Class #1155

Full-Body Theraband

50 min - Class
164 likes

Description

PA member, Viola Rautenburg, has come from Israel to visit our studio and to take Meredith's Mat workout. We are always excited to meet our members and to see how global the Pilates community has become. Join Meredith, Viola, and the class as they use the Theraband to create a full body experience with intense exercises and creative variations.
What You'll Need: Mat, Theraband

About This Video

Aug 17, 2013
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Transcript

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Today we're going to play with the band and it's a very exciting and special day because Viola, is that right? Yes. Viola is here with us all the way from Israel. So big welcome and I'm, here we go. I'm going to take the band and stand on it, but you feed on it and give yourself not a ton of tension, but a little [inaudible] still a little bit and stand up tall. Okay, so just allow the band here to encourage the arms to hang and be heavy and as the arms hang and be heavy, let's just take stock for a moment. Feeling the weight over the feet, feeling the spine lengthening upwards, tip of the head, reaching towards the ceiling and in here, and as you exhale, allow your head to drop down to [inaudible] towards your chest and slowly begin rolling towards the floor. As you round, the band will go loose. That's okay. It just goes loose and you let it, you roll yourself over. You go down to where you can and you take a breath in.

Feel that you're connected to both of your feet here and then slowly begin to restack your spine. So we feel the pole this wheeling forward, we feel a little bit of resistance from the band. Catch up with us and we stack the spine against that resistance. And finally at the last, the moment we lift the eyes and again, inhale and again, exhale ahead, goes forward, abdominals dry in and up. So although the arms are holding the band, they don't round forward the palms of the hands. Just continue to face one another. The head is heavy, the abdominals are strong. He just reaching over, taking stock in here and exhale, rolling back up. So as soon as the band starts to become taught, use that tension.

The band is giving you to increase the stretch through the state. Fine and stand in awe. Just one more. Inhaling and exhaling. Feeling the spine [inaudible] just the flexibility of it or the potential flexibility of it. Bending the folding in where the going inward with your mind as well.

Seeing down at the bottom. Lift one foot at a time, taking the band out from underneath your feet. Hold it in your hands now a little closer than you were before, and they'll slowly stretch the band a little bit as you lift yourself up. Yeah, we feel the stretch change, right? And then we stand tall. So take your arms out in front of you. Inhale, lift the arms up. Exhale, bend the elbows. The band might come to the top of your head, it might come behind your head, but we're not going to move our head out of the way. For sure. Lift the band up, pulling the shoulder blades down and take the arms forward. Again, inhale, feel the whole spine reaching up as your arms rate. And then Ben sending me elbows just a little bit forward as the elbows, as they bend. And then reach out. Feel the shoulder blades, depresses the arms, lift up and send the van forward. One more time. Inhale to lift the arms, exhale to bend knee elbows, give the band a little stretch and Wendy's running into her hair.

And then inhale, lift up. And take the band forward. I can lift the arms, but this time keep the arms straight. I'm going to reach out into the ocean with the band, keep the head frame between the arms and give that bottom arm a little bit of a pole. And then we're going to reach back up. So what we're doing right now is combating a little bit of Jet Lag, right? So we reach over and we open the body and we take that bottom arm down. We'd give it a little pull and then left.

I'm very sympathetic to jet lag. I know exactly what it feels like. It's tired time right now, right? And then we take that bottom arm down. Now hold that bottom on there and wrap the top arm around so that now the arms become parallel to one another and you're a little bit in rotation and then unwind and pull up on the top arm to lift you up. Nice Helen and reach over to the other side and round. So we stretch the band a little bit as we rotate, trying to keep the pelvis fairly still and then we unwind.

And then we lift up. And now keep the band in your hands, but stretch the band and open the chest as your arms come behind you. Keep reaching them away from you as they go all the way down to your pelvis and then lift them. Reach them down for us. Then out then up and finally forward. We're going to do that one more time. So let's inhale to take the arms out. Give yourself as much band as you need as we reach backwards with the arm, taking that beautiful shoulder stretch, and then take the arms down for us.

Then back then out and up, and bring your arms all the way down the front of you. Okay, great. Let's come to the mat and just, um, take the band and hook it around your feet. Yeah, it's a good idea to keep the band in a long position. Don't let it get you all. Get all bunched up and then sit up. So lifting the spine tall.

