Class #1235

Prenatal Pelvis Mobilization

55 min - Class
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Description

Leah Stewart teaches another Prenatal Reformer workout continuing with the theme of opening and mobilizing the pelvis while adding different nuances. This workout is a time for you and your baby to move together, creating a stronger connection between the two of you. The self love of taking the time to move and take care of your body will translate to the motherly love you have for your child.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

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Hello Leah here again with a nether prenatal reformer class. So fun to do so many reformer classes during this pregnancy, during this whole adventure of my second pregnancy. Now I am about 38 weeks pregnant. So getting really, really close, I'm feeling good, but obviously feeling the pressures of pregnancies. So this class is not specifically designed for third trimester. You can absolutely do it during your whole pregnancy. Um, and like I've noted before when I've done these later classes is my range of motion might be a little bit smaller for some exercises, but I want you to move accordingly to what your body feels good doing, where you at are where you are at in your pregnancy.

So let's go ahead and get started. We're going to spend a lot of this reformer costs pep on our Lombok. So we're going to get to know our long box a little bit better here. And the reason I want to do that is because I want you to feel really lifted up, right? And I want to give you the opportunity to do that and I want to and really enjoy that kind of straddle position. Um, and we're going to kind of play with that as we do some of our sequences.

And of course, as I've talked about during this whole series of prenatals classes and we're really focusing on mobilizing and opening up the pelvis. So we're going to continue with that theme just by adding a little, a different nuance to the theme. So let's go ahead and get started. I'd like you to load up all of your springs. We're going to change them in just a little bit, but just to have that sense of stability as we get started. And I want you to sit facing towards your foot bar straddling the box.

Now when I say give it a little bit of a hug with your legs, I don't mean squeeze, I just mean just get that little bit of energy pulling inward. So by all means though, I don't want you to fatigue those legs out. The assemble we're going to be doing here at first so your arms are just going to settle down and the focus here is on lengthening that spine, particularly if you are later in your pregnancy. Um, and that kind of compression that you kind of start to feel on that spine. So he prays nice and close for just a moment. And like I start most of my classes, I just want you to draw into your body awareness and whenever you've been going through today with work, family life in general, I just kind of want you to start to let that go.

Leave it out the door so to speak. You're here in your little box on your reformer in your body. It's just you and your baby. You're gonna move together for these next minutes, however long it takes us to get through this class together and just kind of draw into that centeredness and that self awareness and use this as kind of as a little bonding experience with your baby that's growing inside you. Again, it's just time for you and them to move together. We're going to go up with an inhale with the left arm. Inhale with the left arm up, Xcel with the right arm up. Inhale, hold and exhale. Bring it down.

Switching arms in hell, right arm mat, XL, left arm up. Inhale, hold and exhale. Bring it down and inhale. Feel that wonderful stretch underneath your arms. Xcel right inhale, hold and exhale down in. Reach energy out to the side and not feel like a scapula. Move naturally with your arm.

Inhale up and exhale down. One more set. Feel how that spine is lifting up out of the pelvis, XL right arm. Inhale up, exhale down. Keep equal weight on those sitz bones. Keep that support in how Ridar Xcel left arm. Inhale and exhale down. Now we're gonna do big circles forward.

Inhale and exhale. Now notice how I'm keeping my ribs controlled here. Inhale, I'll let you let them loose in just a minute, but right now just focus on the shoulder. Just moving a range of motion that feels comfortable for you. Exhale and inhale and XL is reverse it and inhale, arms back, Xcel energy, reaching out through the fingertips. Inhale, fill the stretch through the shoulders. Exhale, bring it forward. Feel the Scapula just softly start to come together and Xcel forward.

One more time. Inhale and exhale. Now place your hands on your knees. The left arm is going to circle and you're going to rotate and follow that arm behind you with an Xcel alternating right arm. Inhale, Xcel around and inhale, Xcel around. Now just keep your body vertical. No leaning forward or back and just feel that rotation.

Just feel that spiral. Feel that freedom that comes along with it. Inhale and exhale all the way around. One more set in him. You can already feel how your spine is loosening up nicely. Inhale and exhale.

Now we're going to do a little more freedom in those circles just a couple of times in each direction. Lift your chest, lift your ribs open and Xcel around and inhale and Xcel around. Let's go the other direction. Inhale and Xcel around already. You should feel more invigorated, more awake, and with a bigger ability to breathe. So that breadth, that it, that ability to get all that oxygen in with each inhale, it's going to be really important. So that's why I wanted to kind of open everything up and get you to go in there.

