah, reach the left around and up.

Good and straight down to Dan. And you're going to go right around and lift. Good and go and down. As you keep opening those collarbones keeps sliding your arms away from you. Really feel that stretch. Go left around and up.

And I think we have one more set and come in. Downside side, the shoulder, left shoulder away, left, left, left or go right to round and scoop. And last one coming down. Lengthen those shoulders, reaching with those arms. Go left around and pull it up. Good job. And now roll down your spine. Still opening those collarbones and you're going to sit up for sob, but we're going to again, use those weights with sauce. So grab your weights, open the legs, and now the arms go out to the side from always from your waist.

So lifting up strong arms. We're going to watch this, uh, drop the shoulder that you're turning towards. So the right arm here is going to go down. As you twist, when you twist, keep both hips down. Now reach your front arm for the baby toe and try to lift your back arm up, up, up, untwist as you come, center. Good. As you twist, drop that arm you're going towards reach for that baby toe, lifting in your waist, lift that back arm or arm and coming up. Be careful when you're reaching that you don't go out of joint and scooping in your waist, dropping that arm and now lift with a back arm.

Reach forward without dislocating your front shoulder and then roll up your spine and drop the arm. You're going towards good. Reach past that baby toe. Lift the back arm. Use that tricep and lifting in the waist to untwist. One more set and I'm going to come and check out your farm tool. Drop that arm. There you go. Good. And this one work that tries separate reaching, stretch and lifting the waist.

Nice work and dropping the left arm as you go. Protecting naturally. Drop this shoulder a little more. Yes, now you're a straight line. That was beautiful. Keeping it nice and straight and rolling up through the spine and arms relaxed. Nice job. Bring the weights down. Flip onto your stomach for neck roll turnover.

You got it. Hands Underneath your shoulders. Good. And we're going to squeeze a seat and I want you to really open the chest and start coming up with your head and chest into a nice back bend wherever you lifting up all the way, Juliana. There you go. Beautiful shoulders. Look over your right shoulder. Circle the head down around to your chest, left and look forward. Good. Look left. Circle the head down around your right and look forward.

And now as you come down, keep your shoulder blades sliding away from your ears. Lengthening your spine forward. Good. Alright, we're gonna do 'em swan with the magic circle between the heels of your hands. Good. Right between the heels of your hands. Good. So I want your arms nice and long, scooping in. Squeeze your legs and you're going to have to get some kind of momentum going where you're going to lift the legs up and then that as they come down it'll allow you to lift your upper body. Why don't we start it together?

Cause that was perfect. Ready Press. So finding that energy, your power house, you can start up up with the upper body. That's a good idea, Juliana. Let's start up with the upper body and as it comes down, we're going to lift those legs ready and go and keep coming. Now go higher for me. Higher with that circle. Reach it to the ceiling, squeeze it, and reach it to the ceiling. Give me two more and one more up. That's it. Melt down. Lead the circle. Round your back and sit on your heels. I like it. Good. Go back. Sit. Good. When we go back forward, we're going to do single leg kicks.

You're going to get your circle again, go onto your elbows and push it between the heels of your hands with your arms, your elbows down on the mat, and that's going to be flat. That's it. Good. So you're pressing into that circle. Lifting your belly, opening those collarbones and let squeeze both legs up a little bit off the mat. And let's start with the right heel. Squeezing in one, two, left, two and switch right to and left to good. Right two and left. I'm going to have you left. Good. That's beautiful. I love your back and right. Two and left two. There you go. Alright, I'm gonna put the circle down right facial cheek on the mat.

Hands behind your back. Big shoulder exercise here. The goal is to have the hands go behind between the shoulder blades. Yeah. And then you're trying to press the elbows down to the mat. So just enjoy that stretch in between each exercise as we switched cheeks, I want you to give me the best back bend you can give me. Okay, so we're going to lift both legs up and squeeze them in three times. Nope. Sorry. There you are. One, two, three. And now reach your arms long, lift higher, higher, higher, switch cheeks, arms up and kicking in. One, two, three and lifting and the legs press down so that you can lift more and one more. Set to three. Reaching, lifting, lifting and again and kicking in. One, two, three and stretching. And we're going to lift and lift and lift and left.