So I want you to just push downwards on the band a little bit. And in here. As you exhale, create a round spine without rounding your shoulders. So we round from the pelvis and from the lower spine and then we're just going to come back. I've got my legs together all the way. Push your feet into the band as you're rolling away from your feet and come all the way down into your back. Inhale, lift ahead and chest up. Exhale. Feel as though you're peeling tape off a very sticky surface.

You would come up very slowly, curling, curling, curling. Stay round as you come up to the top with your shoulders over your pelvis and then bend your elbows out to the side and lift your back tall. And now as you round your spine, allow your arms to straighten. So you're rounding against the OPP, oppositional resistance of the band. Roll down, reaching the feet into the band all the time. So we, I, I liked that little downward pressure on the band all the time as well.

I feel like it helps you work harder. Number one, which I'm a big fan of, and also I feel like it helps you keep. Remind yourself to keep your shoulders down so we curl the spine up, coming up, coming up around, and then from that round place we bend the elbows wide and build the spine up to straight and reach forward and roll back. Exhale, keeping that nice connection, working through this center, feeling the backs of the legs. Press into the mat. Inhale to lift, exhale to curl, curl, curl, finding a long and round spine and then bend the arms in. Reach up. We'll do that two more times. Take the arms forward, round the spine, roll back, pressing down with the arms as the head comes down. Inhale, chest Gesta. Exhale, curl the spine, reaching, rounding, finding the curl and lifting the spine to stree. Nice sound just right shoulders, a little higher than the left and just for your information, we rolled down the last one. Really get used that band up to get the pelvis right to get that lower back connection and then lift up and curl.

So use the band to create more work rather than easier work is always my idea or always a good idea. And the left. Okay, so now keep the spine straight. Reach the arms forward. We're going to do a row. So you're going to rotate your arms and bend the arms and pull and reach and pull. Exhale and reach and pull. Exhale and reach. Wendy, you could go forward like two inches with your body. Ho Good. Keep the ice straight ahead of you.

Just looking straight ahead and back and pull. And as you pull, don't think of pulling your spine forward necessarily, but think of pulling your spine upwards lightly, effortlessly, last two and forwards. One more. We pull back, we reach forward and we slide the knees into a bent position. So keep the heels on the mat. They the fetal lifted up. I would give yourself a fair amount of tension. We're going to do some mini roll-outs, so we're going to come back past the pelvis and come down just so that you're all the way to your shoulder blades. Just right there. Good. Settle into a neutral pelvic position. And from there, try to lift the spine round over that neutral pelvis. Nice.

And inhale down and exhale. Now we can all feel how challenging the up is, but can we create a challenge on the down? And here's my, uh, my idea in my own body anyway. So we create space between the pelvis and the ribs as we come down. And then we keep that space as we lengthen over the top and we roll down and press the heels down into the ground and squeeze the legs together. So it's not just an abdominal exercise, but more of a full body experience.

Feel the shoulders reaching down and we'll do two more. Yeah. Nice. Lifting up and going down and lifting up all the way. This time, keeping the knees bent, we lift the spine, three wide elbow poles, reaching and reach forward. And this time let the back go into a little bit of thoracic extension lifting.

Good. And now reaching forward and roll back again. So we tilt the tailbone under, we get past the lower spine, all the way down to the tips of the Scapula. And now we're just gonna rotate from the rib cage towards my direction. Knees are straight ahead and we just curl up that side. So again, we use the band to make an already challenging movement better, or can we use the band to eliminate like a lot of hip flexor stuff, a lot of tension that could potentially be in this movement without a little bit of assistance. We're going to do four more creates space and reach up over the creation of that space and down and three and and two lifting and a one and down.

And we find center and we roll up all the way. When we lift the spine, I have three wide elbow. Paul's reaching back, a little bit of thoracic extension involve opening the heart, opening the chest, take the arms forward, roll the spine down, got to do one side and the other side, find the shoulder plates, find your rotation, watch the knees, and then we just curl and out and curl and down and [inaudible] bending inwards. It's not necessarily like an up and down feeling, but more of a curvature into your own body. Nice. And we'll do three more.

Lifting and back and lifting and back and lifting and back and come back to center. That's it. We were all the way back up. We lifted back. We lift the chest as the arms. Reach back, end forward and lift the chest as the arms reach back. Nice and forward. Last time. Reach back and forward. Reach forward. Take the band off your feet, scoot in Nice and close to your heels. Nice and close to your heels.

