Class #1124

Fitness Ball Challenge

40 min - Class
141 likes

Description

Meredith teaches a Mat workout with the Fitness Ball to challenge your balance and your range of motion. She shows many inventive ways to use the ball to get a lot of upper back work, back extension, and abdominal work. Your body will feel great with all of these expansive movements!

After this class, you can add extra upper body work with Meredith's Arm Weights Wrokout.
What You'll Need: Mat, Fitness Ball

About This Video

Jul 16, 2013
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Transcript

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Okay, today we're going to use the ball. Ready. Yay. All right, so why don't you to just stand on your feet at the back edge of your mat and hold the ball in your hands? Yeah, on the map. So just create a little gentle inward pressure on the ball with the backside of your body. Like what do I mean by that? Roll the elbows in where then put pressure on your pinky fingers and breathe in. As you exhale, you're gonna roll your spine forward. Rounding forward. Once the ball touches the flirt, reorganize your hands so that they can push the ball away and you can reach out into a flat back. Deb, think about going up rather than going down, right?

That's it. Then re round the spine. Pick up the ball, roll up, lift it and reach backwards with it. So opening the chest and then reach the ball down. Roll the spine down. Exhale. Put your hands on top or wherever. Push out with your back. So it's not the arms that are moving the ball.

It's the spine that's moving the ball more so. Nice. Exhale, curl the spine. Let the ball come into your hands, create a little pressure on it, lifted up and reach backwards and let your spine lift. A little feeling pretty expansive. Today is what's happening in this class, in my brain and down, and then roll it down the front of the body. We're going to do two more so you readjust the hands. Push the ball away, lift the pelvis, slides the spine forward. Inhale, exhale, curl the spine. Pick up the ball in your hands. Roll the spine up and reach back. Letting the chest open.

Now bring the ball just on top of your head and reach towards the ocean or towards me, and then lift your spine back up and reach out to go over to the opposite direction and lift your spine back up. Drop the ball forward or don't let go of it, but lower it. Roll down. Put your hands on the top. Push it away, lifting the pelvis and sending the chest forward. Inhale there. Exhale, curl. The spine. Ball comes into your hands. We roll. We lifted up. We take it backwards. Lifting the chest. Beautiful Marina, come back just over your head.

Reach across the opposite direction. This time. Exhale to lift up in hills. You reach over and exhale as you lift up, reach down with the ball, put it onto the mat and come around and sit on it. So you want to position yourself. Let's actually just start right where you are is perfect at the back of your mat and then we'll just walk down the ball so that we position ourselves in a place where the lower spine is supported by the ball. Get a good grip with your feet.

Hands behind your head. Find a position where your shoulders in your pelvis or in a straight line. The feet might get a little slidey, so if you have to reorganize, you just do. I will. And then we're going to take the upper body backwards and stretch and then exhale, curl the spine up and inhale as you stretch open and exhale, feel the rib bones. Press into the ball and the lift and continue that pattern.

Inhale back and exhale to lift and inhale to stretch over the top and exhale to lift. If this gets tough, you can always cross your arms. Over the front of your chest, which will make it a little easier, a little less heavy. So we'd curl to the top and we're going to do five more reach and then feel the ribs it together. Feel also that the lower abdominal muscles are contractile, that hipbones are pulling towards one another. Last to reach and curl, reach and curl. Now holding yourself there.

I want to come from a straight back forward so the ball pushes backwards a little bit and then we lie on it just there and then we curl forward. So now we're rounding. Instead of extending the spine again, let the head be nice and easy. Nice and heavy in the hands and back and curling up and over and back and five more. Reach up. Don't go all the way back. Marina goed to there. Do this and forward. I'll do it with you and back and three not so far back.

Stop and a little more forward. That's it. And a little more forward, right? Like that last one. Good. Stay there. Reach your arms forward. It's take your body all the way over the ball. Let your spine arch. Let your body relax over the ball, take your arms around to the side, reach forward with your arms, look forward and walk back onto the ball. How easy is that? Good. So sitting nice and tall. I want us to try to bring our legs all the way together.