Nice job. Round your back and sit on your heels. Very good. We're going to flip over quickly and go for neck pool. We're going to use our strap. It's nice to use your strap because we're going to be working a lot on those elbows. So hand over, hand behind your ear head, and now slide your shoulder blades down and work those shoulders. Yeah, stomach pulls in so much you can push your head into your hands and you from your powerhouse, you're going to pull on your neck because you go down. So pulling your waist with you. Pull the bottom of your bat. Don't arch here.

Keep pulling in and up. Lengthen your tail. That's it. Good. And we're going to inhale, lift up and exhale all the way forward. Excellent. Keeping those elbows wide. Inhale, sit up, widen and lifting off the seat. Take your waist back with you more. Push your heels away, push that sit and right on up. It's important not to hang out down there and you'll never come up rolling up.

Keep that upper back looking. [inaudible] beautiful waste with you. Waste with us, with you. And two more. Right on up and exhale and inhale, sitting up top and pulling your waist with you. Take it. Take it long, long, long. One more time. Exhale. Inhale. Sitting up tall and pooling your waist. Push your heels away. Push your seat away. Excellent job. Bend your knees into your chest, right?

You're doing an extra one. I love it. Then her did not want exercise. I'll tell you that I do an extra one that is not a favorite of mine. Arms by your side legs go up to the ceiling for Jack Knife, so we're still using that upper body just like you did in corkscrew, so it should be easier than corkscrew, right? We're going to squeeze your hips together and go over to a right angle so your feet are actually parallel to the floor. Instead of down there you go. And then they're going to quickly go up and come down.

Good legs. Go parallel to the floor and now quickly up as you push, open your chest more too, and then come there through the spine. One more time. Over and lift. Good. And then rolling down. Opening the chest, lengthen in the arms. Nice job. All right, we're going to do a hybrid here. Bend your knees, put your feet down pretty close to your seat because the further away from them though the seat, the harder open parallel to your hip bones, and now watch your hair there. You're going to put your hands by your ears. Good. All right, so you want to really squeeze the buggies out of your bottom so that you can push up your hips to the ceiling, but you also really want to work that upper body. That's what we're thinking of.

Okay, so we're going to push into the mat and lift our body into a beautiful Highbridge back. Then let's bring the right knee into your chest and extend it up to the [inaudible] ceiling. Reach retreat, and and bend and put the foot down and then bend the left knee straight into the left, extended up and bend it and bring it down. And now head to chest as you roll down your upper body and roll through your chest bone. And very, very nice. Whoa. How'd that feel? Wake up a few thousand muscles there. We're going to sit up and do spine twist. Here's where we can put it behind our back and your gonna.

You could use a broom if you don't have this at home and it put it behind and you want to reach as far doing a little, a little. Ah, what is it called? Ah, the twirling. The baton. Yes. You're doing some baton work there. Bring it up behind your back as much as you can. There you go. I like it. They're a nice scooping in. Do you feel those shoulder blades on the bar right now?

Feel how they're both touching. Okay. You got to keep them both there. When we do the twist. Want to be very aware. We're gonna bring our feet together. Pull back our toes, lift off of your seat. Push your heels away like you're sitting on your heels. Okay. And we're going to twist to the right, keeping both shoulder blades on there and come center.

And exhale is you twits ring out those lungs and come center and exhale, twist and pull both shoulder blades onto. Yeah, and center and bully. Am I taking you to places that you haven't been there? Rebecca in center. One more set. Exhale, that's it. And said you guys got further and further each time and pulling in those ribs. Really squeezing out the air and center. Very nice job. Let's do some sidekick. So you're going to lie on your right side and face this way over here.

Good. Let the whole back is on the back of the Mat. Rest your head on your elbow. Slide back a little further. There you go. Bring your feet forward to that front edge are right here. You're going to rest your head on your hand. However, inside kicks. I'm going to really challenge you guys today. We don't rest our head.

Actually the goal is not to rest your head, but to have it just like neck pole, which I know your favorite of now. So it's supposed to be behind your head, not resting. So try to have it behind your head and since you can do that, put the other hand behind your head as well. There you go. That elbow stays pointing straight up to the ceiling. It doesn't wave back and forth at anybody and you're going to lift that left leg up a little bit, turning it out. Good. Scoop your belly and reaching out leg longer.