So place your hands on your knees. We're going to start with a lateral tilt to the pelvis. I'm actually going to face you so you can see me, but I don't need you to change on your positioning here. So I want you to lift your right hip up and XL. Take it down, lift your left hip up and XL, take it down. So you're literally just pulling the right hip up toward the rib cage and then gliding it down. So it is very simple, small, inhale and down. Sorry if I changed my breath on you. Up and down and up and down.

Let's do one more time each way. An up and down. Last one, up and down. So now you're going to rotate the pelvis. You're going to bring the right hip back in the left hip, forward notice. See how my legs shift here, my knees shift. That's what I want you to do. And bring it back. And XL rotate.

So lets your sits bones literally glide on your box. So bring your right hip back and your left hip forward and back to center. And XL rotate back to center. So might be a little sticky on your box, but just feel as much as you can back to center and rotate back to center one more time and rotate back to Sunday in turn. So from here, so you should feel like you're just loosening up that pelvis. You're going to rock your pelvis forward, rotate your legs outward, push your knees out to the side. So you can see I'm really open in my hips here, coming forward, weight onto my pubic symphysis.

I'm in my lice anterior tilt in my pelvis, reaching that chest forward. Then I'm going to draw the Palestinian back through, neutral, back into the posterior Telles and I'm going to come narrow or parallel with my thigh. So I'm coming back in. So in hell, fall right and Xcel back. Now I'm rotating on my heels and exhale back and I'm really digging those hills in some digging, the energy, the heels in and keeping them in as I come back. So letting that body move, the pelvis and the torso, move as one with those thighs and inhale and exhale. If you've done Gyrotonic, very Gyrotonic hair.

Inhale in fact that since Spiration exhale and inhale and exhale. Last one, inhale and exhale. Now rotate slightly to your left. You're going to do the same thing on rotation. You're going to push the left leg back and exhale, push the left leg back, the right leg still moving as well, but you're just focusing on that left. You're doing a little bit of in Hale and XL, still getting a little more oblique work here. Inhale and exhale to the right and rotate forward and pull it back.

So now you should really just be rocking and rolling here. You're just feeling that rock. Feel that freedom there. It's again the movements small and pull it back last one forward and pull it back. Come back to center and sit yourself at. Now here, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to bring your feet so you're resting underneath you. See, you're resting on top of your feet. This is a little more advantageous position for what I want you to do because I want you to make sure you're neutral as best as you can, pregnancy neutral with your pelvis, nice extension of your spine. So we're going to actually squeeze the pelvic floor musculature.

You're going to feel a little bit of a lift in your body, so your body will actually lift up a little bit. Small spine. If you go a little bit more, that's great. Whatever you can do. Then as you release, you're literally gonna let your body melt down and spread across that box. So take your breath in and I'm going to squeeze the energy through the pelvic floor and the inner thighs. He can see my body just rose just a tiny bit. Then inhale, literally gonna melt everything open and totally relax and exhale.

Feel that energy through the pelvic floor musculature. Squeeze the sides, lift up. Feel the narrowing of that pelvis, the two sitz bones coming together, the pubic bone and the tailbone coming together. Then inhale, let everything open. And so I want you to imagine like a diamond shape on the underside of your body is squeezing as you can track just that gentle lift. Don't worry about going high, you just need to worry about that contraction and that release. Full release, not a bearing down, not a pushing down, just a melting up bla. If you can think anything in your mind, think blah XL up and inhale bla, very professional queuing there. Excella and inhale, let it release. And one more time.

XLR, yeah, and inhale, really assess should feel really good on that pelvic form. So now gently come forward and I want you to bring your springs. I'm going to work on a blue spring here. I just want it nice and light, but you're more than welcome to work on a red as well. You just need to find a spring that feels comfortable for you. You're going to lean forward and place your hands on the foot. Barb, so again, I have this space in between my thighs, so I'm going to reach forward into my back extension here.

So exhale, I'm going to curl the pelvis underneath, draw it all way to the stopper. Then inhale, articulate back to the back extension. Now notice that my pelvis and my final movement is what's moving the carriage. So this is why I want it late. I'm not looking for you to loaders your body up. It's really heavily here. I'm just looking for that mobilization. Now this position is actually my favorite because I feel this gorgeous back extension, but I'm getting this deep articulation in my hip joint. Again, another big theme through this prenatal series that I've been giving you during my pregnancy XL curl underneath you and in Hillis do one more time and exhale.