Now that's in itself will create a little bit of a balance challenge. But let's face our challenges head on today. Yes, lifting the spine in here and as we exhale we're going to rotate in one direction. So say towards the ocean using the old leaks. Any inhale as you rotate back center. So we all know that the rotation as we go to the across, we feel that deeply. But I'm suggesting that we de rotate with control as well.

So we work as we go to the left, I'll just say left. We feel the musculature on that side working. But now pull back to center with the right and work to the right. I know we're not all going in the same direction, but you'll get get what I mean and pull back and then we lift the spine and come back. So literally create a hold on your head so you're pulling your spine up through space and then let this mind be easily moved in that area or in that place and center and reach up and sent her some ideas. It's just as much up as it is across.

We're going to do one more to the other. Here it is. Come back to center. Take your arms forward, walk forward again and reposition yourself. The lower you are on the ball, the easier it's going to be. So either go hands behind the head again or cross them across the chest. We're going to take the upper body over the ball again. This time lifted centers. Yep.

And turn towards me and then go back and lift to center and rotate. So we do the rotation each time, all the way over the back and then lift and turn. Exhale. Inhale to center in back. Lift into an exhale in Hilton. Send her in back. Think about keeping the ball underneath you as still as possible.

If your ball is still, chances are your pelvis will be relatively still as well. Stretch and up and across and stretch and up in a cross and go about five more times to both direction. So if you feel strong, take advantage of the extension. That'll make it more challenging to come up into the lift four and all the way back and for and watching the bone, trying to keep it nice and still three go a little bit more. Go here and go higher. And that's it. Marina. Good last to reaching up and over and back and up and over and back.

Last one. We're going to hold here yet. Good. And now little curls kind of quick and hollow through the front of the body and keep the elbows spread wide here. Six seven we're going to go all the way to ten nine tenths center. Other side we lift and curl and up and over. Three four. This is the end. So make your movements count.

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 come forward with your arms. Walk forward with your feet and let your body just sit just a little bit off the ground and to go into a backbend. So here we go. Then a reach back. Stretch the arms overhead. Try to work through the backsides of the legs to control the stability there. Take your arms to the sides, reach forward and bend your knees.

And again, we reach up and back. We stretch the arms over head. We stretch the legs of the opposite direction. Reach around to the sides with your arms and Ben to come back again. Three more Rericha. Use the legs like you would use the legs and back support working through the back of the hip extensors, allowing the back extensors to gently release the ball, reaching stretching back and around.

And for last one, reach up, stretch back and around and for this time come all the way down and you can just help yourself down off the ball. Yup. Just like that I'm, and to take the ball around to the front of us in a lie down on our back and place our feet down on the ball. Let your arms come just next to you. Just next to your side. I want you to dig down into the ball with your heel. So create like a little divot with the heels and press back with the upper arms and now, so yeah, I've got space between my thighs in the ball about six or eight inches or so.

Yeah. So from there we dig down into the ball and we peel the back up, reaching the hips up into the air, pressing down with the arms and pressing up with the pelvis. Pause to breathe in. As you breathe out, feel the chest come down between the arms first and then undulate the spine using the back of the bottle or using the front of the body to control the movement of the back of the body. Pelvis comes all the way down. Inhale, exhale. Press down into the ball. Start curling. We'll look at your knees in front of you. See that they're parallel to one another and that your arms are actively pressing backwards into the ground. Nice. Inhale.

And now exhale, peel the back down. Using the hamstrings to create that spo support for the ball and release the pelvis down. And again, we roll up pressing a nice and high, pressing down with the arms. Pause to breathe in and pull down. Exhale, walk the ball in a little closer to you. Bring your legs together, take your arms out in a low v shape or in a t shape. And now inhale, tilt your ball towards me, keeping the knees lined up. We take a stretch through the waist and exhale as we pull back to center in heels, we tilt the opposite direction to taking a stretch through the waist. And exhale as we pull back to center.