And let's just take that band and wrap it around the front of our thighs. We'll get the hills in nice and close. Try to sit up here. That's Kinda tough for me personally. Separate your feet just a little. We're headed for the pelvic curl. [inaudible] separate your feet just a bit. There you go.

And I'll see about letting the band help you get down onto your back with a lot of control here. Once you get to about your shoulder blades and you can move the band, then just pick it up and why? All the way down. So the feet are close to the body. The band comes up over the shoulders, holding it in your hands in Healdsburg, prepare. And as you exhale, we're going to lift into a pelvic curl. So here we go. We flatten the spine, we roll the spine up, and as the spine comes up, I want you to take the band onto your thighs and a wrap around your thighs, pulling the band towards the floor. Then lift the arms up and peel the spine down at the same time. Reach your arms overhead.

So there's two directional movement. Lift the arms, exhale, lift the pelvis, starts to press the arms. Dammit, change that next time. But for now we're fine. Wrap around yourself, press your arms all the way to the ground if you can, and then lift the arms up and then just peel the spine down. And as the spine goes down into the mat, we take the arms and we reach overhead. So what we'll do instead of moving the arms right now, is we'll start moving the spine and the arm simultaneously. So as the pelvis lifts, the arms are travelling through space, we press down, we lift up, we inhale and we exhale to roll down. The bandit for me feels almost like a rebound as it goes backwards.

So it jumps off the legs and slowly travels to the back. Glass to exhale to lift up, feeling the connection in the legs, in the hamstrings. Good pressing down into the mat, lifting the arms, let that band rebound and rolled at creating more and more space between the bones of the spine as the spine comes down into the ground. Last time here. Inhale. Exhale. We left pressing the feet into the ground, taking the band around the thighs, wrapping backwards, and also pressing upwards. Lift the Bandon, roll the spine down, take the arms overhead all the way and now just lift the arms so that they're right above the chest again, right above the chest again, and pick up one leg at a time. So you'd come up into a tabletop position. So we're going to take the legs towards me as the leaks come towards me.

Take the pole with the arm that's furthest away from me. So you do a oppositional movement of the leg and the arms and come back to center. And anyhow, as you reach the other way, that opposite pulls there I'm closest to me is pulling as the knees go away from me and now we let everything come back to center. So just play with your balance a little bit here. Reaching over, going, going, going, how far can you go without losing control? And so it's kind of a life question, isn't it? Maybe and back and reaching over, challenging the limitations or your ideas of where your limitations are and back and reaching over and back.

We'll do one more. We reach over. Yeah. And come back. Making the movement bigger and bigger maybe. And reach over. Yeah. And come back. And now here we hold. We're going to in here, I'm going to reach the legs out, press the band against the size and towards the floor.

[inaudible] and bend and come back. The arms are going to just go finish over the chest and reach out and press down with the arms. Nice and bend the knees and come back and reach out and Presta. Nice. And bend the knees and come back and last to reach out. Impressed.

Okay. And then didn't come home. Last one, reach out and press [inaudible] and then the knees and come home. So now take your band around the backsides of the thighs. I'm going to start with bent arms. So just give yourself a little tension. Push the legs into the band, curl the spine up and allow the arms to go straight again.

Now we're going to use the band for a hundred and that what we're going to do is we're gonna curl forward two, three, four, five and down. Use your arms as much as you need to, but mostly use your abs to two, three, four. Just maximizing that lift. And you could also do this with bed, knees bent. Knees would be perfectly fine. It's actually feels a little harder to me. Four, two, three. Nice. And Dan at five too. Let's bend the knees and bring the knees in with the band or that's fun and reach out. Yeah.

And for pulling in, getting nice and close to those thighs and reach out. And three, two, three, four, five, elbows wide all the time and I reach Ya. And two, curling into the knees, knees coming to the body. And Ari chap last time, curling yourself in, reaching yourself a bend your knees. Come all the way down. Take your right leg out onto the ground, put your left foot into the band, left foot into the band. Press the left leg up towards the ceiling and press the right leg down on the Mat, away from you. And then Elvis down in towards the body.

We'd pull the leg into a position where we can keep the pelvis fairly neutral. Viola, bring your leg, your straight leg on the ground, a little bit more towards the center. And now we're going to cross the center of the body. We're going to circle down around and pull in on the abs as we lift up. And again, we use the band for fertile, for a feeling of freedom inside of the hip joint.