If your hips feel tight, simply rotate the thighs out a little bit more. It's going to be a little harder to slide your feet across the frame of the reformer, but that might be a little bit more comfortable for you. So there is another option. Now here, take both hands over to the left. We're going to do the same on a little bit of rotation. Xcel under in how? Reach back. Strong shoulders. Exhale under in how re some getting shoulder work. I'm getting back extension work, getting gentle abdominal work, good pelvic floor work. Inhale, and I'm creating that space in my pelvis, that whining in my pelvis, hopefully for that baby to drop down into that pelvis later in pregnancy.

Bring your hands over to the right. Find that space, fill that opening on the left side of the body. Xcel underneath heel in healthforward, Xcel underneath you in healthful. And again, just take notice that it's your pelvis as manipulating the movement of the carriage, not the other way around. One more time. Yeah, and bring it forward. Now come back to the center. We're just going to play with a couple of different options here.

I want you to bring your arm up so you're a single arm. Now you're pushing away with your right arm. Bring your left arm up. Then exhale, sweep that left arm. Mender bring the palm up and come into the curve. So here, my body is still on this diagonal.

That left arm is kind of in line with that left leg. Inhale, sweep it out. Feel that stretch. Matt said that diagonal line than Xcel Gerad under. So we just adding a little more dynamic to it. Inhale, you know what like to give you movements that feel pretty, that feel expansive, feel a little dancey, nothing wrong with that. And XL, come under the sea one more time and inhale, reach. Okay. And Xcel and go the other side in Howard beach.

Now you'll find it might be a little bit harder to go into your full extension with this rotation. So just get that extension as best as you can for me. Inhale. So again, we're not putting a lot of load on the ABS, we're just thinking more about mobilizing that spine and mobilizing the pelvis and Xcel come back to the center. So now we're going to change it up a little bit. We're going to bend the elbow, we're going to thread the needle, bend your elbow and bring it through. So you're threading the needle here.

So notice my left arm is pushed through over to the right. I bend the elbow, rotate, inhale, exhale, bend the right elbow and thread the needle here and inhale and exhale. So now you're getting a little bit deeper into that rotational component. Inhale and exhale. Let's go the other size. Switch your arms. Inhale, reach up to the right, bend the left elbow, and thread the needle through and inhale and exhale yes.

And you just feel that rotation and feel how your hips are opening. The higher you're getting a little stretch, maybe through your, uh, the back of your hips, through your adductors, a little bit, a little stretch through your pelvic floor. All of those wonderful stretches and openings that you need. I think I have one more. Sorry. If we do an extra one on this side and come back to center, actually thread the needle, then come back to center and roll yourself up.

Woo. Yeah. So really nice to loosen your rotation here. Now we're gonna move onto footwork on the Lombok. I'm going to work on two and a half spring. I don't want it to be very heavy at this point. If you need to put some sort of a nonslip underneath you, please do so.

You're going to come up into your wide v position on your heels and I need you to feel you can actually use your arms behind your thighs and I want you to feel really upright right on top of the sitz bones. Now, to help you maintain that, I'm going to allow you to reach forward and you can grab onto the handle at the front of the long box and Xcel. We push out, okay in how we draw it, see how that works, and inhaling by holding onto the front of the box, you're just keeping your body steady and safe and in help. But what I love about this is it is a kind of modified squat position. You can see how deep that hinder that hip joint is. As you bring the carriage in, you can really feel the hips opening, the pelvis opening as you draw the knees up toward the ceiling. Exhale, go ahead and spread out those toes a little bit and push energy into the heels. Bring it in, exhale and feel again, that closure of that pelvic floor that lifts through your whole center body.

Inhaling, two more and inhaling one more. And inhale this time, grabbed the back of your thighs, pull your body forward and lift your sternum app just to finish with a little bit of a steady opening and breathe. Come back to center. Go onto the toast for me and you're going to repeat the same thing, holding onto the front of the box in the toe position. He'll stay steady.

Exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale. And again, as you draw, the kerogen wants you to feel the energy of the knees coming up. And then oppositions of that, the energy of the [inaudible] issues. We [inaudible] going down into the box. Exhale, trying to say it's vertical as you can. I'm going to have to scoot forward a little bit, excuse me, exhale and in him, and you'll figure legs. We'll kind of close onto your wrist a little bit, but as long as it's not compromising your ability to extend your knees fully, just go ahead and keep them there in Helen XL so you feel a little ad doctors here, but more than feeling you're not going to feel a lot of hamstring work, but more than that, just feeling of focusing on the opening of the pelvis and that opening of the hip joint is what I really want you to enjoy during this footwork. Two more and bring it in. Yeah.