So my suggestion is is as the knees go across, we pull away from the knees with the center of the body with the abdominals, and then pull back. And as it needs to go across, we slide away from the knees with the center of the body and then pull back. Going to go one more time on each side, reaching over and coming back. So allowing the leg or the ball to support the weight of the legs enough, so, so that maybe we challenge our range of motion a little bit. I'll give you another chance to feel that. Bring your legs back apart. Pressure, arms back down to your body. Take the ball away from your thighs. Again, we're going to do some more bridging, so we inhale here at the bottom. We exhale, incurable the body up.

Stay up there, press the ball away from you and keep the pelvis high as you bend your knees and pull the ball in. Press the ball away from you, keeping the hips high. Keep the knees parallel to one another and narrow. As the ball comes in, we do three more reaching out and pulling back and reaching out and pulling back. One more time. We take the ball away and we bring the ball in and inhale and exhale. Undulate the body down, keeping the arms pressed backwards and relax the pelvis. We're going one more time. Here it is. We lift the spine, curling the tailbone under, lifting the body all the way up. Stay at the top.

Slide the ball away and pull back and slide the ball away and pull back and recheck. Keep the arms strong. Keep the neck long. We have two to go. Keep that pelvis up. Wa um, Yep. Well, I don't know what those words were, but they were just empty words. And this is it guys. We put all the way back in and now stretch the legs out all the way it one last time. And now keeping the leg straight. Take your time as you roll through this spine to place the pelvis back down onto the ground all the way. Then the knees again. We're going to do a couple more, um, supine twist. So legs together, arms down or out to your side. And now we just stretch. And again, I'm an in vites you to go further than you potentially could without something to support your legs. And then to ease your way back to center and then inhale, reach across. So if we're already connected on the way over, chances are that they way back, we'll be fairly supported or easy and reach over, maybe going a little further this time, but keeping the knees aligned and XL to come back.

So if you just move the spine in all these directions and over to the other side and Xcel to come back. Okay? So take the ball with your feet, pick it up and put it in your hands. Toss it in, legs out straight, holding the ball in the hands. So we're going to curl the head and chest up. We're going to roll, following the ball forward, following the ball forward. Oh, let's see what happens. Reach all the way forward. Nope, you guys squish back a little. Perfect. That's enough. So reach forward.

Put the ball down on your feet and then transfer. So from here to the top and pull your spine long, pulling your spine up and forward. And then push the ball back down. Pick it up with your hands and roll down. Exhaling as you keep the knees aligned, reach the head in the arms back. Inhale, lift, head, chest. Exhale, curl the spine.

Forward ball goes down onto the feet. We stretch all the way. I'll give yourself a little stretch there and then lengthen out through the spine, pressing the chest forward so your ball will roll back towards you. As that happens, and then we're going to reach back forward. We're going to lift the ball up by scooping in the center of the body and we're going to roll back down. So if you want a little bit of an additional arm movement or feeling squeezed the ball, super simple, just squeeze, roll up.

If you're not interested in that, don't squeeze, just hold. Reach forward. Lift the spine. So find your longest straightest back. Beautiful, beautiful. Lift the ball now and now we just pressed the ball back and the spine forward. So lean forward a little marina. That's it. We want to go forward towards your feet.

Reaching the ball back in the spine forward and three and two and one. And now sit up. Take the ball in front of you. We're going to pull the ball to the chest. Yeah, lifting the spine and then just easily reach forward. You can squeeze the ball on the way out and pull the ball to the chest, bringing the chest in the ball together and reach forward. You get our arms working a little and pull back and reach forward and pull back and reach forward and around the spine. Rolling back, anchoring with the legs. Taking the ball overhead, lifting the head and chest, curling the spine, reaching forward. Press the ball out.