But as you circle, I want you to feel the relationship between the musculature of the trunk and the movement of that leg through space. Last one, find center. Let's go the reverse. We reach out, we reach down across the body. So as the lake crosses the body, the pelvis stays down. We could use a full inhale for one circle and a full exhale for the next. Or You could use a two breath pattern and breathe in and out in the middle of each circle. Last two and one more. So now we hold here. We're going to lower that leg forward and I lift the head off the mat, anchor with the bottom leg. Start Peeling your spine on her, rolling up towards that leg. Now anytime, whenever you need to just start to bend your elbows and we lift up into a single legged teaser and now we start to feel the spine round.

Push the foot into the band. Don't go all the way down. Just come to the shoulder blades. We'll do three. So we curl up trying to get the arms as straight as long as we can. And then we lift the spine using the arms for assistance, pushing the foot through the band. And now we roll down. We'll do one more where you were all that hollowing, hollowing, hollowing, and then lift. Reach up, roll yourself down this time all the way. Lift your leg up towards the ceiling. Again, elbows down at the body. Bend your knee, create a little pressure with the band and stretch the leg up into the ear.

Inhale, bend the knee XL. Stretch the leg further back every time. Just one more bend and stretch. Okay, so we're gonna switch legs, right leg in the band, left leg on the mat, bottom leg anchors. We bring, draw the top like upwards towards us, all of us down on the Mat. So we start with the lake going into the center of the body. Good. Reach down, around and on. Pushing the heel of the foot past the band. Reached down, around and up and cross swing, lift and cross swing. Lift. Last two times here. And one more.

Yeah, so from the top, let's go the other way. Reach out. We cross the body and lift and swing. And catch with the center of your body. And here's three and here's two and last time. So now we take the leg and we lower it in space. We lift the head up, stir rolling through the spine, keep the leg strongly active or try to get up without the undone at the last minute. Pull your back up. Nice Helen and reach back down.

Reach all the way, really tuck the pelvis, get that low back to go all the way to nice step all the way down. And it isn't easier with one leg in the air. That's interesting to me. Rolling up and bending and reaching forward. As you roll down the leg. Never moves in space. It never waivers. It just stays right there. Last one, we roll up and we reach the chest lifting and then we come all the way back down, keeping the leg still. Ring the leg up, bend your knee, inhale and stretch out and bend.

Inhale and stretcher. And one more. Bend in here and stretch. Ah, and then bend and take the foot out of the band. Slide the legs together on the mat, holding the band in our hands. We lift the chest and we roll all the way back up. Okay, so we're going to do a little spine stretch.

Now says stretch your legs out and separate them. Take the band and wrap it around your feet. Everyone's hands. Okay. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Okay, so the band is wrapped around your flexed feet and we're just going to sit. Okay. So what I want you to do here is push downwards on the band and build the spine a little straighter. And now inhale, as you exhale, we're going to roll down and we're going to round out.

And as you start to round down, I want you to start to bend your elbows wide to your sides and you pull with your arms to try to bring your forehead all the way down into the mat. Press the knees down here, inhale. And then as you roll yourself back up, you'll just feel that the arms naturally straighten and that truly straight. And then sit up and inhale and exhale. Let the head fold feel the ribs and the abdominals drawing backwards as we use our band to pull ourselves deeper and deeper and deeper into a stretch. And now we just rebound with the spine. It's stacks. It's easy, it's fluid, it's weightless. One more exhale to round.

Rounding down, drawing in words, and lifting a k. So we're going to add a little bit of back extension to them. Here's how it's going to go. Like most us know this already, we're gonna roll back, so find that low stretch. Now I want you to press outwards with your arm, straighten your elbows and lift your back forward over your thighs, holding, holding, and then just sit up and let the arms come through and inhale and exhale to around the spine, bending the arms, bending the arms, and stretch the back as you press your arms out. Beautiful. Hold that. Pull back with your arms for three, two, one, sit up and two more like that. Exhale as we round the spine, bending the elbows wide. Inhale as we press out, lifting the ban or lifting the spine, and then just the arms. Now press back.

You can keep them bent a little bit, Helen. You could go like that. Yeah, that's might be better for you, right? And sit up, rounding down, stretch the arms out, lift the back, lifting up, reaching out, reaching out and then pull out and out and out and out and lift all the way to tall and slide your feet together. Reorganize your hands. You have a little tension on the band. We're going to do some rotation here. So again, lifting tall, uh, we're going to take the arm closest to me and twist. And as you twist, the arm that's not bending is pulling out words and we're lifting our spines and come back to center and rotate the other way. Lift and pull.