Last one in feeling that beautiful, strong back extension work. Draw it in. Now. Grab the front of the Shins and pull yourself up and breathe and slowly come out of it, so not like get a drop down to one and a half or one spring depending on how you feel you're going to sit with when you bent in. I'm going to do my left knee Benton and my right foot on the heel up on the foot bar. And I'm going to feel, I'm going to have to hold on to the side of the box or just for a little bit of support. So I'm going to do a little bit of single leg work to the side. So XL, send it out and inhale, draw it in. Now what I like about keeping my arm here is it challenged me, challenges me to keep my leg behind it so I really can work and focus on that external rotation that I want in the hip joint, some opening up this hip and trying to keep myself nice and centered. Now another challenging aspect of this is to keep the energy of both sitz bones down onto the box, which is hard in Helen exhale.

Now I'm gonna have to adjust my foot a little bit here. I lost it, but my heel up a little higher and press. There we go. That's better. And inhale him Xcel. So I'm trying to keep both sides of the waist really nice. And even last one. Hold it there. Place your right hand on your Shin and go over into a nice stretch.

Now you should feel a little bit of stretch through the abductor on that right leg, but more what you'll feel is probably this beautiful side stretch. Now I need you to focus on breathing into that rib cage. You can take your arm down if you need to. If it's uncomfortable in your shoulder, there's absolutely okay. And again in Hell exhale. Pull yourself up slowly.

Hold onto the box for a little bit of support and joy yourself in. Now we're going to stay on this side just to maximize our time here. And I want you to sit forward on the diagonal and you place your toe on the bar arms or out to the side. So here as we extend the single lake here, we're going to draw the arms in front of us and inhale open mainly to slide a little bit forward. You just have to adjust on your own body, depending on the length of your legs, where you're sitting on the box XL in him. So now since I'm in this slightly different position, now I can feel a little bit more deeper. Work in the hips, not so much of a stretch, more of that strengthening words, and I'm filling in my rotators and definitely feeling again that abductor work. Inhale here. Exhale.

Inhale here. Keeping yourself nice and vertical here. You won't need to hold onto the box. That's why we can move the arms. Exhale, last one and exhale. Here we go. Now reach forward, grab onto the box, extend that leg, and if you can reach your hands a little bit further forward and just find a little bit of a hamstring stretch. Now if you pull that right hip or the hip of the extended like back, try to square off your hips a little bit more. You'll even feel that stretch. Kind of wrap around into the glutes.

Keep your arms here on the box, whatever you feel more comfortable with, both. Either way you, whether they're here or the here, you can kind of pull back with your arms, pull chest forward, reach your hits back behind jail to maximize that stretch. Deep breathing. One more. Yeah, slowly bring yourself in and let's go ahead and do the other side.

So really nice. His gentle foot work really good for the postural control. So positioning yourself on the heel, the heel at the very front of that foot bar, holding onto the box on either side, lifting your sternum up, trying to drop that hip down. So both his shield tuberosities, both sitz bones are on the box and Xcel press in Halen. So again, that thigh is staying behind that arm so you can maximize the opening of the hips, that rotation and inhale and feels really, really nice. Again, all of this stuff is going to be really advantageous for that. Any sort of laboring position, whether it's a squat position or your legs are drawn up or a modified squat, whatever it might be. This is all really, really wonderful, great preparatory work to open up that pelvis and exhale knee reaches up toward the ceiling as you come in. Keeping that back extension work, keeping the stability of the waist on either side. Exhale and inhale. One more time, XL, hold it there. Reach over and find your side stretch.

So again, breathe again, you'll feel the little bit of stretch depending on your body. You may not feel much of a stretch in the adductor on the extended leg, but you will certainly feel the stretch in the waist hair and in fact I'd prefer it if you actually focus breathing into that rib cage cause we want to open that space. That's where we can get so constricted as all of our organs are being pushed up around that uterus and everything pushes up in our lung capacity, doesn't get as great. We have a harder time breathing. Okay, mixed pregnancies on, wonderful, right and just OPA, but it is wonderful and slowly come up. Then you need draw your support in by holding onto the box and slowly pull yourself onto the diagonal onto the toe member.