Lift the spine on the diagonal. Nice. Lift the ball up. Bring the ball overhead and just press the spine is traveling forward. As the arms are pressing back, we'll do three and two and one, and then we're going to lift the spine too straight. Drop the ball down in front and bring the ball into the chest and the chest into the ball and then reach out. So imagine that your hands are glued to the ball, but you're trying to separate them from the ball. All right, that makes sense.

Lift up all the way straight. So you're trying to like pull the elbows away from one another. Go ahead and reach out one more and reach. And for now, lift the ball up. Bend your arms and pull the ball down onto your head wide elbows.

Flex your feet, lift your spine into the ball as you pull down on the ball with your arms and twist. Exhale and inhale and twist. Rising up into the ball. So use the ball as a marker for your spinal movement. So we lift up and center and lift up nice and center. Keep the arms active, they pull down to let the spine be easy and center and lift on and center. Just a few more.

Rotating across an up and center and rotating across and up and sitting a little forward and rotating across and hold here. Now reached the ball and reached the spine lifting. And now bring the spine into the ball. As the ball comes back to the head and find center and rotate and reach the ball up, up, up, and brewing the ball down. And Find Center. And last one, rotate for us or each up.

Bend down and center and rotate. Lift up and pull down and find center. Take the ball forward and bend your knees. So your hands are going to be just on the outside of the ball. And I want us to press down with the ball onto the shins.

As you press down, I want you to pull the tailbone back and lift the spine forward. And now we're gonna lift the ball towards the knees. Just arching the spine a little bit. Yeah, you got it. You got it. Don't bend the arms. Just move your back. [inaudible] go into extension. So into extension. Done. Yup. And now we come back to the Nisa.

Now we're going to go into flection. So we pull away from the ball. We'll do opposite ranges of motion and we rolled down. Find the low back, stay on the low back, lift the ball up, try to take it all really far. Lower the ball roll up, goes over the top of the knees, and then we press first finding straight. And then just think about leaning back, lifting the chest and leaning back, lifting the chest and leaning back. So you come into a little bit of extension and then set the ball and curl at around. [inaudible] find your low back right there. Marina right there.

Don't go down when your arms go up. You got it. That's awesome. Bring your arms back down. Roll Up. Find the ball just over the knees. Reach the spine up. Press the ball down for us just to fight a straight back. You can come an inch or two forward down and then start to lift the spy lit.

So it's almost as though you're trying to lean back, but the balls holding you up. And now we're going to go down again down again. Yep. Slide your feet in a little bit. Stay right there with the ball resting on your knees. We're going to go up to the tip of the knees and back down. So we'll let the weight of the ball pull you forward and back down [inaudible] and up to the tip of the knees. We'll do six [inaudible] and to the tip of the knees.

Here's four and back last year, curling around yourself and back. Last one, curling around yourself. Gum all the way to the top and lift the back. So now I don't want you to, Oh, let's go into extension. I think we all, every single person in the world needs a little more extension in their life, in my opinion. Bring your ball towards me. Roll your ball down that side of your thigh. Roll it across the center of the thighs.

Roll it over to the opposite side of the size. Pull it up that side of the size. Oh, nice. Dad and center. Let's go the other way. Yeah. So Deb, think about pull back with your hamstrings. Push into the ground. All of the things that you know how to do. We find it. We come across, we let the ball just like it were weights, right? Let the ball pull you up. Solid, good. Um, and center.

And now this way again, I want you to come down towards your lower back. I would like for you please to stay there. And we are going to lists. I go down and we're going to lift, but we're not going to collapse down. We're just going to place our spine up and lift. Nice. Two more. We lift.

We're going to come all the way up on this one. Girls, here we go. Reach all the way up around your spine, over the ball. Just setting the ball on your shins. Rotate to the other side. We're still round in a roll down that side. Find your position, squeeze your legs together, squeeze.

Pushing your feet down into the floor is also helpful. Here's number four of five and number. Nice. Three of five and out. And number two of five and down. And number one of five. We'd come all the way up round over the knees and lift the spine. Go ahead, roll back all the way.