So you use the band with both arms to help you into that rotation. And we reach out and hold and lift the back up nice and straight and back to center and reach out and pull. Lifting up and center and again, reaching and center and again, reaching and center. Let's do a couple more. Reaching over, lifting, lifting, narrowing the waist. Widdling the waist and were reaching over. Nice and beautiful you guys. One more time reaching over, um, back, uh, reaching over and back and from there just bend all the way forward. Like a little bit of a stretch there.

Can even hold your feet and give yourself a little bit more. Okay. Take the band in your hands. Scoot a little bit closer in towards your feet. We're going to go down onto the mat now and here's how we're going to do that until we take the band in our hands and we get to sit just behind your pelvis. Lift one leg, so just underneath the band and lift the other leg.

So it's just underneath the band. Now you could wrap your band around your legs if you needed help. Here we're going to do a little teaser prep, so you're going to calm down mobilizing the spine. The legs are staying right there, right there. The band will pass them by, but it doesn't lower at all. It just stays right on the horizon and I step. And now here we go. Here we go, we roll back up.

You roll back up. Lifting our bodies. Yeah. So if you have trouble, right, use the band around your legs instead of above your legs and now reach. So feel that the band goes forward as your backgrounds. It's not reality. It's not going anywhere really. It's still coming towards you, but it's an idea that I think might help. And now we curl again. Nice curl again. Curl again. Oh, let's do teaser and then bend.

And this time we're going to come all that. Nah, we'll come up one more time. One more teaser. Can't just do one teaser and it wouldn't be fair to anyone. And lifting, lifting, lifting and reach and bend and curl all the way down. All the way to the mat. Wrap your arms around your knees, hug your knees and close to your body.

Give yourself a little bit of a stretch and ahead into the double leg. Single leg. Chris Cross right now. Here we go. So curling the head and chest up. The knees are just underneath the band. The band is in our hands in a stretch everything out and pull it back. Let's stretch the band as we take the arms over the legs. Inhale, let the band relax a little and exhale.

That's where we're going to create this stretch. And inhale and exhale back hurling and reach a and back and reach Ah, and back. And we'll go for and Paul as three and Poe might be on. Keep the seed to me too and bullets annoying. Last one and hold it. Hold it right there. One leg forward, one leg just under the bed and switch, reach and reach and rich.

So keep the bent knee at about a 90 degree angle so it just slides underneath that band and reach and reach. Keep lifting the band forward in front of you. Here's four, four, three, three, two, two, one, one. And now we turn this way and we'll stretch the band towards the front, towards the ceiling. And we switch. Reaching across and reaching across. And as you pull that band apart, reach past your ankle and pull apart and pull apart and reach and across.

And four more quick. One, one to two. Finding the height. Three, four, four Neesen body lifts, any come down all the way. Place the feet on the ground, holding the band in your hands in here, and now we exhale up into a pelvic curl. So we curl the spine, flattening the spine, reaching the hips up. I'm going to just do one for fun, so the arms overhead and now sliding the body down the arms. Continue just to reach backwards all the time. Does enjoy that movement of your spine, releasing the pelvis all the way down to the mat and take the arms forward and inhale and exhale. We roll up again, pressing down into the feet, lifting the pelvis up, shoulder bridge. Keep the right leg on the ground, lift the left knee, and then reach the band so that you can touch your leg.

Kick the leg up straight and then reach it away from you and flex back. Find the band down and back. Find the bat and reach the pelvis is still, the band is stretching, so we've created a net with it and pull and reach and pull and reach and four left or push three. There's our left. Here's our push two one, lower the leg just to knee level, folded back into place. Raise your arms overhead and roll your spine all the way into the ground all the way. Just enjoy that movement. Yeah, drop the pelvis all the way to neutral. Inhale again.

Last time we roll that they arms come forward. The left leg stays on the mat, the right leg lifts up, it signs the band, it kicks to stray and then we kicked down and flex and literally pull into that band. Yeah, keeping the spine lifted. Last four, pull three. Flex to back one. There it is. Oh, lower the leg and bend it in. Reach terms, overhead and a slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly working the spine into the mat all the way more.

All lift one leg followed by the other weight. Here's what I want to do. So pick your pelvis up just enough so that you can slide the band underneath your back. [inaudible] because I'm putting mine, it's going to be where the arms can be straight. You're just holding it in your hands.