You may need to site a little bit forward depending on your body and you may need to draw this foot out a little bit so you can extend that leg that's moving. Take your breath in and exhale, push, inhale, exhale, inhale. You know what I really about this footwork, it makes me feel really strong and tall and proud. I just really like it because again, I'm not putting a lot of load on my legs, just really focusing on that control and that postural adaptation, but I just really liked the way it makes me feel lifted and I do feel like can, can breathe better after I do. I do feel like I have more space in my spine, more space in my ribs. I do feel like the baby and I aren't just like crumbled on top of each other that we're giving each other. Use our space, ah, and bring it in. I'm trying to keep that postural control, John in really feel expansive with those arms as you reach them out. Two more. Yeah.

And reached. Announce last one. Hold it there again. Hands forward on the shins or hands on the box. Make sure you feel steady and stable and reaching forward. Try to draw that, left it back or the hip of the extended leg back.

So a little different way to do a hamstring stretch. Pull the energy forward. And so this stretch, one leg might be a little tighter than the other. Calm yourself with that breath. Send that breath to that stretching musculature. Uh, uh, one more, uh, slowly come up and in.

I want to finish this little sequence by doing a little hip flexor stretch. So what I'd like you to do is slide as close to the edge of your boxes. You can with the one leg that's on top, I'm doing my right hip on top first and I'm placing my left foot down on the floor behind me. So you can see I have that nice diagonal line with that leg all the way up through my body. And the further I get that foot back, the more calf stretch I feel. But the more I pull my pelvis up and underneath me, as you can see, I don't want to be here. I want to draw the abdominal energy up and around.

So kind of up and around the front of my body, pull the pelvis underneath me and I get this beautiful opening of my hip flexors, which we so, so, so, so, so need and our pregnancy. And my body is vertical and I'm just letting my opposite hip, my right hip in this case, just settle down on that box. Uh, and the more I lift up and up with my torso and forward with my body or my pelvis, rather, the more stretched I get. Uh, and just filling that oppositional pool, just letting those muscles respond to that stretch, let those fibers his lane, then yeah, uh, slowly, really set carefully, slowly that those muscles come back and we'll switch to the other side. [inaudible] so sitting right on the edge with the hip that stays up, get the opposite foot.

My case is the right foot here as far back as you can pull the abdominals around an up, kind of like you're going to hook your pubic bone up to your belly button, if that makes sense. And live vertically up through your body. Draw your publicists underneath you and forward and find that stretch and really draw the energy down through your heel. So this is not a passive stretch by any stretch of the imagination is very active. Your body's working hard to position itself in such a way that you can maximize the pool on the musculatures who can get the deepest, most beneficial stretch that you can. And just find your breath. Try to relax into that stretch with your breath.

That doesn't mean let go of your energy, but that just means let that fresh breath, let those muscles respond. They don't want to fight it. They want to respond to the stress that your body is putting on them. Uh, one more breath and slowly coming out of your stretch. We're gonna move on to it just as short little abdominal series. I know we did a lot of Nice, gentle abdominal work in our warmup, but I want you to go down to one and half springs, so just a half spring for me.

So your lightest spring. Go ahead and turn it around. So you're facing the risers. Now I'd like you to take your straps, hold onto the rope and go ahead and just cross it as a matter which one is cross forward per se. But I just want you to cross your straps. So we're going to do a little bit of a pelvic tilt. Again, my range of motion will be smaller just later in pregnancy. If you feel like you can go back a little bit further and maintain the integrity of the abdominal wall, please feel free to do so. But please take note of what your abdominals are doing here.

Just take your breath in. We're going to do a little post, steer your tilt and do a high row with the elbows. Then inhale, come back up and XL. Yeah, and inhale, come back at. So again, we're being very gentle in the abdominals, but maintaining that pelvic floor, support, that mobilization and XL. Just three more. Yeah. So again, nice and short and sweet. Okay.

And XL and come up one more for me and Dexa. Oh, now here, I like you to uncross your straps. We're gonna do one of my favorite exercises. You've seen me do this before. I call it through the pipe and once you to hinge back on the diagonal, you're gonna Round your pelvis underneath you. You're gonna die forward, keep your elbow straight and you're going to come up through the extension. Keep moving. Hinge back. Inhale, exhale. The pelvis comes underneath you. Now again, notice how small my range of motion is here. I can't go very far.