Bring your feet in a little closer to you. We're going to take the ball into our ankles. Yes. Are you sure you say I'm sure. All right, reply. Okay, so now what I want us to do is squeeze that ball. Hold your legs for just a second, gets nice and set up with a good position. Hands behind the head. Lift your chest.

Yeah. Or you can keep your head down. You decide we're going to take the ball away. Not very low. Yeah, we're gonna pull it back up. We're going to take it away. We're gonna pull it back. We're going to take it away. Oh, little head down or head up. Is your choice. Are you going to take it away? We're going to lift it up and their reach for your legs. Again, give yourself a nice high lifted position. Hold that place. Let go and reach up over the top like you're climbing over the ball.

Three, two, one. Now take your arms to your left foot. Four, three, two, one. And to your right foot. Five, four, three, two, one to center arms. Come down. Roll yourself over and roll yourself down. You can do this without the ball if you want to set it to the side.

Slowly rolling, stretching the back. Good. And again, lift and roll over. I'll get that ball out of your way, Marina. Got It. Rollover. I'll help you. Let's cut. And then slowly just work the spine there. Yeah.

And then circle, bring the legs together. Touch it. Would just do that one more time. Don't go so low with your legs at your back list. So though I lied two more times. So about here and then small so that the spine is really supported and then up and over and last time to roll down all the way.

Deb, look through your legs a little bit. Nice. Marina. Good. And last one. Okay, so bad. Bend your knees and put your feet down. We're going to come up onto our sides so you can bring your ball and I face me. Take the ball and wedge it up against your thigh. Get it real close. Go that way with your ball so that you guys don't end up kicking each other on the other side. You're perfect. Okay. And so get it right up next to your thigh.

Really super close. And then lean over onto it. Yeah, I use my leg to, to help me counter balance. Lean on it. That's it. And set this arm down. Okay, so now you can readjust the bottom leg to make it comfortable. Should you need to. Okay, we're going to hold there. We're going to lift that bottom leg up off the ground. You can hold the ball like this. Yeah, that makes perfect sense too.

So just down goes the leg and reach out enough. So I want you to think about, I'm cramping, want you to think about almost jumping off the floor so we reach up and out and reach up and out. So again, holding onto the ball makes just as much sense as putting the hand down lift and two and one. So hold the leg up and now bring the leg forward and reach back and bring the leg forward and reach back. So just keeping the leg nice and, and reach back and forward and reach back. Last one. So now we'd go back. We're going to touch down. We're going to go, ah, up and forward and up to the back and up to the front and maybe debit. It'd be better for your shoulder to do like this. Yeah.

Uh, maybe a little harder too on your balance up to the back, up to the front, up to the back. One more, up to the front, up to the back. Now hold the leg up, but lean into the ball so that your chest is supported by the ball level. You're there, you're good. Now just do a little less up with that back leg up him back up and back. So you're not really lowering it. You're kicking almost like you're trying to push something behind you.

We'll do four, three, two, one. Bend your knee, lift off your ball, put the ball in your hand. So I'm at a little bit of a rotation towards my ball. And then just sit into your hip on that side. Sit into your hip on that side. So I'm sitting on the diagonal from my feet. You're there yet, just getting stretch and push away. Let's push you away and then coming back up all the way so that you're on your knees again. Gonna rest, you're taught that same arm that was just on the ball. Still still on the ball. The opposite arm is going to come out to this side.

Have do a little bit of a Tuck so you feel almost forward of yourself. Yeah. Good. That's good. Alignment. Ready? So we're going to now lift the arm up and press the ball away. Should feel heavenly. Yeah. And then pull from where you feel this stretch to bring you back up.

So allow the ball to just roll away from you. You don't have to push down. And I want you to just very lightly rest on it with your arm. The arm reaches the opposite knee. Push it down into the mat and then you lift back up. And again, we reach up and over and back. Nice. And reach up and over. It's our last one and back. And now we're going to add a little rotation.