And we're going to keep it at hip height as you kick it forward for a little double pulse and take it back to good, forward and back. So we're really trying to work, this is like work, but let's talk about our upper body. Are we waving? And no way. There we go. Four and back. And three trick is you got to pull into your upper back there as you go back and too, you don't wanna roll your chest for pool for stability. One more forward and back. Good and now legs together and we're going to bring it just a little forward for me, Juliana. Good. And now push up to your ear with that leg.

Push it up and squeeze down. Good. I prefer a relaxed fit, but whatever you want, you're going to push up and squeeze with the inner thigh. Good up and squeeze with the other thing. We're going to lengthen this hip and we're going to go up. That's it. Now we're working the outer thigh. One more. Up and squeezing. Hold it there. I want more length in your upper body. I want better posture.

You should be looking forward. Nod at your foot and give me five small circles. One, two, three, four, five, reversed. Think length in that back out the crown of the head. Nice job enough. You're going to roll onto your stomach. Make a small pillow for your forehead. Good. And we're gonna end up doing inner thigh. But you know what?

We always tend to our upper body when we do this. So relax the chest. Open those collar bones. Be aware of your tension in your upper body as you squeeze your legs and lift those legs up. That's it. And now make it all about the legs in his eyes. Here we go. 20 claps, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. No upper body, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.

Hold and roll to your other side. Get back into that position where both hands are behind your head and you're pushing your head into your hands and legs are going to come forward scooping in. Good. That's it. Lift that right leg up just a tiny bit and you're going to double kick forward one, two and reaching it back and forward two and reach and scoop too and pull into that spine. That's it. Look at you and back. Sorry Julian. I was looking at here, one, two, forward and back and kick all the way to your nose if you can and back and one more forward and back and now legs together and could get up to your ear and squeeze down and that hip stays right in places. It goes up and squeezes down and three and now really pull on your neck and get longer and taller and two and belly pulls in and up. And one more time.

And where do five little circles, one, two, three, smaller, four, five and reverse. One, two, three, four and five. Great job. Relax that leg. Nice lie onto your back. Bend your knees into your chest and you're going to shake out those legs, lift them up and just shake them out. Good. So we're going to do teasers here, but we're gonna do teasers with the magic circle just between your arms. So as if that's easy. You can slide down maybe a little bit more, Juliana. There you go. Good. All right, we're going to bring the knees into your chest.

Nice. Extend the legs up to the ceiling. You can extend the arms to pooling in your belly. I want you to reach your legs and to a 45 degree angle for your teaser. Good. And now anchor your shoulder blades down and reach your arms back, back, back, back. Good. You're going to bring your arms and head up at the same time, squeezing that circle and reach the circle for your toes. Go for it. Go for it.

Go, go, go, hold. This is the most important part. Slide your shoulder blades down as you try to lift from your waist up to the ceiling. And then we'll pull away from your legs. Roll back, arms up, and roll away from your legs back back with those arms. Good. Two more. We'll let it ride on up. It could use some tempo. That's my fault there. And roll back and one more. Good. And roll back, back, back, back, back. That's it. Hug the knees into your chest.

Nice job. Good. Put the circle down and I want you to go into, um, good. We're going to turn around for swimming. So turn around onto your stomach. Good. Arms and legs long. Very nice. We're gonna do a kind of a priest swimming for Romanos. Pilati is here. It's not what we would go right into.

So you're just going to really think about your frame, your box and have a straight line from one shoulder to the other shoulder, one hip to the other hip. And your stomach has not given into gravity. It's pulling in and up into your back and supporting it. And I want you to lift gesture right arm up and your left leg up and you can use the other arm and leg to push into the mat to lift up higher. God bless you. And then put that those down. And now switch. So left arm and right leg and you can use that right arm to push down and get higher and your left leg to push down and get good and down. One more time.

Switching like this up, up, really keeping that frame. Feel that work in that arm and dam and last time. The other side, left arm and right leg. Feel the work in the left arm as it goes up. Good. Now lift all your limbs up. The right arm is going to end. Left leg are going to be a little higher.

Lift your head up out of the water. Let's get this arm a little higher like to the ceiling. There we go. And let's swim. Inhale two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five faster. Go Up to the ceiling for me Julianne. And lift your head up. Reach for the ceiling. That's it. And melted to the match. Round your back and sit on your heels. Good work. Good.