Kind of like hooked in between your thumbs in your hands. And the hands are on top of the band. What more? Yeah, it's going to be different for, I think depending on the length of your arms. So where I want it specifically is just where your arms can be straight. We're going to do rollover, so that's what's happening. Okay, so arms down and then just create a little bit of stretch on the band. I don't want a lot, just a little bit of tension.

Feel that the arms are reaching away from each other, but also pressing down. Lift one leg, lift the other leg. From here we take the legs out, we left them up, stretch the band and press the upper arms into the mat. As you should. Roll your spine over, flex your feet, separate your feet and lower them down towards the floor and then slowly roll the spine down. And I'm just using the band here, not much, but just to feel the activity necessary in the arms to keep a good shoulder position. As the pelvis comes down the toes point, the legs come down and together and they lift back up and center. Exhale, reach the band, try to push it away from you. That's not really there. It's just an idea. Flex the feet, separate the feet, the knees face straight down, lower the legs down and slide the spine down into the mat, reaching through the heels, lengthening through the spine in the opposite direction. So how do we do that? We reach out through the head and we'll reach around and touch in two more.

Inhale and roll. Pelvis comes over this shoulders, the feet flex. They separate nail lower Henry slide. Yeah, yeah. At the bottom point. Down in together. Left rollover. This is our last one.

So enjoy it if you aren't handy and slowly all the way. Okay. Okay. So let's bend the knees. Place the feet down and turn your body. So you're facing me on your side.

So what I'd like for us to do is hold the band in the hand that you're going to be lying on. So we'd just take that. I'm straight down. Let's hold on to it with your hand there. He'd good. Helen, can you see me okay, so that's real. I just almost fell over. That's great. Okay, whatever. Okay. So the bottom arm is down. If you don't, if you need your hand for balance, you should put it down. Okay. So we inhale here, we're going to lift the legs and we're going to draw that arm down towards the legs, which are lifting. So we feel the relationship between the, the, the, the shoulder blade all the way down through the waist. We let the legs just hover and the band comes up and in here and feel the arm reach and the legs reach up and they find other in the middle. And then we reach about, we're not going to take the legs all the way to the floor and keep them just often. We reach out, challenging our balance and we reached down and we reach out and, and reach out, working through the center of the body.

And uh, just two more hurry, Cha and [inaudible]. Okay. Last one. [inaudible] Gel and [inaudible]. Okay. And then just put the hand down and bend. Bend the knee, bottom. Me, take the top leg out straight. Just not quite sure what to do with the band here. Okay. I don't know. I'll have an idea. I got it. Okay. So stretch your band, stretch your band in your leg. So we're going to go ahead, stays out, leg and arm, go forward. And now as your leg pulls back, take the band over the top of you and reach back.

So we get a little shoulder extension a little further with your arm. Windy. Yeah. Oh maybe not. So just play with that. You don't have to hit yourself in the face on my account forward. And now we pull leg in the arm, reach back and pull and reach. Okay.

And Paul and I reach back. So as you're getting that Baghdad biggest stretch on the band, get the most work out of your hip and the back and forward and back and forward and back. We'll do two more and back and last one back. So let's just hold the leg to the back holding. I'm right where it is and just little lefts up back there and up and up.

So up to the back of your body and up and four, three, two, one. Okay. And let's play with this idea. So legs together, arm overhead. You won't have tension yet. So we're gonna take the arm behind the leg or legs. Gonna kick up. Ooh, that's hard and hard for me to balance and kick up and, and slice and slice. So they'll pull on the band comes from behind the shoulder and down I lift and a nice four 30, because it was beautiful legs. We need to, I'm trying to get mine up as high as yours and what I'm trying to be trying to get my in his highs. Wendy's. Okay. Help yourself up.

Spin around and switch sides. Yeah. Um, all the way down. Line your body up. Try really hard not to fall over and bring your arm up like this. Yeah. So we now lift the legs, start to hover them, the band's gonna reach down our legs and our arm meet in space.

And then the resist the arm movement only lower the legs a little. So the leg movement is not large. Right? So we've got to get the legs and the arm term kind of move simultaneous like, but the arm has a lot more room to, or a lot more space to travel. And then release and reach and release. And every time you want to feel that you're slicing the shoulder blade down the back as you work into the side of your body. And we'll do three more.