So we're going to go leave the on. No, go the arm, go the yard, and now turn your spine towards the ball. Take a stretch. D rotate. Lift the body back to center and lift up. So reach over first, reach our round for the ball. Exhale, unwind, breathe in. Exhale, lift up. We'll do one more. Reach over. Exhale, reach around, unwind in, maybe go a little further into this stretch and lift all the way up. Roll the ball around to your other side. Again, wed the ball in real close so that you feel that you can rest on it and then come down and wrap the arm around the ball or place it down onto the floor. And once you get into a comfortable position, yeah, lift the leg and lower and reach out as you lift up.

And then lower in the good and literally just rest on the ball. That's it. Get last one. Now hold the leg in the air. We're gonna flex the foot. We're gonna kick the leg forward. Keep it high, and bring the leg back.

So here's another situation where we want to try to monitor how much the ball is moving. Can we keep it still and reach and back and reach and back. One more. Try not to lean forward or back and hold it the back. Now we go down, up front, uh, down, up, front, up, down, up, front, up, down. My mic is falling off. Up Front. One more. Up, down, up.

Front, up. Ben. Hold. Rotate your body forward on the ball. Hold the ball and reach up and back. Up and back. So holding the abdominals and to make sure that the spine is supported. Yeah, whatever you'd want to do with your arms. Is that where you're looking at? I'm just holding the ball. Good. So now we're gonna unwind, unwind into that leg. Bend it, put it down, and come up.

Rotate your pelvis so your pelvis is facing the bottle a little bit, and then just sit on the diagonal with that hip. [inaudible]. And then once you get into that stretch and you maybe want more, you can then start to just walk the ball away from you with your arms and sit in the stretch for a sec and breeze, right? There's an expansion, quality possibility to here and come all the way back up. So speaking of expansion and contraction opportunities, let's do the side stretch. Okay? So make sure that you're not arching your back. Make sure that the shoulders are right above the pelvis is perfect. Yeah. And then we just let the ball roll away and the opposite arm reaches, reaches.

We get that beautiful stretch and then we just, there's a small contraction necessary, but it doesn't have to be really, um, effortful is that word effort for sure. It's a word. Now I just said it out loud. It's out there. Effortful. Make it easy is a different way to say that. So Lyft with ease, just engage and feel the musculature. Responding to that thought. Last one I left. Okay. So now we're going to go over, we're going to around reaching for the ball.

We're going to unwind and we're going to lift. We're going to reach over. Breathe in, breathe out. As you rotate and stretch for reaching for the ball, breathe in as you d rotate analyst for you. Then breathe out as you rotate, breathe in. As you de rotate and lifted, we do one more with just three, I think one more just for just in case, just in case. Lucky for me, we're on my tight side so I get the extra and then all the way up.

Okay guys, but I want us to do now is just stand on your feet. Put the ball underneath you so your hands are on the bottom. Okay, so my advice is to not overuse your arms. You want to be in a place where you've got the weight on your legs and the arms are very light on the ball said, and I want us to take the left leg back behind us. True Story. Yup. Be careful and reach it up and lower it down. Okay. Reach it up. Don't rely on your arms.

It's a little easier with a little bit of a bend in the knee. You're there. Just turn your left pelvis down, a little marina and reach. Ah, there you go. Two more. Reach out. I'm with you. I'm falling to, you know, reach. Ah, hold there. Bend your standing like a little bit and stretch and bend. And Deb, you're thinking about the tracking of your knee for me, right? Good.

I knew you would be last too. And keep that back like high all the time. And one step in. Push the ball away from you. Push it away, push it away, push it away. I bring it back underneath you. So find your balance. Find your weight over your legs. Here we go.

Let me stretch the opposite leg back. And then you just set it down on the floor. Marinas what I do so I can find my balance. And then once you're nice and balancing, the leg goes up and down. Let me just easy in the shoulders. Reach out to left. Nice.

And yeah, reach out to lift and down. Last two. [inaudible] I don't know if this is any easier with the ball, is it? Yeah, it's maybe a little bit harder. Here we are. We're going to stay there. And the lift the back leg as we bend the front knee, and then stretch and lift the back leg. Bend the front and stretch, and three lift to lift the last one.