My little abdominal muscles are stretched and stretched, so I can only move as far as I can maintain that control, but I'm really enjoying that articulation as I move through the pipe in hell. QB, my elbow, straight through out, and exhale forward. Inhale, hold two. Let's reverse it and Xcel come through. Pull the straps to feel that flat back position again, I'm very modest here with my range of motion. Come up over the top of the flat back and hinge Exxon.

My pelvis leads the rest of my body through my head, neck and chest follow. I extend all the way up on the diagonal and reach and XL pelvis first a that box, a little bit of a squeeze to fill the adductors. Come in with that pelvic floor and then release that squeeze as you tilt forward. Opening the back in the underside of the pelvis. Last one. Come all the way up and reach and beautiful transition here. Just slip the straps onto the holders.

Now I want you to stay forward here. We're going to go into a lunge, a squat position you're going to pull forward. Now I'm going to stay where my spring was. Just want to have to Futz with it too much. But if you feel very unstable on your carriage, please put a little bit more spring on. So wiggle your bottom back, take your breath in and Xcel pull yourself up, hold onto the front of the box and come into your squat position. Lower your head. So your spine is straight, arms out to the side XL, so the t one and down and down, down.

So those legs are working and down and down. Three more. Get a little lower with your hips. Two [inaudible]. Take your hands down, supporting yourself and role up so there is your squat. So really reaching the energy of those hips out and trying to stay as low as you can. Filling those femur bones. Just pull back the hip. Sacred breath in. Using the support of the front of the box. Pull yourself back up, come into your low, and now you're going to swing your arms. Exhale one, two, give the box a little bit of a squeeze.

Two more sets come back and roll that. Definitely a beautiful challenge. We're going to finish by going up and just giving a little bit of a pelvic curl underneath. This time you'll stay holding onto the front of the box. Take your breath in XL app. So roll the pelvis. You've seen me do this before and inhabit. Okay.

XL, roll the palace. Okay. And inhale backs. Tried to stay low. Okay. XL Role in the pallets.

Okay. And inhale, focusing on opening the pelvis here. XL. Okay. And inhale one more time.

XL and inhale, hold it. And slowly. Yeah. Oh really? Nice work on those legs. So we're done with our long box. We're just gonna place it off to the side. We won't need it from this point out.

And we're going to move onto a little bit of full body integration. So I'd like you to do one and a half spring for me. We're going to focus on her flat pack positions. So coming up onto your carriage, we're going to do the knees stretch, flat back, feet pushed firmly up against the shoulder rest, strong spine. Lift those hips up. You're going to go inhale, back and excelling. Now what I want to focus on here, keep going from me with your reps here as your take your legs back.

I want you to imagine your Peverelist narrowing. As you exhale, bring your legs in. I want you to imagine your pelvis widening. Inhale, take your legs back, narrow Xcel. Inhale, widen, and inhale. Take it back, narrow XL in and widen. Inhale, and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Last one. Inhale and exhale.

Now bring it down to one spring for me, so take that half a spring off and ping both of your feet over to the right shoulder. Rest you take your hands over to the left. Repeat the same here. Inhale, Jarden. Exhale. So we're not really rotating here as much as we have a little bit of a lateral flection in our torso, so you'll feel a little bit more stretch on the right side. And to emphasize that even more. I want you to pull that right hip down and back.

Inhale and exhale. Pull that right hip away from you as you pull the carriage in and you get a little bit more of that stretch on the right side of your body. Exhale, let's go to the other side. Hands over to the right. Square those hips off. Draw the center body in. Inhale, exhale, pull that left hip down. Inhale. Yeah, excellent. Draw that left hip down. Inhale. Yeah, except pull it down away from you to get that stretch on that left side. Inhale, exhale. Last one, and exhale. Hold it. Come back to the center.

Withdraw your feet together and widen your knees and we're going to push the body down all the way flat so the belly comes right between your legs. Bend your elbows out to the side. Inhale, exhale, extend. Now, if you want a little more resistance, go ahead and put your blue spring back on. That's totally fine. I want you to really feel that marriage of the upper arm work, the humorous work and the Scapula. I want you to keep the length of this mind present as you focus on extending the elbows and widening the cross, that upper back.

Inhale, exhale. Let's do, should fill those Rhomboids, those triceps, the external rotators and the shoulders. Okay. And then for our pregnancy cues here, just to fill that opening of that pelvis behind jail. Last one, exhale, hold it. Role yourself at rollies. Tell fat all the way up to the top.