So this transition is going to be for leg pull down and like pull up where we're going to Tuck your toes under. So that they're flexed feet and reach your arms far away without moving your seat. And the hands are going to be in the perfect position for a pushup position. So you're going to use them like suction cups. Think about your shoulder blades rolling back and into joint as you lift your knees up into that push up position. Okay, this is a leg exercise, but it really is a lot of shoulder stabilization. So think about that, scoop it and you're going to bring your right leg up, rock back on that left ankle. Pull forward with the waist and switch legs.

Left leg goes up, rock back scooping in and up and switching and right up from your seat. Good and a good howler. Their shoulders left, leg up, rock back. Feel the serratus and everything pulling you forward and right leg goes up, rock back and scooping in and forward. Beautiful. One more time with the left. All right and down. Now we're going to bring your right hand to your left hand and transition into like pull up. So you're going to circle all the way around, reaching that arm up to the ceiling.

As you turn all the way around and now your hands are gonna point forward towards your feet and feet are together. And here we go. With the right legs. Gonna kick up and flex down to switch. Left up and flexes to come down right up. And Flex is take your left hip with you and flex it down. Take your right hip with you. There we go. And one more left up and flex.

And that's enough. Go ahead and sit on your bottom and reach forward for your ankles. Nice. Good, good, good. All right. I want you to lift your bottom for it and we're going to go into seal and then we're going to go from seal. We stand right up. How do you guys feel about standing up from seal? Yeah. All right, I like it.

Okay, so hands under your ankles and we're going to round your back and me an IC curve and we're going to clap to three and inhale roll back two, three and Xcel. So we're going to clap an inch off the floor and an inch off the floor behind you. Good. That's it. And in C, inhale back and exhale forward. That's it. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Roll Up. Open collar bones. One more, two more times. Inhale back. Exhaling up. Good. On this last one, rollback. Let go.

Cross your ankles and roll all the way up to a standing position up. Good. That beauty and grace and ease spin around. I want you to go ahead and walk back until the ball of your foot is only on the mat and the heels are hanging off. So something like that. Hmm hmm. Why not? A little excitement in life. Throw you a little off balance. Okay. Alright. Palladia stance.

We're going to do two sets of five pushups. You're going to reach your arms up. This is so that you don't have all your weight on your heels and you don't keep your weight back into your lower back. So you're gonna roll off an imaginary wall, taking your powerhouse with you. You're gonna roll forward off the imaginary wall. Good until your hands go to the mat and walk out into a push up position.

Good. Before you start are your hands on your shoulders. Our elbows are going to end up going straight back by your ribs, right? And let's do a plotty stance or legs together. There Ya go. Okay. Elbows, grays, those ribs down, up one, down, up to down, up three. Good. Down Up, four, down up five. And now hold it up. And Juliana, I would've had your hands maybe an inch or two forward. Yeah. So if the next time, all right, now we're going to lift our bottom up and walk back.

Trying to use always our powerhouse. Now we're going to, once we get it back to our feet and I want you to try to curl your tailbone under as you roll up. So you're going to try not to stick your bottom out too far behind you. Good. Keep lifting up through your powerhouse, wrapping and squeezing those legs. Arms up to the ceiling. Shoulderblades are still sliding down. One more set, scooping it in your arms. Have no choice but to lift from your waist. Walk in forward into those push ups.

Good shoulders are right under. And five more down, up one. Good. Dan. Up Two and up three. Give a little more umph with your rest of your body. Yeah, one more. Head up a little bit. Good. And walk back to your feet. Those heels that are hanging off so beautifully and start with you currently on your tailbone. Rolling up. Try not to lock those knees.

Oh the way up. Very nice. Arms lift to the ceiling from your waist. And now I want you to take a big breath and exhale and turn the palms out. And this is our nice finish. I want you to really lift in the waist as you push the earth away, shoulder blades sliding down, and exhale here and you're all finish. Nice job, ladies. Good work. Thank you. Fabulous.

Comments

Fabulous Saturday morning mat. Love those props. Thank you!
Monica, that was great! Emphasis on arms really appreciated! ...although it didn't make the rest any easier ;)
Excellent class. I was sweating and really feeling the work. It's amazing how heavy two pounds weights can feel. Thank you.
Monica Wilson
Yay! Your welcome ladies!
Monica,,,, hot hot and what an arm workout! Feeling it already and loving it! Thanks so much.
Thank you Monica, I picked a number of great cues from this class. Love the classical mat repertoires.
I enjoy every class you teach!!! Thank you 😊
I enjoy every class you teach!!! Thank you 😊

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