[inaudible]. I love the train. Someone's going somewhere right now. Hey, I lower the legs, bend the bottom knee top like still up. The arm's going to come around the front. We're going to take the arm forward, the leg forward, we're going to pull back and reach. Inhale arm forward, leg forward, and exhale, pull back, create a little tension in that shoulder extensors and reach and pull back. Nice.

And holding the body very stable as the arm and the leg moves through space and forward and back. So really get the back of that arm to work, right? You want to push against the what you feel is your maximum contraction. So how can you challenge that? Last three and back and two and back.

One and back. Oh, and he held it back here and we just a little, little ups and up. So it's like you're going up, but you're also going backwards. Like you're trying to kick something that's just a little higher than your leg is away from you. And we'll do four and keep those arms working. Keep those back. Arms working. Last two and last one. Great. So let's come back. Let's stretch the legs out. I, we've got the hips in external rotation. If it's challenging for balance here, it's okay to bring the legs a little bit forward.

That'll make it slightly easier. Okay, so the arms overhead, we're going to kick the leg up, bring the arm behind the thigh and bring it down and pull, reach. It gets that beautiful back body work and pull, reach and back. And Paul, reach and back. Reach trying to kick the leg as high as you can without shifting the body backwards. And I'll do three more reaching and, and tumor reaching up and back. One more time, reaching and back and bring your bandwidth, you and turn over. Is that going to work? You guys turn around and face this way? Yeah. Okay. So what I want us to do here is, um, hold the band in a palms up, hand, elbows a little forward.

I'm not too far forward though. Okay. Yup. Good. So push into your forms and lift your chest through your arms. Lift your hands just a little bit off the ground your forearms and try to bias towards pinky finger pressure into the band. Okay. So from there we just hold this position. We've got our abs working legs struck and we just stretch the band. Very simple.

Feel the backs of the shoulders working and release as you do that. Again, stretching the band notice or the risks bending, maybe not right as a good idea. And forward and open up elbows pulling inwards as the band pulls out words and reaching back and pulling the spine through the arms and reaching back. And we'll do two more. And last one really opening up that chest. Okay.

So now hold the arms like that, but let them come a little bit more underneath you. Arms forward is fine. We're going to do the single leg kick here. So I want for you today just, and I don't want you to pull on the band as hard as you are, but I want you to feel that there's a little outward tension on it. A little bit of fingertip pressure. Pinky finger pressure. Lift the legs up off the floor, pull the elbows back in the spine forward and an right leg kick. Kick, left leg kick kick, right like kick. Remember to pull the band and kick, kick and kick. Kick.

So as the legs are moving, if we can hold the, we can use the hamstrings really a lot. We can keep the trunk really stable. Kick, kick retreat each pull, pull, pull, pull. One more. Nope, one more on each side. Now pull, pull, pull, pull and lower the legs. Now take the arms forward. So have your band in your hands. Going to what? Position your body so that your ribs are definitely on the mat.

Your head is off the Mat, your abdominals are working and you've just got the band in our hands. We're going to do a swimming prep. So I want you to take one arm and lifted. Stretching the band while the other hand holds the band down the leg. The opposite leg will lift and down and then reach on. So the [inaudible] arm opposite to the lifting leg lifts and down that my arms fairly wide here today, reaching out now, so just use the band to just maximize the oppositional potential in the body.

Reach forward with the arm as you pull the Banda forward with the RM history, pull the band and in down. So two more on both sides. Reaching up and out and Dan reaching up and down and down. Last one, reaching up and down and down and reaching up and down. Now last today we're going to take the band all the way behind us and wrap it up in your hands. Not too tight. Well side as you want. We're going to do the double a kick so the head is over to one side, maybe facing me. The band is pretty high up the back, the elbows are dropped to the ground.

Then to lift the legs up off the ground and to kick in one, two, three. We're going to reach back and try to pull the band apart. So I guess that's where you decide how much band you want. I'm giving myself a lot. And then Ben, kick one, two, three and stretch the band is you reach out and kick one, two, three and stretch and reach Cha. We'll do three more. One, two, three, stretch and reach out. And two to three, reach out.

Last one. No, reach out and just let the legs go down to the ground and it reached just the arms up in, back up and back to my reaching and last one reaching. And then let the body come all the way down. Take a band out of your hands and put it around in front of you and put your forums on the mat and push with your forms to lift yourself up and just walk back so that you're sitting on your feet for a stretch. Helen May be just around your spine here, okay? Okay. Roll up all the way.