Now we're going to turn around and do our reverse these stretch with the flat back. It's your choice whether you want to keep one spring here for a little more resistance or if you want to make it a little bit lighter by doing a half a spring. I'm an experiment with how it feels today, going a little bit lighter, but again, try it. You can always adjust your springs once you're doing it. So I want you to bend your knees up against the shoulder rest, thumbs and fingers on the frame of the reformer. And I want you to bring your shoulders forward of your wrist slightly and find a neutral spine position and reach your issues. Who Bras these your sits bones in your sacred behind you.

Lots of energy reaching out over that foot bar, keeping the back flat. Exhale as you draw your legs in. Feel the widening of that pelvis. Then inhale slowly take the carriage back without moving your shoulders. Xcel pull the legs in.

Feel that widening of the pelvis and inhale. Now my abdominal work here is just that beautiful sense of drawing the baby up toward the spine, keeping them cradles in your abdominal musculature as they draw that leg in. Now, because I chose to work on a blue spring, a half a spring, my pelvis can focus more on this opening and I'm not so much loading the hip flexors and I can feel a little bit more stable, but if you're working on a red spring or one full spring, you might feel a little bit in reloading your hip flexes, which is fine as long as you can keep the stability of everything else intact. Hold here. Now reach your arms a little bit forward and send your hips back and lower your shoulders just a little bit. We're going to go into a back extension.

This you may want to work on a half a spring. If you were on one spring, you're going to lift the head, neck and chest up, up, up, up, up, pull the arms forward, feel the let tested. Miss D'orsay though the serratus anterior as you come up into the extension and then exhale, bring it down slowly lower the body. Inhale, reach, head, neck and chest. Let the pelvis stay open behind you lifting and then slowly bring it down. Finding the body hinting forward again and lived head, neck, and chest at that bat and slowly we'll do one more. We've done a lot of great back work in this class.

We'll just finish with one more and just feel as you lift the center body up as you draw the head, neck and chest up, feeling that great shoulder work. Come all the way down. Rest your hips down in your heels and roll. Oops. Excuse me, your self up all the way. I just want to complete the class. Just a little bit of simple arm work once you to sit with your legs crossed.

Nothing too fancy. I want you to bend your elbow here so you see my elbows bend out to the side. My Palm is facing up. We're going to draw it in. Exhale and in helping the elbow up. Xcel across. I'm on that half a spring still. Now you may want to sing yo Ho yo Ho a pirates life for me. I do every time.

But then again I have a little boy who loves pirates and bring it up and XL and bring it up. So it's just a nice little mobilization of the shoulder as you work across the body, filling that chest nice and open. It should be really easy to fill the postural control here cause we've done all that great work. Extend your elbow out to the site. You can lose the slack on this chap a little bit. Totally fine. You're going to come into your bicep curl. Yeah, just nice and simple. Just be quiet with the carriage.

Now slowly centric until you find the carriage on the stopper. And then keep your extension all the way. Find the strap or the resistance rather, and then open and has. So again, another opportunity for you to feel nice and strong and proud and lifted here. Let's do a couple more. Okay, and in open and one more and then we'll finish with, I tried to sit back society's before we do the other side. So for the Chai set, do the other hand go ahead and you can lower your headdress.

Probably would be best. There we go. I want you to come down onto your elbow here so you get this beautiful side stretch to make sure that arm is really vertical palm facing up and you're going to extend up. So again, we're emphasizing that side stretch that you're getting by really drawing, in this case, my right hip down the same hip as the arm that's moving and I'm trying not to move that humorous, which is really tricky. I don't want to incorporate shoulder pool into this. I really want to get that tricep work by keeping the upper arm steady and just focusing on the elbow extension Xcel. One more time. Exhale, slowly rotate your body to come out of it and roll yourself up and we'll go and turn around to the other side. So sitting, grabbing the strap with arm that's closest to it. We go into our Yoko, our pirate and move here. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. You should feel how settled you feel into the carriage by the hips are really nice and open. We did a lot of work to do to open up those hips, get that deep hip work. So just feel really balanced on those hips as you move.

Okay. Come across two more. Okay. And Open one more. Okay.

Then we do our biceps, biceps, a little bit different feeling here as you extend the elbow out, grab onto the resistance and pull the Armin and keep that external rotation in the shoulder joint as you come into the bicep. If this really doesn't do it for you, and I should have told you this on the first side, but you can always shorten the lever by grabbing onto the rope down here. Keep going. You can always do this work here as well. Kind of just depends on your preference. So you can shorten your straps. I still feel really nice by step work here and open all the way up. Let's go two more.