We've got this and step in and push the ball away from you can round your spine. You don't have to be straight. Bend your knees, Anchor your feet, extend your spine. Um, so reach out now on a kind of a straighter line. And now just stretch the legs, stretch the lengths, and then let the ball roll away from you just a little bit more and then roll it up. Okay, so we're going to come down on Tornado. Now what I want you to do is get the ball underneath you. Put your fingertips on the map. So talk, think my whole, it's harder if you just move it more underneath you maybe.

Yeah. Okay. So what I want us to do, so we're gonna just, just wait the assists, walk back a little marina and walked back a little Deb. So let's have just the upper chest resting on the ball. Okay. So now we're going to go left arm lifts, right leg lifts, opposites, Yep. And down. So now as you lift the opposite side of your body, stay strong on the leg that standing on the ground.

So and also feel that the leg is simply reaching away from you while the arm is trying to get higher than anything. And also as you think about all of those things, think about the pelvis pressing into the ball so it stays on the ball the whole time and down. And we reach out and up, working back extensors and down and reach out in a good, keep the leg straight as less. We'll do one more on each side, reaching up and down and reaching up and down. And then just come a little bit more forward over the ball. You're good here. Good. We're just going to drape our body, drape your spine over the ball, let it stretch. So then it's hard for me to say what the perfect stretch is. So play around with it in a roll forward or roll back and decide where you need to be in your body. So it feels good for the stretch.

Just hang out there for a second and release the spine and then come back so that you're moving back towards your knees. And then just stay there. Let the ball go a little bit more in front of you. So instead of being right on top of it, we're kind of on it on a diagonal. So my suggestion is that we have it just underneath our ribs, kind of right underneath the breastbone. Okay. And then we're going to reach around it.

So what I want you to do is just kind of be easy with your back there. Keep the pelvis going into the bow reach, gesture, arms out to your sides. Yeah. Now from there we're going to turn the thumbs back. We're going to lift the spite and feel as though we're trying to let the boat move a little forward. Just get that Nice, beautiful back extension. Then we come back and we go over the top and we take the arms out to the side and we turn the thumbs back, reaching the chest, lifting up, reach back and downwards a little bit.

It should feel nice and then come back and reach over the top. And we're going to do two more, but this time we're going to change it a little bit. So you first reached the arms and then we're going to go through the rotation. And then friends, we're going to lift the arms overhead, reach up through the spine, open the arms, excuse me, back out to your sides, lower your chest onto the ball and reach over the top. Last time. Make it count. Reach out to the sides, reach your arms overhead lifting and pressing the ball forward.

Reach back out to your sides. Take the ball a spine all the way over the ball. And then once again, this bring your ball towards you. Get onto it and drape yourself over the top. [inaudible] I'm just looking for a stretch there. [inaudible] okay. Cutting down. And that's part one.

Comments

3 people like this.
Thank you Meredith! Beautiful class as always!!
1 person likes this.
Eager awaiting Part TWO! This was wonderful after an uphill hike. Probably would be great before an uphill hike too. lol
Thanks you two! Always great to hear from people I love :)
Jodi B
1 person likes this.
Haven't used ball in class in awhile, thanks for some great new exercises, I'm re-inspired!
Pele
1 person likes this.
More extension would have been nice since we did nearly 25 min of intense flexing forwards. Part one of what?
1 person likes this.
Always excited to find a class from you. Best ball class I've experienced!
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Pele and Joni and all interested parties,

This class was filmed in two segments: a ball class on the mat as well as a seated arm work routine. I had hoped that they would be released together so that they could be done as one long class or two shorter ones.

The second class is now included with a link under the first for your enjoyment :)

Pele, if my memory serves me correctly, the second class has much more upper back and extension opportunities.

Thanks for taking class with me!
Sorry for the confusion Meri and ...
1 person likes this.
Love this class! Love your cues! Thanks Meredith!
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