Okay. Hey me with your band in your hands, I'm going to do this on our knees. I if you'd prefer to be standing standing works, he just as well. But for now I didn't take the band and will pretty, pretty much a lot of space in it and so lifting it up so the head is framed between the arms are going to just reach out. So just the spine first, just the spine, and then you using neo obliques to pull you back center.

Something I've discovered in this movement is when you're coming back, if you push a little with the leg that's opposite the way you're going. So if I'm going to the right, I'm pulling myself up with my left leg a little bit. That makes sense. [inaudible] and we feel the connection into the leg elite into the connections of the old Lee, and then we reach over again. Okay, now we're going to make it a little different. So I want you to go over now.

I want you to stir at the band and then let the arm come up and just let the body float back up and reach over it and stirrer at the bat and then left up with the body. And now you reach out and we stretched the BN and we just make a little half rotation. You're probably not going to get parallel with your Bam. That's okay. And then we reach back and now pull with your top arm to help you come up and then reach over and hit rotate and, and rotate and lifter. And let's do a little full circle finish. So a little more narrow with the hands.

We'll finish the way we started opening up the shoulders, lifting the arms up, feel the whole spine, reach up through the arms. It's possible you just have to envision it. And then bend the elbows, bend the elbows, elbows pointing a little forward. Do you have more room in your shoulders now? I think I might. Yeah. And then shoulderblades think about this. Shoulder blades not only go down the back, but they go slightly forward towards the ribs as a ribs pull back against them.

So I'm talking about like this, like a Cobra's back action and then we'll come down. Then we'll do that again. So lift on. So as you Ben, you don't want to squeeze your shoulder blades together. You want to pull them apart? Yeah. Good, good. And now when we straighten the arms, let's go into a little bit of extension. You had just lifting the chest, taking the arms up, taking the arms up overhead.

Oh, that feels good. And take the arms down in front of you. We'll do that exact same two more times. So we reach up. Can we start to bend? We hold the body still is, we're bending. Yeah. And then a little bit of Elvis for a little bit of upper back extension as the arms stretch back, opening the spine, opening the heart and bring the arms down. So hold the body still at for us to have come a little forward with your upper body around the ribs. That's it. Okay. So from there. Now go for it.

Now go for your extension. Reaching up and back. Nice. Beautiful you guys. Beautiful. Take the arms forward. Drop the van in front of you. [inaudible] in here. As you exhale around the spines, you're going to sit back towards your heels as much as you want to or not. Good. And then you just let the arms come down to the sizes.

The body comes back up. So we're going to take the arms up. Helen, I would just do the arm part, just do the arm part and then you could like around your spine a little bit, but just don't do the sitting back part. Yeah, there you go. So we're not touching the ground, we're just reaching forward, reaching forward. And then as the body comes up, the arms just dropped to the legs and we'll do one more reaching an exhale, rounding the spine and are reaching down. And last time with the arms up. Then every last little bit of tension in your body just falls out of your fingers as the arms come down. And that my friends is a wrap.

Comments

9 people like this.
Dear Meredith, I know I'm not the first person to say this but you are really one of the best Pilates instructors! I think it's because you enjoy your body in motion so much that it is contagious - even over the computer :)
Thanks for a great class with the Theraband, I enjoyed it a lot! It made a great start of the day for me.
1 person likes this.
thank you i loved this class. i have a very bad low back and the use of the theraband works wonderfully
2 people like this.
Thanks so much for having me, PA, this was so much fun! Meredith, you are really an extraordinary teacher and person. I was so lucky to be able to take class with you in person - and with your talented and adorable co-stars, Wendy and Deborah. Hope to do it again really soon!
1 person likes this.
Fantastic class!! Loved all the shoulders openers and use of the band. Thank you :):):)
Thank you for taking class and sharing your comments ladies. I feel so blessed to be a part of Pilates Anytime and share the work that I love so much with all of you! xo
Viola,
It was truly a pleasure to meet you and have you in class with us that day. You are a beautiful person and I hope to one day have the chance to see you again!! MWAH!
Pele
1 person likes this.
This one had lots of good flow and a nice balance of extension, rotation and flexion. I liked the warm up before getting into the flexion stuff.
1 person likes this.
Sitting in the Denver airport watching this, cant't wait to try this class. Dang! I should have put a band in my carry-on! On my way to Santa Barbara!!!!
I just finish this class and fell grea. I totally body work out. thank you
Thank you so much everyone, again and again.
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