Feel that Nice east central control. Last one. No, a broadness in your upper back, that broadness in your chest. Switch your hands. Come down onto your elbow, bring the arms straight up toward the ceiling. Get the arm vertical and then bend the elbow. Keep the arm as vertical as you can. If you can, stay looking down at your bottom hand, but of course looking up into your mirror or up at your arm to check your positioning throughout and in help end.

So keep that beautiful rotation in that shoulder. Draw that hip down the hip, down to the same side of the arm that's moving. It's the left side in my case so I can feel that stretch through my lace, bending the elbow and exhale so that nice controllers I come in XL in how strong and open. Try not to feel your chest rounding forward here, but keep that back extension attacked. Last one. All the wing in. Roll yourself forward. Slowly enroll at as you place that strap down onto the holder and coming forward for me. I just want you to sit nice and easy here, wants you to reach forward just for a little cool down here.

Once you depress the cares forward or the carriage back rather, and hinge forward just as far as you can. And we're going to breathe in and we're going to draw the scapula together and XL. Breathe out and just let them widen three then and Xcel widen. Just nice and easy here. I'm still on my half spring breathe and XL wide. A couple more inhale, you just stayed on your little reformer haven here, drawing into your body, Roy Yourself at oh all the way.

Whatever foot was in front. I want you to switch here. I want you to bring your hands together this time and wants you to bring it forward. So what brings you here is we're gonna come, we're gonna kind of repeat a little bit of what we did earlier in the class. So we're going to bring the arm up, circle around and bring it forward. Alternating arms, bring it up, sit straight up and bring it forward. And just notice how you really moved this last hour focusing on that spine, that pelvis, those hips.

Hopefully you're feeling a little more connected with your pregnant body. Confidence, secure, knowing intelligent in your body. Maybe your baby moved with you, like literally kicking you or moving its arms. Maybe it was just enjoying the little of your moving body and took a little nap. Didn't move much. My little guy was quiet during that whole session. Didn't, wasn't rambunctious. So whatever the case may be for you, just know that you had that beautiful experience of allowing your baby to feel your movement, allowing your baby to enjoy your movement and how good that feels in your body.

Roll yourself up and how that's really what's still important is that connection that you're making with this little one. And that's so is going to play a huge role in your process, your rest of your pregnancy, your process of giving birth, and of course in your role as a mother. So place your hands on that belly. Whatever you feel more comfortable with, you can rub your belly, you can hold it still, whatever you feel like you want to do right now, whatever it intuitively feels right now as you breathe, just feel the power that's in you as a mom. You're already a mom, even if this is your first child and that love that love to get you give to yourself by spending time moving and doing pilates and keeping yourself healthy and well and mind, body and spirit and how that self love translates into motherly love that you share with your child and you can guarantee that they're feeding off of that good sensation and energy 100% and slowly open your eyes. And thank you again for joining me for another prenatal PyLadies class here on plays anytime and I would love to hear your thoughts about some of that movement in the comment box below and let me know how you feel. And if you're a little guy was moving along with you were staying quiet and fell asleep in a little waterworld as you moved. So thank you so very, very much. I really enjoyed this class with you. Take care.

Comments

3 people like this.
Leah, This class felt so good today! I am 25 weeks along with my second son. I have been in a funk with my own practice, and was looking for some inspiration. I found it in your class today! I feel lighter and happier already! Thank you for sharing! Megan
1 person likes this.
My pleasure, Megan! So happy you enjoyed
I love your reformer workouts. Gives me a way to continue what I have done for years--at 31 weeks. . . what happened to the workout with the reformer and the ball? I loved what that did for my sore lower back. . .
You are a beautiful spirit, I love your teaching qualities.
The care you show throughout your workout for mother and baby.
I have had all my babies they are adults now, I only wish this work was around back in the 70's coming forward.
As a Pilates Instructor I see many pregnant women. You you are my inspiration which I take into my session for my lovely mummies to be
Thankyou Tess Scammell Australia Melbourne
This is wonderful! I am an apprentice instructor, teaching a trio Friday with my first pregnant client and your videos have given me some excellent ideas for how to keep her safe while also challenging the other two ladies.Thank you!
Super super super!
Thank you for another wonderful video! I appreciate the exercises you include that challenge both my pregnant clients and non-pregnant ones alike =)
Great ideas!
Leah, you are magic.. More more more! Happy holidays!
Such amazing comments, ladies! I am SOOOOO happy that these classes inspire you. Thank you!
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